It’s time we realised compulsory sexual consent classes are not beneficial

A recent study found that 38 per cent of female student at Leeds were victims of sexual assault, and this figure is pretty consistent at universities across the country. This is, obviously, an unacceptable number, and something needs to be done. Do you know what doesn’t need to be done, however? Compulsory consent classes. They are patronising, condescending, and just generally unhelpful. I know I’m speaking as a woman, but I do not need to be taught not to rape. And I don’t think the men in our university need to be taught either.

Consent classes aren’t feminism. They aren’t equality. Bundling up every guy you’ve ever met/will meet/want to meet and assuming they all need to be taught that rape is, obviously, wrong, is not the brand of feminism that people have died for. Even if you expand it out and take the classes that are aimed at women and men, it is still not equality: assuming that only university students are capable of rape, or don’t know what constitutes sexual assault. The average age of a rapist is 31 years old, but where’s the compulsory consent classes for adults? There aren’t any. Even at university level, at age 18 and up, students are still being treated like children, and this condescension is one of the main reasons students have turned so vehemently against consent classes.

There isn’t even any proof that consent classes prevent rape, or sexual assault. Rather, they are just perceived as a look at us we’re teaching about consent workshop that a uni can run and suddenly it’s a progressive institution that all students should strive to attend. If consent classes aren’t actually beneficial in reducing the number of students who get sexually assaulted at uni, then why are we continuing to condescend to our students in this manner?

If people are this adamant that our generation needs to be taught about what is and isn’t consent, and if this isn’t common knowledge at a much younger age, then there’s something incredibly wrong with our education system. Why are we waiting until 18, when many students have been having sex since much younger, to teach people that no means no?

I’ll admit, the line gets blurry when it comes to being drunk, or in a relationship, but it shouldn’t. No means no. Ask anyone and they know that. And if either one of you is too drunk to say anything, it means no. If both parties are not 100 per cent interested in having sex, then that almost definitely means no too. If in doubt, ASK.

People don’t need an entire class to tell them this, its mostly common sense. If it’s not common sense, then this issue needs to be addressed in the education system. What are sex-ed classes for, if it’s not to teach you about sex? Consent should be included in this.

The majority of rapists know what they are doing is rape anyway. Even in a drunken encounter at a party, the chances are the person in the wrong knew at the time that what they were doing was wrong. Even if they wouldn’t necessarily have categorised it as rape, they knew they shouldn’t be doing it. Consent classes are not going to stop this. How can you teach people what they already know and expect it to make a difference?

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The only thing consent classes are good for is making a university look good. They don’t actually have any beneficial value for the students. It allows the board of universities the ability to say Oh, well look at us, we’re running consent classes when probed by reporters about what they’re doing to tackle the rising number of university students involved in sexual assault cases.  Something does need to be done to prevent rape, of course it does. But the solution is not compulsory consent classes.