Category: Sexual Assault

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How ‘sex addiction’ has historically been used to absolve white men

“It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”

By Kimmy Yam

While authorities said Atlanta-area spa shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long, 21, told investigators he was motivated by “sexual addiction” and claimed he had no racial motivation, health specialists say the explanation falls short.

Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, said Long — who is accused of killing eight people, six of them Asian women — indicated that the spas were “a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.” However, experts say such rationale has been used before in attempts to exonerate white men. The explanation also discounts racial dynamics and can “cause harm” in the way the public understands these issues.

White men have traditionally been given a pass when they say it — and have the privilege of overlooking how race is a factor, experts say.

“Historically, the term ‘sex addiction’ has been used by white males to absolve themselves from personal and legal responsibility for their behaviors,” Apryl Alexander, associate professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver, told NBC Asian America. “It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”

The defense of sex addiction itself, Alexander said, is a highly controversial one as those in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and sex research continue to debate whether to formally recognize it. Currently, the idea that sex addiction is a disorder is not supported by research, nor is it accepted as a clinical diagnosis, she said.

“A lot of individuals who are doing this kind of self-reports of sexual addiction are having normative sexual behaviors and urges, but they might be excessive. Or for a lot of people, it’s rooted in shame that ‘I’m having these attractions and emotional desires that are normal, but I don’t recognize them as normal,’” Alexander said.

Though the American Psychiatric Association added the concept of sexual addiction to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1987, it later retracted the term and has since rejected the addition of the idea to its later editions including the DSM–5, which is widely seen as the definitive resource on mental disorders, on the basis of a lack of supporting evidence.

Alexander said this sexual behavior doesn’t affect the brain in the same ways other addictions, including substance use and gambling behavior, do, either, calling the characterization of Long’s behavior “concerning.”

The self-identification of sex addiction, she said, is often seen in individuals who are raised in conservative and religious environments, “where there’s a high level of moral disapproval of their natural kind of sexual urges and desires.” Many of these populations are overwhelmingly white.

In examining acts of gender-based violence, Alexander said such attacks often occur at the intersection of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and homophobia. She emphasized that contrary to what Long told police, such violence “doesn’t just occur in isolation.”

Richelle Concepcion, president of the Asian American Psychological Association, said accepting the suspect’s rationale in this case erases several colliding dynamics of class, immigration status and gender that impact the communities most at risk for physical and sexual violence.

“Quite frankly, it’s really difficult to attribute the atrocious behaviors to an addiction, especially when you look at the demographics of a majority of those who were murdered,” she said. “Race and gender do play a role in this.”

“It’s really unfair to take his word as there is intersectionality that exists pertaining to the lives taken, especially when one considers that the suspect claims to have gone to these businesses with the intention of eliminating the threat of temptation,” Concepcion added.

Still, sex addiction is a common defense invoked by white men in power.

After a number of allegations emerged last year from multiple women, including several who were underage at the time, accusing comedian Chris D’Elia of requesting sexual favors, he responded with a video in February saying, “Sex, it controlled my life.” He added, “I had a problem, and I do have a problem.”

Harvey Weinstein similarly claimed in a 2017 video that he wasn’t “doing OK” and “I’ve got to get help” after numerous accusations of sexual harassment and rape. In a statement provided to NBC News, his brother, Bob Weinstein, described him as “obviously a very sick man.”

And former congressman Anthony Weiner in 2017 broke down in front of a judge after being sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting an underage girl. Weiner, who called himself a “very sick man for a very long time,” had aimed to avoid jail time after the judge acknowledged that he had sought and received treatment for the behavior.

But controversies don’t end at the diagnosis itself, and treatments have been criticized for insufficiently addressing the role of misogyny in sexual behavior. Ideas, including society’s hypersexualization of Asian women, Alexander said, often go unexamined.

“They often don’t talk about these hypermasculine attitudes or misogynistic messages that individuals are getting, whether that’s from pornography or society at large,” Alexander said. “A lot of these so-called treatment programs often reinforce gender stereotypes. They talk about things like ‘Women are tempting you,’ ‘Women in pornography are trying to seduce you, and that’s why you need to avoid’ instead of talking about your own kind of personal attitudes and behaviors that cause you to marginalize women.”

Such framing of women as “temptresses,” particularly in reference to Asian women, in part shifts the onus from perpetrator to victim, Concepcion said. It plays into a stereotype of women as manipulative dragon ladies, fueling dangerous perceptions that make them uniquely vulnerable to violence. She explained that there’s a tendency to attribute the reasoning behind violence and murderous acts to others’ malicious intent, creating the perception that these victims who were killed intentionally provoked the perpetrator to violence.

“There have been examinations recently of television shows and even movies from years ago that depicted Asian women as temptresses, which appear to prove these stereotypes of Asian women as fact,” she said.

Alexander said larger toxic societal issues need to be unpacked in this context of treatment, in addition to other experiences that may have contributed to such behaviors.

“Those are the things that need to be addressed as underlying issues in this constellation of things that may have led to maybe sexual preoccupation,” she said. “The sexual compulsions or preoccupations are often associated with other types of underlying psychological issues, unmet emotional needs, childhood trauma or, again, power and control dynamics that contribute to oppression.”

But experts stressed that even when people exhibit attitudes that are indicative of oppression and marginalization of others, that does not often lead to committing an act of mass violence. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, statistics show that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of violent acts can be attributed to people who have a serious mental illness. In reality, individuals confronting mental health issues are more than 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime compared to the general population.

For people dealing with sexual preoccupation that may be causing them distress, experts recommend help and support that approach the issue with positivity. Treatments that are shame-based are never effective, Alexander said, and mitigating feelings of shame comes with comprehensive sex education. Sexuality is marginalized so frequently in culture and it’s not uncommon that people harbor difficult emotions around the subject, unsure of how to wrestle with it, she said.

“A lot of our sex education is rooted in shame and stigma, that we don’t talk about normative sexuality and how to work through that — that maybe your urges are natural,” she said.

With the resources available to help people living with mental illnesses, Concepcion said it’s never acceptable to chalk this violent behavior up to having a “bad day.”

“Many of us have bad days and yet a majority of us focus on other forms of coping to alleviate the impact of said days,” she said. “It is never justified to take lives or engage in acts of violence when we ourselves have experienced less than ideal days.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sexual assault is a consequence of how society is organized

By Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan

The Department of Education is about to release new rules about how schools must deal with sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual assault. There’s a lot that’s disastrous about this interpretation of Title IX, which is supposed to promote equal access to education for women.

But what’s largely missing from both the rules and the flood of public criticism they are generating is a discussion about prevention. This is typical of the national discourse about sexual assault on campus and beyond, and of the broader conversations in this era of #MeToo. The singular focus on adjudication reflects two assumptions.

The first is that victims frequently fabricate claims of sexual assault; all the evidence suggests that false accusations are rare. The second is that sexual assaults happen because of “bad” or “sociopathic” people. The only way to deal with them is through punishment harsh enough to strike sufficient fear into those who commit or want to commit assaults.

But what if the most sexual assaults were “normal”? Not in the sense that it’s acceptable, but in the sense that it’s often something that everyday people do—  a predictable, if awful, a consequence of how society is organized. In doing the research for our book, Sexual Citizens, that’s exactly what we found. And there’s an important consequence to this finding: we’re not going to punish our way out of these normal assaults.

Because those who commit normal assaults often don’t think they’re committing assaults, they believe they are having sex. When a student we interviewed for our research with undergraduates at Columbia and Barnard told us “I put on a tie. So I knew I was going to have sex”, he meant that, for him, agreeing to go to a sorority formal with a woman who invited him came with an obligation to have sex her. He described doing while she was blackout drunk; he never reflected any awareness that he’d raped her.

Acknowledging that sexual assault is often socially produced, rather than solely the result of individual moral failings, expands our vision of what to do about sexual assault: rather than responding to sociopaths’ evil acts, the goal also becomes to prevent those harms from ever being committed.

We’ve been successful using this approach to address other social problems. Think about drunk driving. Since 1982, there’s been a 50 percent reduction in drunk driving fatalities. Among those under 21, fatalities have reduced by 80 percent. This tremendous success reflects what public health calls a ‘multi-level’ response, with efforts that include but go far beyond trying to change the behavior of the individual causing the harm.

Drunk drivers are held responsible, but so are the bar and restaurant owners who over-serve them. Road design has smoothed dangerous curves and urban planners have added speed bumps to slow traffic, complemented by safer cars, drivers’ education, points on licenses for repeated infractions, and increased enforcement during periods of greatest risk. The power of moral persuasion has made it socially unacceptable to drive drunk or to allow others to do so and has normalized the idea of a designated driver.

We need a prevention approach for a sexual assault that parallels the success in addressing “drunk driving”. We still must address the harm done by those who commit assaults. But punishment would not be enough, both because it doesn’t necessarily address harm and because it’s relatively ineffective at prevention. A new approach must be built upon the realization that far more progress will be made through things like education, transforming the physical environment, and drawing upon our moral institutions and commitments. The steps are many, but they are also fairly clear.

The adults at home need to be partners in sexual assault prevention — which means raising children who have the skills to have sex with other people without assaulting them. This is consistent with a central task of parenting: helping children develop the social and emotional skills to manage their bodies so that they can go about their lives without hurting others. When they want something, we say, “don’t grab — use your words.” We teach them not to hit and to apologize if they step on someone else’s foot. We make sure that they know how to drive before we let them borrow the car. Yet our silences around sex have meant these lessons haven’t been extended and applied to young people’s intimate lives, with disastrous consequences.

Parents may object that talking about sex is awkward, or that it’s the children themselves who shut down the conversations. But many parents are frequently the source of much discomfort.

When they choose words like “hoo-hoo” or “pee-pee” instead of vulva and penis, they are communicating that some body parts are unspeakably shameful. Children learn very early that sex is not something they can talk about, especially with their families.

The solution isn’t only to start naming body parts. Nor is it to make the discussion technical, talking with young people about fallopian tubes — that’s like teaching driving by explaining how spark plugs work. 

What young people need is a moral education: to hear from us that we want them to be fully formed sexual citizens, with the right to say yes and to say no to sex, and that they must always respect that those they’re with have the same rights. Adults have a choice: to talk with young people about how sex and intimacy will be an essential part of their lives — how they connect a person they love—or to let their values be shaped by a cacophony of messages from pornography, advertising, and mass media.

Families can’t do this work alone. Children fortunate enough to have the adults in their life help them develop a sense of sexual citizenship will nonetheless go out into a world in which they will be surrounded by others who have grown up in sexual silence and shame. That’s why comprehensive sex education is so essential.

Research suggests that sex ed can reduce the likelihood of perpetrating sexual violence. An analysis of survey data from the Columbia and Barnard campuses showed that women college students who had had sex education that taught them to refuse sex they didn’t want were half as likely to be raped in college. That’s as strong a protective effect as the flu vaccine. At the population level, high immunization rates create “herd immunity.” Protecting everyone. Making sure that all American school-children receive comprehensive, age-appropriate, medically-accurate sex education will prevent a vast number of campus sexual assaults.

And yet the current American landscape for sex education is starkly unequal; young people who grow up poor or in rural areas are less likely to receive comprehensive, medically-accurate sex education. And as is true nationally, the LGBTQ students we talked with told us that the sex-ed they’d received in high school only addressed heterosexual experiences. They didn’t feel just underserved; they feel erased. That erasure is part of their well-documented greater vulnerability to being assaulted on campus.

Beyond parents and schools, faith communities have mainly figured in discussions about sexual violence as sites of perpetration. Those same institutions can and must do more than just prevent harm — they can join as allies in prevention. We have seen through the first-hand experience how powerful it can be for young people to engage in conversations about relationships and intimacy grounded in religious values with trusted adults other than their parents.

If the fundamental goal of religion is to provide a framework for people to figure out what it means to live a good life, then sex and intimacy must be part of that discovery. Prevention is everyone’s job. The character-development element of youth sporting can reinforce lessons of fundamental respect and decency. Musical education can reinforce lessons of listening to one another. Sexual education isn’t just about sex. It’s about connecting the experiences of what it means to be a good person to one’s intimate life.

Unquestionably, campus adjudication processes should be fair to all involved and not cause more harm. But research conducted on our campus showed that only a minute proportion of all assaults are formally reported; that’s typical of many institutions. Getting adjudication right will barely move the needle on reducing sexual assault. We can’t spend most of our energy reacting to assaults that have already happened.

There are small clear steps we can take to make assaults less likely to happen in the first place. We need to talk about sex. We need to ground that discussion in moral visions of how we must treat one another. And we need to provide comprehensive age-appropriate sexuality education for young people. The path to prevention is clear. We simply all need to walk along with it together.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Seven factors that influence sexual consent

By Valeria Escobar

Through over 150 interviews spanning five years, two Columbia researchers have tried to “pull back the curtain” on the sex lives of Columbia undergraduates. As concerns around sexual assault have become a central part of the undergraduate student experience, during which as many as one in three women and almost one in six men will report being sexually assaulted, the researchers sought to find the factors of college living that enable these acts and the ways in which colleges can best prevent them in the future.

Last week, Jennifer Hirsch, professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, and Shamus Khan, chair of the department of sociology, released the culmination of their work in their book, “Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus.” Through their work, Hirsch and Khan argued for a need to reevaluate popular notions about consent to empower students to feel as though they have the right to choose their sexual experiences.

To begin their book launch, Hirsch and Khan participated in a panel at the Forum on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus, where they discussed the scope of their project to an audience of hundreds of students and faculty.

“The thing that complicated consent for us was that people consented to sex that they didn’t want to have and people had sex that they wanted to have without ever consenting to that sex,” Khan said.

“Consent education thinks fundamentally not about the moment of transaction between two people in the presence of the ‘yes’ or the expression or affirmation, but tries to understand bringing that social world into that moment,” he added.

Hirsch and Khan’s publication follows the 2018 findings from the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation tam, which noted that race, gender, and class play significant roles in shaping students’ experiences with consent. In interviews with Spectator, students noted that these factors contribute to their complicated experience with consent, which the straightforward “yes means yes” model that is taught during the New Student Orientation Program fails to address.

At the panel, Hirsch and Khan highlighted among these factors the “Seven Dimensions of Consent”—““gendered heterosexual scripts,” “sexual citizenship,” “intersectionality,” “men’s fears,” “alcohol,” “peer groups,” and “spatial/temporal factors”—as wrinkles that have yet to be ironed out by the affirmative consent model.

Gendered Heterosexual Scripts:

In heterosexual sexual encounters, the male-identifying partner is traditionally expected to ask for consent, affirming the idea that masculinity is associated with “unceasing sexual desire.” According to their findings, this expectation has reinforced the expectation for men to ask for rather than provide consent, making it difficult for men to recognize their own experiences as nonconsensual.

The book recounts the story of Boutros, a pseudonym for a student, who was leaving a pub crawl in Edinburgh when a woman undressed and groped him, even after he repeatedly asked her to leave him alone. The account of the story became very muddled, the researchers wrote, as he hesitated over his words.

“Come on, a girl can’t really sexually assault a guy,” Boutros told the researchers, noting that he would never “sue her” or seek compensations. “Unless I get grievous bodily harm or come to serious financial detriment.”

Sexual Citizenship:

Personal experiences, including childhood, sexual education, and interactions with family and peers inform one’s right to determine one’s own sexual involvement, according to the researchers. Khan said that sexual citizenship is more than having the “right to say yes or no” due to differing conceptions of social responsibilities; rather, he emphasized, it entails engaging both partners’ personal desires.

Adele Chi, BC ’22, told Spectator in a 2018 interview that she received a comprehensive affirmative consent education at her private high school, which allowed her to feel more confident in making decisions about her personal experiences with sex and consent in college.

“When I walk into [a] frat house, I don’t think, ‘Oh, I am setting myself up automatically to enter into a sexual relationship.’ It is my own free will, and I am my own person. I don’t feel like women should feel like their bodies are entitled to other guys, even if [they] enter into an environment where it welcomes that sexual context to happen,” she said.

Intersectionality:

Factors such as differences in race and ethnicity, physical strength, social status, and age further complicate consent. These differences, which are indicative of social inequalities, contribute to a fear of physical intimacy, according to the researchers, who highlighted the importance of underscoring social inequalities that contribute to sexual assault.

“Sex is not a cognitive behavior, it’s not a health behavior, it’s a social behavior,” Hirsch said. “You can’t understand what people are trying to do when they are having sex without understanding the world [around them].”

Gender and race are both factors that affect people’s ability to contest or request sexual encounters. Additionally, Hirsch noted in the discussion that every single black woman who spoke to the researchers had experienced unwanted sexual contact.

“If you’re thinking of sexual assault prevention, you have to also think about racial justice,” she added.

Men’s Fears:

Men worry that there is a gap between actual consent practices and the legal standard that they were taught. While there is no evidence to suggest that false accusations are common, men still largely fear the possibility of being accused because they are usually responsible for obtaining consent.

The paper emphasizes the fear on the part of students of color, and particularly black men, who have an “intense awareness of racialized risk of sexual assault accusations.” Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen attributes this notion to the impact of “overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and law enforcement bias” that disproportionately penalizes racial minorities.

Alcohol:

During the panel discussion, Khan raised the question of why alcohol and sexual activity are so commonly paired; Hirsch noted that “people get drunk in order to have sex” to avoid the awkwardness that arises from social interactions that limit sexual opportunities. Their work notes that although one can’t give consent while intoxicated, drunk sex is a normalized part of the college experience.

“If you view sex as something that is so shameful or you’re so afraid of that you can’t do it until you get really drunk, we need to ask ourselves why is it the case that we are relating to sex in [through sex],” Khan said.

A number of high-profile cases of college sexual assault have recently involved intoxication, leading the two researchers to examine alcohol as an important component in the discussion of sexual assault prevention.

However, Khan also noted that many incidents of sexual assault occur when people are sober, so looking to alcohol as a major contributor of sexual assault “isn’t going to get us very close” to understanding the complexities of consent.

Peer Groups:

Students’ lives are centralized around peer communities that maintain an identity through group harmony and a collective reputation. As such, peer groups can facilitate sexual interactions that will benefit the standing of the group, the researchers emphasized. However, members of these groups may also downplay instances of assault so as not to cause a disruption in the community’s cohesion.

While the peer group benefits from a student’s decision to engage in a sexual encounter or avoid labeling an incident as “assault,” the student consequently sees their sexual partner only as a means of social leverage rather than as a result of personal desires.

“Part of the idea of sexual citizenship is not just if you have the right to say yes or say no but that you treat the other person that you’re active with like they’re a human being and not a sex toy,” Hirsch said.

Spatial/Temporal Factors:

The urban setting of Columbia causes a divergence from the quintessential New England college campus; space is limited, and the University is not the most prominent feature of its city. Space and time are noted as contributors to “implied” consent throughout their research; in certain “sexually charged” places and at certain times, such as party spaces and bars, sexual activity is an essential component of the experience for students.

Most recently, Columbia researchers at the Society for Applied Anthropology suggested that there are specific times within the calendar year, relationship stage, and span of the sexual interaction when a person establishes expectations for their partner and limits the ability to refuse consent. Students perceive an invitation to a fraternity formal, a long-term relationship, and an encounter organized through a dating app as temporal factors that indicate consent.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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To stop sexual and domestic violence, start in the classroom

By and

As two prosecutors with decades of experience helping survivors of domestic and sexual violence in King County, we spend all day, every day responding to cases involving abuse. Over the last year, almost 5,000 survivors of sexual violence and their families sought help from the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center. In 2019, the King County Prosecutor filed more than 2,000 sexual and domestic violence cases, from homicides to rapes to aggravated assaults. We assisted on thousands more protection orders, worked to reduce firearm violence and helped children who were often the targets of abuse.

We want fewer victims to experience violence. This is why we support Senate Bill 5395 and its companion, House Bill 2184, which will provide comprehensive sexual health education for all Washington students. This proposal would help stop sexual and domestic violence by requiring public schools to include age-appropriate curriculum that develops healthy relationship behavior in students.

Legislation can be a powerful tool to reduce violence. Last year, laws redefined rape and removed the statute of limitations on many sex crimes, reducing the burden on victims and giving many of them the time needed to come forward and report crimes. Our community also passed domestic violence laws to keep victims safe and reduce firearm violence.

These are steps in the right direction. For true culture change to happen around sexual and domestic violence, proactive education and prevention also is needed. Too often, young people don’t know how to ask for and receive consent, or how to engage in healthy relationships. Access to this information is a critical part of the solution to end cycles of abuse, especially when the cycles are generational. It is particularly critical that young people receive reliable, accurate information in a digital age where harmful explicit materials are one click away.

Government already makes choices about what schools teach. Washington requires financial literacy because learning about “spending and saving” are important life skills. We agree: Students should know how to balance their checkbooks. Students should also know how to treat their partner with dignity and respect.

Any conversation about sex and relationships must begin with the basic concept of respect. This is the modern, evidence-based approach to sex education. Washington should follow the lead of dozens of other states including Missouri, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Oregon and California and promote education on healthy relationships, dating violence, consent and sexual assault.

For too long, Washington has had no law and no plan to support prevention. We are at an important moment: #MeToo; mass shootings by domestic batterers; sexual assault on college campuses; and domestic violence as the leading cause of violent crime. We cannot prosecute, shelter, or rehabilitate our way out of sexual and domestic violence. The classroom is a far better option for lasting, positive impact.

Positive change is already happening and needs more support. Coaches at schools deliver lessons on prevention through Team Up Washington. King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) prevention specialists now teach middle and high school students as part of health educator teams in Renton schools. Many school districts in King County rely on the evidence-based FLASH curriculum to impart these life skills. We see the positive impact these programs have on young people and on school culture. Toxic environments fade when replaced with more care, less violence and hope for the future. There is no shortage of proven, evidence-based programs to help prevent abuse in schools, on teams and in student relationships.

Let’s grow beyond a reactive strategy to stop sexual and domestic violence. It is time we confront, head on, the culture in our community that leads to violence. We stand with all of our community partners, including Harborview Abuse and Trauma Center, KCSARC and many domestic-violence agencies when we say we can and must do better for our children and reduce the number of future victims by making comprehensive sexual health education a priority for our schools.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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In ‘Sexual Citizens,’ Students Open Up About Sex, Power And Assault On Campus

By

Sex, power and assault are at the heart of a new study that looks at what it is that makes college the perfect storm for misunderstandings around sexual encounters.

Beginning in 2015, Professors Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan interviewed more than 150 Columbia and Barnard College undergrads to learn about their sex lives. What they wanted out of sex, how troubling encounters unfolded, and how layers of misunderstandings led to assault.

In their new book, Sexual Citizens, Hirsch and Khan make the case that prevention starts with education — and they offer new approaches for universities, parents and kids on how to tackle the problem and empower people to feel like they have the right to choose their sexual experiences.

Interview Highlights

On why the students opened up to them about sex

Hirsch: So the research that we did that we share in Sexual Citizens was part of a bigger project, The Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation, which I co-directed with Claude Mellins. And so one of the ways that we worked with the students, we had a group of undergraduates who advised us and we also had a research team in the day-to-day data collection with students. And, so, some of the interviews I did, or Shamus did, but some of the interviews were done by this group of younger researchers. And we generally find in doing this kind of research that people are hungry to tell the stories of their lives.

Khan: I mean, we sent out this note as part of the broader project, just announcing the project. And students emailed back saying, I have a story to tell. And one of the things that we found was that people are often, you know, adults and young people’s lives are often producing so much silence around sex and sexuality that many of the young people we spoke to expressed it as a relief that someone finally sat down and listened to them about their sexual lives. …

Hirsch: There were so many of them that we had to hire another interviewer with experience in trauma-based research. I remember walking up Amsterdam after doing one of those interviews sobbing because the story [one woman] had told me about being assaulted and then trafficked was so intense. And yet she slung her backpack over her back and walked out of the interview room. I think, it seemed like she had a feeling of satisfaction that there was going to be somebody at the university who knew how she had suffered and was going to think about what that suffering would mean.

On consent and misinterpretation

Khan: So, so much of what we think about when we think about assault is predation, or sociopaths — that is people who are trying to assault someone. But what we found really frequently was that often people who assaulted others thought that they were having sex. They didn’t think that they were committing an assault. They didn’t think they were a predator. And, you know, we had one young man tell us a story, for example, and he said to us, I put on a tie so I knew I was going to have sex.

And, you know, he felt like she really liked him. She’d invited him to this formal and she had gotten very drunk. And he described to us her going in and out of consciousness as he, in his words, had sex with her. Thinking that’s what in some ways he was obligated to do. And in that context, you know, it has to do with … men who often think about their own needs and desires, but who also think about, you know, sex as something that they accomplish — and not really considering what the other person was thinking or what the other person’s [plan] might be in that moment.

On enormous neglect and lack of awareness

Hirsch: There’s neglect and there’s also, in many cases, a lack of awareness of their own power. In the book, we tell the story of a freshman Lucy being assaulted by a Scott. Obviously, all of these are pseudonyms. …Lucy was a freshman, it was orientation week. She met Scott in a bar. They stumbled back to the fraternity … he led her upstairs to his room, started to take off her pants. She said no. He said to her, it’s OK — but it wasn’t OK. He raped her. And in that moment, obviously, he’s a senior. She’s a freshman. So it’s not just gender that has power, it’s also age. It’s control over the space. It’s control over alcohol. So there’s so many forms of power that produce those experiences, those moments of vulnerability to assault. And the most charitable interpretation that we could give for Scott’s behavior is that he was unaware of how much power he exerted in that moment.

On describing assaults as assaults

Khan: There are lots of reasons why people don’t describe assaults as assaults. We need to remember that most people are assaulted by somebody they know, not by strangers. And given that, given that they know the person, given that they’ve often had some kind of sexual contact with them before, naming something an assault isn’t just describing what happened to you. It actually fundamentally transforms your relationship with that person — and often your relationships with your shared friends. It’s like saying, you know what, my boyfriend or my girlfriend is a sexual predator, is somebody who did something terrible to me. And many people don’t want to do that. They don’t want to say that. …

We heard from many young women who told us that they were in a room with a man and they didn’t really want to be there anymore. And so they just performed oral sex on him to get out of there. And those young men didn’t force those women to have sex — but I think that they fundamentally didn’t realize what it was that the person they were with wanted to do.

We had other stories of a young woman who was asked to go out for a walk with her ex-boyfriend, who was very upset about the fact that his sister had just gotten a cancer diagnosis and she was thinking she was going to comfort a friend. And he ended up raping her up against a tree and dragging her to the ground. And she told us this story — chuckling, laughing about how she later found dirt on her body. And she didn’t describe this as a rape, but instead as a weird experience that she had. For these women, it’s not that they’re fundamentally denying the experience of their assault. It’s that they’re enmeshed in so many relationships that are important to them that they don’t want to call it what we see it as, which is assault.

On changing the conversation

Khan: We’re trying to change the conversation away from: Did it happen or didn’t it happen? Did she say no or did she not say no as vigorously? And instead to say: How do we prevent this in the first place? So, I think that adjudicating that situation with that woman in the room, with that young man, is nearly impossible. But I think what we outlined in Sexual Citizens is a way to make sure that that situation is less likely to happen in the first place.

On race

Hirsch: So, yes, I think that the stories that black men shared with us about an acutely racialized fear of false accusation drove home the way gender is not the only form of power that shapes experiences of assault or accusation. And, so, there was a sense of racialized precarity. Black men, students, that we spoke with felt like they were marginal on campus, didn’t fully belong. Were less secure. And so the way they navigated consent reflected not just gender, but also race in … a really painful way.

Khan: As Jennifer has said so many times, racial justice is fundamentally an issue of preventing sexual assault. We may not think about those two things together, but it’s really important that we do. In addition to black men, every single black woman that we spoke to told us a story of unwanted, sexualized touching — every single one. It was profoundly disturbing when we analyzed our data that that occurred to us. And this reflected the ways in which black women’s experiences in college was something where their bodies were seen as accessible, things that people could touch without consent in in ways that other students didn’t describe to us.

On LGBTQ rates of assault

Khan: I think there were a lot of reasons why LGBTQ students experienced assault at higher rates. One was that they didn’t accept as normal the kind of touching that happens at parties. So, you know, if you’re in a college basement, at a party rubbing up against each other and someone, you know, casually uses their hand and grabs your butt or something like that — a lot of LGBT students were like, this is not what I’m here for. I’m here for a different kind of experience. Whereas for heterosexual students, you know, there was sort of an understanding that this was part and parcel of being a college student. But there are other reasons why LGBT students also experienced assault at such high, high, high levels. And that’s because every single LGBTQ student that we talked to told us that they had sex ed that wasn’t at all relevant to their own sexual experiences, or sexual identities. And so, really, they just had to figure out sex on their own without any guidance from the communities and families that had raised them.

On solving the problem

Hirsch: Part of what solving the problem would look like is starting out when kids are young. Teaching them how to be respectful of other people’s bodies, right. It starts out in kindergarten. Sit criss-cross applesauce. Keep your hands on your own body. So those sort of early lessons in interpersonal respect, which are part of comprehensive sex education but are also part of just good education, are a fundamental first step.

Khan: And I think further steps are: comprehensive sex ed. You know, it wasn’t just LGBTQ students who described sex ed that really didn’t meet their needs. Most young people describe the sex ed that they received as a sexual-diseases course, or something that was incredibly fear-based. Here are the risks of pregnancy. Here are the risks of sexually transmitted infections. Here are the risks of sex — sex is something terrifying and really dangerous. And instead, we need to think about talking to young people about sex that’s something that will be really important in their lives. That’s going to be one of the ways in which they connect to some of those [that] are the most meaningful relationships that they’ll have. And to talk to young people about sex where they treat the other person that they’re having sex with as a human being — not just a toy that they’re going to be playing with. And if we don’t do that, what’s going to happen is that young people are going to learn about sex, but they’re going to learn about it from things like pornography.

On what parents can do

Hirsch: I think, as parents, we have a choice. We can have conversations with our children and, you know, the other children in our lives, about sex and values and how to treat people and what feels good. Or we can let our kids have their sexual values be formed by pornography and advertising.

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Almost 10 million in U.S. have faced sexual violence at work

By Carolyn Crist

Almost 1 in 18 women and 1 in 40 men have experienced sexual harassment in and related to the workplace, according to a U.S. study.

That represents almost 7 million women and 3 million men who have reported assault, unwanted sexual contact or verbal harassment by a boss, supervisor, coworker, customer or client, the study authors report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“Sexual violence is a prevalent issue and is also preventable,” said Kathleen Basile of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, the study’s lead author.

The term “sexual violence” is defined as unwanted penetration through the use of force, alcohol or drug facilitation; pressured or coerced sex; unwanted sexual contact, such as groping; unwanted experiences, such as exposure of sexual body parts and sexual remarks.

“Given the recent media attention to this issue and the re-emergence of the #metoo movement, the time seemed right to focus on it,” Basile told Reuters Health by email.

The researchers analyzed 2010-2012 data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which included about 23,000 women and 19,000 men. Basile’s team studied the prevalence of several types of sexual violence by a workplace-related perpetrator, including both authority figures and non-authority figures. They also looked at the numerous after-effects of these experiences, such as psychological problems, safety concerns and absence from work or school.

The study specifically focused on sexual violence by a workplace-related person but couldn’t determine whether the actions occurred at the workplace itself, the authors note.

(Reuters Health) – Almost 1 in 18 women and 1 in 40 men have experienced sexual harassment in and related to the workplace, according to a U.S. study.

That represents almost 7 million women and 3 million men who have reported assault, unwanted sexual contact or verbal harassment by a boss, supervisor, coworker, customer or client, the study authors report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“Sexual violence is a prevalent issue and is also preventable,” said Kathleen Basile of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, the study’s lead author.

The term “sexual violence” is defined as unwanted penetration through the use of force, alcohol or drug facilitation; pressured or coerced sex; unwanted sexual contact, such as groping; unwanted experiences, such as exposure of sexual body parts and sexual remarks.

“Given the recent media attention to this issue and the re-emergence of the #metoo movement, the time seemed right to focus on it,” Basile told Reuters Health by email.

The researchers analyzed 2010-2012 data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which included about 23,000 women and 19,000 men. Basile’s team studied the prevalence of several types of sexual violence by a workplace-related perpetrator, including both authority figures and non-authority figures. They also looked at the numerous after-effects of these experiences, such as psychological problems, safety concerns and absence from work or school.

The study specifically focused on sexual violence by a workplace-related person but couldn’t determine whether the actions occurred at the workplace itself, the authors note.

The research team found that 5.6% of women and 2.5% of men reported some type of sexual violence by a workplace-related perpetrator. About 4% of women reported harassment by non-authority figures and 2% reported harassment by authority figures. About 2% of men reported harassment by non-authority figures and about 0.6% reported harassment by authority figures.

For women, the most commonly reported sexual act was unwanted sexual contact, and for men, it was unwanted sexual experiences such as sexual remarks.

About 1 million women, or 0.8%, have been raped by a coworker, who was more likely to be a non-authority figure. About 400,000 men, or 0.4%, have been sexually coerced by a coworker and 184,000 were forced to penetrate another person.

“The typical public perception of sexual violence in the workplace is that it is mostly verbal harassment or creating a hostile work environment,” Basile said. “Sexual violence involving physical contact, including forced penetration, while not the most common type, was still reported as having been committed.”

For both men and women, fear was the most commonly reported effect of sexual violence.

“Much of the perpetration is being done not by bosses, as is often the assumption, but from co-workers and, importantly, clients and customers,” said Adrienne O’Neil of Deakin University in Geelong, Australia, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“I hear this a lot from nurses, psychiatrists and emergency workers, where they’ve been made to feel that they are to put up with unwanted sexual advances and assault because their priority is to treat patients above all else,” she told Reuters Health by email. “We’ve known for a long time that these factors put you at risk of heart attack.”

Workplace-related sexual harassment also affects co-workers who witness the behavior, the victim’s loved ones and the victim’s children, said James Campbell Quick of the University of Texas at Arlington, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Company policies should include stricter enforcement around sexual harassment, he said, which includes providing high-risk employees with help before they act. Workplaces should “become obsessed with deviant behavior,” he added, and socialize everyone with proper training, starting with first-line supervisors.

“The greatest tragedy is that this is not a workplace accident,” Quick told Reuters Health by email. “It is a preventable form of malicious, motivated behavior. One act of sexual violence in the workplace raises the threat level for the entire workplace.”

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Why Sexual Assault Survivors Of Color Need Their Own Spaces To Heal

By Kelly Gonsalves

For survivors of sexual trauma, finding healing is often an arduous process. And if you’re a person whose race, gender, or sexual orientation is already marginalized, trying to find support for healing as a survivor can be uniquely difficult.

“As I’ve been working in mental health, what kept coming up is what I call the lack of support for folks of color, especially femmes of color,” explains comprehensive sex educator and trauma specialist Jimanekia Eborn. “They are questioned more. They aren’t believed more. There’s a lack of resources.”

These unique challenges are why Eborn created Tending the Garden, a healing retreat specifically for femmes of color who’ve experienced sexual trauma. It’s designed to make space for survivors of color to work on their healing together in a space created specifically for them, led by people like them. All the retreat staff, educators, and therapists (who are affectionately named “hoes,” which is both a reference to the gardening tool and an acronym for “helping open every survivor,” like a flower) are femmes of color and survivors themselves. Among the instructors are award-winning yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley and sexuality doula Ev’yan Whitney.

“[They have] different types of pronouns, they have different bodies, they have different types of racial and ethnic identities, and for me that was really important for people to show up and see others that look like them,” Eborn tells mbg.

The unique challenges of marginalized survivors.

Eborn has worked in mental health for over a decade, working as a counselor, case manager, and educator at trauma care centers and educational institutions. “What I have seen oftentimes in mental health facilities or other places I’ve been is that folks don’t necessarily understand the journey of a femme of color if they’re not a femme of color,” she says. “I’ve worked in mental health facilities where folks have left worse than when they showed up because of the lack of care, the lack of support, the lack of time given to them because they identify as a certain way or looked a certain way.”

(Throughout this piece, we use the word femme as intended by Eborn and her staff: Although the term originated within the lesbian community as a specific type of lesbian identity, today people of varying sexual orientations use the term to describe their gender, usually when they feel their gender identity or gender expression aligns with femininity in some way. “Simply put, femme is more inclusive,” the retreat website says of the word choice. “We are not the gatekeepers of language, and this retreat is open for anyone who has been affected because of their feminine aspects. Our facilitators and staff identify as women, transfemme, genderqueer, and nonbinary women.”)

Dealing with mental health care practitioners who don’t respect your identity or see your full identity can make working on your healing unnecessarily difficult and even be retraumatizing. Even among well-meaning practitioners, many people are not adequately trained on how to work with people of color and people in the LGBTQ+ community, such that these survivors need to spend time explaining themselves or educating the very person who’s supposed to be helping them heal.

For example, Eborn says Black women often face more resistance or simply receive less unequivocal support from their providers.

“I’ve found that there can be a lot of gaslighting and a lot of discounting,” she says. “Black women are perceived to be so strong, and I hear that a lot. Often I’ll look at myself and be like, ‘You’re so strong. You can do everything.’ So people don’t check in on them. People don’t check in on femmes of color because they’re so strong, and then when they do ask for help, people are all like ‘Well, how bad is it? Are you sure?’ And it takes away from the process. It takes away from the healing if they’re constantly being questioned instead of just being believed.”

Research has found the “strong black woman” stereotypes can have significant consequences for black women’s mental health, including higher likelihood of depression and a lower likelihood of seeking out help. A data analysis from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality also found people see young black girls as “less innocent and more adultlike than their white peers” and as being more sexual than young white girls; it also found people believe black girls need less nurturing, protection, comfort, and support. Even the Me Too movement, which was started by and for people of color, didn’t catch mainstream attention until white women started becoming involved with it.

When you add gender diversity on top of racial identity, things get all the more challenging. A lot of research suggests trans and nonbinary people of color experience uniquely high rates of sexual abuse. A 2015 report found half of black trans and nonbinary people have experienced sexual violence, and another half have experienced domestic violence. On top of their increased experiences of trauma, Eborn points out that these folks need to deal with mental health professionals who dismiss or question their gender constantly, which can create distract from the process or create an unwelcoming environment. Research shows one in four trans folks has avoided a doctor’s appointment for fear of being mistreated.

When you’re trying to work on something as sensitive as sexual trauma, these unnecessary obstacles can make an emotionally chaotic process feel downright unbearable. There’s so much value in just working with people who share your experiences and not needing to explain yourself when you are working through one of the most challenging and vulnerable healing processes imaginable.

It’s high time femmes of color had dedicated spaces created wholly for them, their healing, and their growth. Eborn hopes Tending the Garden can be one such space.

“What do you need, like for a garden, to make things grow? You need water. You need support. You need time. You need to seed it,” Eborn says. “That’s what I want these individuals to come to the retreat to learn how to do—to tend their own garden.”

The flowers in question, she says, refer to our emotional capacity, our sexual well-being, and being able to feel good within oneself. Survivors of color deserve their own spaces like this one to process their trauma, learn coping strategies and other helpful skills, and reconnect with their bodies and their sexuality. Eborn’s retreat has clearly been thoughtfully designed around exactly what trauma survivors need to actually heal, including on-site therapists they’ll have access to at any moment and an extensive aftercare program to ensure they’ll have ongoing support when they return home from the retreat (think access to free online therapy sessions, some take-home healing tools, and new toys for physical exploration).

“I wanted these individuals to take up their own space and not have to worry about anyone else taking up their space. I wanted them to have a space where they can exhale and not have to pick up anyone else’s nonsense,” Eborn says. “It will be a hard journey because you’re going to see things in yourself that maybe you have avoided. But I will say also, the other side of it is going to be beautiful.”

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Healing sexual trauma through therapy

By TYNAN POWER

Alice Walker said, “Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowledge.” But what happens when sexuality becomes a site of pain and trauma? For far too many people, harmful experiences can limit the benefits that healthy sexuality can bring.

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) reports that one in six American women — and one in 33 men — experiences an attempted or completed rape. The federal Office for Victims of Crimes reports that one in two transgender people are sexually assaulted.

Sexual assault may be the most obvious way that people experience harm around sexuality, but it is far from the only way.

“Many of us have been deeply shamed and hurt about how we feel about the bodies we live in, the sex we desire, the sex we have settled for, and our beliefs and opinions about sex in general,” said therapist Jassy Casella Timberlake. “Hardly any of us have escaped our sex-negative world unscathed.”

“Sex therapy can be healing because some of the earliest experiences of shame and oppression occur before or during puberty and center around a person’s body, sexuality and sexual practices,” said therapist Shannon Sennott. “Sex therapy is often early trauma work.”

Such experiences can lead people to sex therapy, but often these same experiences get in the way of seeking that help.

“I think sex therapy is stigmatized somewhat in popular culture,” said therapist L. Davis Chandler.

“Clients tell me that they’ve often made several attempts to pluck up courage to call, or that it took a lot to walk through the door and sit in the waiting room,” said Timberlake.

“Sex and sexuality are very confusing and that makes a lot of people very nervous,” said therapist Brooke Norton. “People often wait to go to therapy until things are really bad.”

In fact, renowned psychologist John Gottman reported in 1994 that the average couple waits six years before seeking help.

“I really enjoy helping couples or folks within polyamorous relationships work on their long-term goals for their sex lives — yet when they get here, they’re really stuck,” said Norton. “I can bring hope into the situation. It’s very gratifying to see folks figure out want they want and need.”

The Northampton area has a number of experienced sex therapists — Psychology Today lists 32 clinicians who offer sex therapy. Timberlake is one of the most established, with 15 years of experience as a certified sex therapist. She founded Northampton Sex Therapy, LLC, based in Florence, in 2010 and provides supervision to other sex therapists. In downtown Northampton, Chandler and Sennott, both graduates of the Smith College School for Social Work, see clients at the Center for Psychotherapy and Social Justice. Norton works with individuals, couples and families in Florence — and is currently at work on a book, as well.

“Some issues that bring people to sex therapy are related to feeling that they can’t function sexually, alone or in a partnership,” said Timberlake. “This may be because of anxiety which impacts erectile and ejaculatory functionality, sexual pain disorders that get in the way of enjoying sex, desire discrepancy or differences in sexual style in a partnership.”

The acronym PLISSIT guides sex therapists in determining how to help a client. Devised in 1976 by psychologist Jack S. Annon, the model includes Permission, Limited Information, Specific Suggestions, and Intensive Therapy.

“Some people are hampered by feelings of guilt — for example, about the idea of self-pleasuring — and having a sex therapist validate this as a legitimate and acceptable sexual health practice can alleviate those feelings,” said Timberlake. “Providing limited information can help dispel myths that a person may have about sex and their own sexual health, while specific suggestions might address how to enhance a client’s sexual experience, particularly if they are having difficulty with issues around performance, communication and anxiety.”

For many clients, those steps are all that are needed to resolve the problems they are having. According to Timberlake, those cases may require only three to six months of treatment.

For those affected by trauma, however, treatment may require the fourth option in the PLISSIT model.

“Intensive therapy is far more in-depth,” said Timberlake. “It means inquiring into a client’s sexual history, their medical and medication history, and addresses any trauma present that may be complicating their sexual functioning.”

“Sexual trauma always adds a layer of complexity and time to the length of treatment,” said Timberlake. “People sometimes show up in sex therapy in the immediate aftermath of a sexual assault, but often trauma survivors tend to work with generalist therapists initially. They may seek sex therapy once trauma responses have become more manageable and they are able to focus more on healing their sexual lives.”

“It’s never too soon or too late to get help,” said Norton. “There is a shift in the brain that occurs about 90 days after a trauma happens, and the process is different for helping those with new trauma versus old trauma. The ideal time is as soon as someone is ready to seek treatment — and there are therapies that don’t require people to talk about what happened. We don’t have to delve into long explanations in order for things to change. We can process memories in a few different ways — talking is just one of them.”

Often the issues that bring someone to therapy are not the only factors at play in their treatment.

“Many clients present with desire discrepancy as an issue, but with co-occurring sexual problems related to medical issues, such as cancer, auto-immune disorders, sexual pain issues, visible and invisible disabilities, etc.,” said Timberlake. “I love working with people who are addressing issues of aging and how living in an aging body impacts their desire and functionality.”

“I work with people when they are in current medical treatment and I also work with folks who are getting generalized therapy — and I work with people who are not in either of those circumstances,” said Norton.

Timberlake’s sex therapy practice is about 50 percent couples and polycules (polyamorous relationship units) — and includes people who identify as LGBTQ or heterosexual, cisgender or transgender/non-binary.

Sennott’s clients are similarly diverse, including couples, polycules, and families in a variety of relationship structures.

“I’m especially interested in sexuality and sexual practices of people who identify as queer, poly, trans, nonbinary, people of size, and people with visible or invisible disabilities,” said Sennott.

As a nonbinary and trans-identified therapist, Chandler is passionate about providing therapy to people who are marginalized based on gender and sexual identities or relationship practices.

For people interested in exploring sex therapy, Timberlake recommends seeking a professional who is board-certified by the American Association for Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) or being supervised by a board-certified sex therapist. Since AASECT certification is not required to call oneself a sex therapist, those who aren’t certified range considerably in training and experience.

“If in doubt, ask what specific training a therapist has had that informs their treatment protocols — and don’t be satisfied with a three-hour training or workshop as the answer,” Timberlake said.

Ultimately, the right sex therapist is one with whom a client is comfortable enough to be vulnerable and feel supported in that process.

“Anyone and everyone could benefit from therapy that includes topics of sex and sexuality,” said Chandler. “Sex is relevant to everyone — even folks who aren’t having it.”

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How Parents Can Talk With Their Teens About Sex and Consent

By Shafia Zaloom

Exploring sexuality with others can be scary, confusing, and thrilling, and digital devices make every interaction more consequential. Consent must be given in person, during sexual activity, and whenever a new form of sexual activity is initiated. Many young people communicate and establish relationships through technology. This may provide a false sense of knowing someone, intimacy, or readiness to engage in a sexual relationship. With all of the abbreviations young people use (hu = hookup, wbu = what about you, dtr = define the relationship, etc.), they are in many ways abbreviating relationships. It is important to consider that the only way to truly know if you are comfortable and ready to be sexually active with someone is to actually spend time with them.

As adults, we can talk to teenagers about knowing whether they can trust someone and are ready to be more intimate. This means considering whether they are comfortable discussing issues such as consent, how far they want to go, what they are ready to do, etc. If their partner pressures, manipulates, or guilt-­trips them into activities they don’t feel ready for, they should consider whether this is a relationship they want to continue.

Sex educator, speaker, author, and my personal rock star, Emily Nagoski, has a beautiful garden metaphor I use with my students to deepen their understanding of consent within the context of their sexuality. It goes like this: When you’re born, you’re given a little plot of rich, fertile soil, slightly different from everyone else’s (a.k.a. your brain and your body). Your family and culture (the immediate and broader communities you’re a part of) plant seeds and tend the garden. They also teach you how to tend it. Those seeds are the language, attitudes, knowledge, and habits about love and safety, bodies, and sex.

Each garden is unique and has different needs depending on the vegetation those seeds yield. Some gardens may require extra sunlight and water, some may need extra fertilizer or shade, some may be drought-­tolerant or need extra vigilance when it comes to weeding out toxic and invasive species. Over time, as you become an adolescent, you start to take on the responsibility of tending your own garden. While discovering what’s in your garden, what it needs, and how to take care of it, you get to choose what gets pulled out and what gets to stay.

Consent is having the agency to decide who gets to enter your garden and what will happen while you’re there together. It’s the option to choose whether someone comes in and how they behave while they are there—­do they play and frolic, or stomp and trample? Consent determines how long they get to stay, and whether they get to plant something or take anything with them when they leave. You should ask before entering someone else’s garden. Honor it because it’s theirs. And anyone you let into your garden should help it thrive.

Parent–­Teen Conversation Starters

My students give me the best advice for how to approach conversations with teenagers. Be concise and focused. Allow your teen to guide the conversation. Talk less and listen more. It’s OK to say “I don’t know.” Stay open to different perspectives. Avoid letting the conversation become a family debate. Worry less about what your teen is doing and more about how they feel about it. Have many smaller conversations over time in different contexts. My students also emphasize the importance of selecting questions from the list below that will resonate with your own teenager. Every teen is unique and up to different things and dealing with different issues, so be selective with the questions you choose.

In your own words, what is consent? What are some examples of consent that come up in everyday life?

What’s the value of consent? How does it relate to healthy relationships?

What are some examples of asking for consent?

What does it feel like when someone doesn’t respect your right to choose for yourself? How do/can you respond?

How can you connect your understanding of everyday consent to sexual consent?

Why are some people trying to change the notion of consent from “no means no” to “yes means yes”? What is the difference, and do you agree or disagree?

What are some examples of consensual questions for the following: asking someone out; deciding how you’re going to spend time together; or being sexually intimate with someone?

What are the circumstances in which consent cannot be given?

What are some important characteristics of a sexual relationship beyond consent?

Resources: Everyday Feminism magazine has a helpful online comic strip titled What If We Treated All Consent Like Society Treats Sexual Consent?

Straight Answers to Teen Questions

Why is “yes means yes” better than “no means no”?

“Yes means yes” comes from the media’s coverage of recent affirmative consent laws (“affirmative” is the legal language used that requires someone to ask for agreement to initiate a level of intimacy). Until affirmative consent laws were created, the phrase “no means no” reflected widely held thinking around consent and sexual assault. It meant that if someone said no to a sexual act, the person initiating the activity should respect that boundary and stop what they are doing. This is still important. If someone doesn’t want to engage in a sexual act, they can say no and the other person should stop or it might be considered sexual assault.

“Yes means yes” is an improvement on “no means no,” because “no means no” assumes yes until that person expresses their discomfort by literally saying the word no. Ideally, all people would feel comfortable and confident enough during a sexual encounter to say no. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, especially with young people. Asking for affirmative consent, if the question truly allows for either answer, expresses respect and care for a partner’s sexual experience. It is also more positive because it affirms desire and hopefully leads to better sexual communication. It is the kind of communication that ideally should happen during sex and in healthy relationships. Beyond yes is enthusiastic consent, which means not only does the other person agree to what you’re doing together, but also they genuinely desire it and they’re excited about it.

What would be considered “another level of intimacy”?

An example of another level of intimacy might be going from making out with someone to taking their clothes off, or when two people are feeling each other up and one reaches into the other’s pants. Another example is when someone goes from intimate touching to moving down the other person’s body to give oral sex. Different people experience different levels of intimacy in different sexual situations. Some people may feel that kissing is more intimate than genital touching. Others may think that genital-­to-­genital intercourse is more intimate than oral intercourse. It depends on the person, so ask and pay attention to how your partner responds.

Do I have to ask for consent even if I’m really close to the person?

Yes, you must ask for consent even if you’re really close to your sexual partner. A preexisting relationship does not equal consent. There are many benefits to knowing your partner. In a healthy relationship, trust and care are built over time. This allows for both partners to communicate without fear of being judged. Sometimes, consent is wordless between people who know each other really well. Communication happens with body language, facial expression, and pleasurable sounds. Still, paying attention to context is important for everyone. The context or circumstances that surround the sexual activity can change within moments and may influence how someone feels sexually, and it is important to understand that context may influence consent. And if the consent is wordless, the partners involved must be attentive to each other and make sure that whatever is happening between them is something they both want.

When do I have the right to say no? When is it socially acceptable?

You have the right to say no at any time in a relationship or within a sexual experience. The answer to the second question will likely vary depending on who you talk to. We live in a sex-­negative culture (one that focuses on objectification, sexualization, sex stigma, and body-­shaming) that doesn’t always promote healthy perspectives on sexuality, especially for young people. It may seem and feel like you have to say yes because that is what you see in the media or what you hear from your friends. A sex-­positive and sexually healthy society would make it socially acceptable to say no to sexual activity whenever you feel you want or need to. Remember that you are under no obligation to engage in behavior you don’t feel ready for, no matter the circumstances.

There are different ways to say no that you may want to consider. Within any type of relationship, be clear with your no. If you are in a healthy relationship, engage in a conversation with care and respect, so you can talk through what you’re both thinking and feeling. What your partner wants matters. Being a considerate and generous lover is mature and responsible. Encouraging people to talk openly about consent, and the ability to say yes and no, benefits everyone. Everyone deserves that kind of respect from a partner, and it makes for a healthier relationship.

If you are saying no in a hookup situation, be clear and assertive. If you and your partner are engaged in a respectful sexual encounter and care about each other’s experience, it should be OK to engage in open and honest dialogue. You could say, “I’m not comfortable with that but would be comfortable with [activity].” If your partner only seems to care about getting off physically and doesn’t consider your experience, then be clear and direct with your no and end the hookup. Bottom line: you have the right to say no.

Can someone give consent if they are drunk?

No. The legal language of affirmative consent legislation for being drunk or intoxicated is “incapacitated.” A person cannot give consent if they are incapacitated, which means they aren’t able to think clearly because they are under the influence of a substance or drug (alcohol is considered a drug). The point at which someone becomes incapacitated is different depending on many variables, including genetics, size, tolerance, how much of a substance they consumed, what kind of substance they consumed, when and how they took the substance, if they had recently eaten, or if the substance had an additional substance in it. If someone reports a nonconsensual experience and the people involved were incapacitated, the police or authorities on a school’s campus (if it took place at school) will investigate to determine whether the people involved were incapacitated and if this impacted the situation.

If I send a nude or “dick pic,” does that count as consent?

No. You cannot give consent to sexual activity over a phone or other digital device, especially if you are under the age of eighteen. Nudes do not equal consent. In fact, unless someone asks for a nude photo, it can be considered sexual harassment. And if you’re under eighteen, taking sexually explicit photos of yourself and “sexting”—­sending nude photos—­is considered trafficking in child pornography and is against federal law. Some states have teen sexting laws to deal with this common issue because the consequences for teens who violate federal law can be severe. Remember, too, that what is on your device and what you send to others is essentially public. Just because the photos disappear from your phone doesn’t mean that someone didn’t screenshot and forward or save them. If you send a nude photo, you should expect that it will probably become public at some point and may be circulated. Would you want your family, employer, college admissions officer, or future romantic interest to see it? Probably not.

What if I’m comfortable doing something sexual with a guy but not a girl?

Your body belongs to you; you get to choose how to touch and be touched. The guidelines are the same for managing what’s going on while you explore sexuality with someone, regardless of gender. No matter the person and how they identify, it’s important to communicate your desires and limitations and to listen and ask for theirs. Mutual respect doesn’t depend on how someone identifies. Communicate with a potential sexual partner in the moment. If they are safe and OK to be with you sexually, it’s OK to do what you want and don’t want. Period.

Isn’t it OK to push just a little to try to persuade someone to go further? I’m not going to force someone, of course, but what if they just need a little convincing?

Nope. Not OK to push even just a little. The need for any sort of persuasion makes the situation nonconsensual. Coercion, or saying things like “C’mon, it’ll feel good,” “Just relax, don’t worry about it,” “If you like me you’ll do this,” or “Everyone does this, what’s wrong with you?” is not consent. Adding social power or leverage to the dynamic is also not consent. Saying things like “C’mon, don’t you want to be first pick of the team next year? You know I’m the captain,” “If you don’t do this, I’ll have to post those pictures you sent me,” or “You don’t want everyone to know you’re gay, do you?” is not consent. It is coercive and exploitive. It is manipulative, unhealthy, bullyish, and disrespectful to pressure someone into second-­guessing themselves and compromising their emotional and physical safety; if taken too far it can even constitute assault.

Can consensual sex be regrettable?

Yes. If consent is asked for and given, without the influence of substances, the impairment of a mental or physical disability, coercion or age disparity (one partner is over eighteen, the other is under eighteen), then the sex is legal. Just because the sex is legal, however, doesn’t mean it’s right. If it isn’t consented to for the right reasons—­for instance, someone wasn’t ready, the sex wasn’t physically or emotionally safe, or someone else’s well-­being is impacted (like a friend is betrayed)—­someone may regret having participated in it. Legal sex is not necessarily ethical or “good” sex. Ethical sex is legal and takes into account the well-­being of the participants and others who may be impacted by their actions. Good sex is legal, ethical, and feels pleasurable and satisfying for both partners. To avoid regrettable albeit consensual sex, make sure you choose to engage in sexual activity for your right reasons.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to talk to your children about sexual consent

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Parents and caregivers often wait until their children are older to talk about sexual consent. And many parents often leave “the sex talk” altogether – hoping that schools will do it instead. The most recent guidance for teaching consent under the relationship and sex education curriculum simply advises that lessons should be provided before the end of secondary school. This could leave many young people without information about sexual consent before becoming sexually active.

Reports from 13,000 adolescents in the UK age 11 to 13 suggest that intimate activities such as holding hands, kissing and sexual touching is normal for this age group. Many of the adolescents reported having kissed by age 12 and having been touched or touched a partner under clothing. But without receiving lessons about consent, young adolescents could be engaging in sexual activity without agreement.

Reports from 13,000 adolescents in the UK age 11 to 13 suggest that intimate activities such as holding hands, kissing and sexual touching is normal for this age group. Many of the adolescents reported having kissed by age 12 and having been touched or touched a partner under clothing. But without receiving lessons about consent, young adolescents could be engaging in sexual activity without agreement.

My ongoing PhD research looks at early adolescents’ beliefs about negotiating sexual consent for sexual activities. And I have found that, while young people in this age group understand sexual consent, it can be difficult for them to apply their understanding of consent to situations of sexual coercion. This is sexual activity that occurs as a result of pressure, trickery, threats or nonphysical force.

My research shows that, as early as age 11, both boys and girls buy into gender stereotypes of sexual behaviour – such as that the girl decides if sexual activity will happen. My research has also found that these young people endorse constructions of rape culture, specifically that of victim blaming.

It seems then that young people need guidance beyond just learning about consent when it comes to their romantic relationships. Here are four ways to teach children about consent, based on my research.

If it’s not yes then it’s no

Encourage the use of verbal, affirmative consent for every sexual activity, every time. The only way to be 100% sure that a partner consents is to receive a clear “yes”. Remind young people to check in with their partner. They can ask questions such as: “Is this okay?”, “Can I…?”, “Hey wanna…”

Another way to double-check how a partner feels is to check their body language and facial expression. Does their body language and facial expression match what they are saying? Are they moving in or pulling away from being kissed or touched?

Don’t fear rejection

You also need to talk to your child about rejection. Young people may be afraid to ask for consent because they fear rejection, instead opting to “just go for it”. Remind them that it is better to ask and be told “no” than to just go for it, seem aggressive and risk making their partner feel uncomfortable – possibly ruining the relationship.

Also, young people often report not wanting to say “no” to someone they like because they don’t want to hurt their feelings – potentially going along with unwanted sexual activity. Suggest ways they can respond to their partner. For example, “I like you, but I’m not ready” or “I don’t want to” or “no, not yet”. These suggestions, which came up in my research, come directly from young people about how they think best to handle rejection.

Tackle the power of pressure

It’s important to also talk to young people about pressure. This can include pressure from partners or peers. Remind them that it is never okay to make someone take part in a sexual activity. This includes making the person feel guilty for not doing it, blackmailing or tricking them. There cannot be consent if a person feels pressured to engage in a romantic or sexual activity – this includes pressure to send and receive sexual images (sexting).

Empower young people to tell someone if their actions or words are making them uncomfortable. Moreover, teach young people that pressuring someone to engage in a romantic or sexual activity won’t make a person popular or “cool” but instead makes the person seem “creepy and desperate”.

Deconstruct stereotypes

Finally, challenge myths about girls and sexual activity – specifically, that girls are solely responsible for sexual activity occurring (if it occurs, she “let it happen”). From a young age, girls in our society are simply taught to “keep safe” with messages like “just say no” and “don’t let him…”. Stopping at these messages suggests that if something does go wrong, it is the girl’s fault.

An additional myth to challenge is that clothing can indicate consent. Certainly, some clothing can be “sexy” but that does not mean the person wearing the clothing is consenting to sexual activity or deserves to be disrespected.

It’s clear then that not only should the topic of consent be included when having “the talk” with kids, but young people should also be taught about consent through an ongoing dialogue. This should include conversations on acknowledging and respecting boundaries and discussions on healthy relationships.

Talking to young adolescents about consent can be difficult for parents and caregivers, because no one has all of the answers and consent can be tricky to understand – even for adults. But there are many free resources available from reputable organisations such as TeachConsent, RAINN and the Child Mind Institute.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sexist attitudes towards sex are cheating women of orgasms – and worse

The myth that women just ‘go along’ with sex denies their right to pleasure and makes it harder to convict men who rape

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We may like to think we’re quite sexually free and equal these days, but an End Violence Against Women Coalition/YouGov survey of nearly 4,000 adults finds that two-fifths of people think men want sex more than women do. And between a third of and half of us think it is more likely that in heterosexual couples men will initiate and orgasm during sex, and decide when sex is finished, than women. In contrast, women are believed to be much more likely to refuse sex and to “go along with sex to keep their partner happy”.

This shows the persistence of the idea that sex is more “for” men than it is for women. The female climax is talked about in terms of being elusive, and yet the fact that this “orgasm gap” exists solely in heterosexual sex speaks to a lack of understanding, effort and mutuality, because lesbians are not having this problem. It’s a product of setting up the male orgasm, usually achieved through penile penetration, as the centrepiece of sex.

It is a sad state of affairs that there is a lower expectation that women will experience pleasure or climax during sex, and that this is accepted as to be expected, or “normal”. It’s self-perpetuating, because if women believe that “going along” with sex is a common female experience, they may be less likely to articulate and explore their needs and wants in early sexual relationships or when older. They may also feel pressure not to express discomfort or pain. And when sex is only one part of a long-term relationship, alongside persistent inequality around work, chores, caring and other people’s gendered expectations, plain talking and yet another plea for fairness might be just one battle too many.

Sexual inequality matters enormously, in and of itself, because women should be able to expect and enjoy sexual relationships that are based on mutual pleasure and equality. This shouldn’t need contesting or sound radical any more but apparently it does.

But there’s even more than this at stake. The sexist ideas about sex that we identified can also be a basis for some men developing a sense of greater entitlement to sex, as well as the excusing or minimising of men pestering or pushing women for sex. If you combine these ideas that men want and need sex more, and that women are just less motivated and more likely to refuse, you end up with a toxic status for women as the “gatekeepers” of sex, where it is a woman’s role to manage sexual interactions and access to her body.

If women are “gatekeepers” of whether sex takes place, then it is women who carry all the responsibility for every single sexual interaction they have. And this means that women are also seen as responsible if their boundaries are broken and they experience sexual violence. And it will be principally her who is investigated to ascertain whether a rape took place if she alleges it. The man’s behaviour apparently does not need close examination. It is assumed he will have been up for and will have pushed for sex – only 1% of people think men ever refuse sex, and 2% think men “go along with” sex. This can then lead to the rhetoric of sexual violence being set up as an unfortunate failure to properly gatekeep, a regret, just a big misunderstanding. These are powerful myths that have malign consequences. However, if we thought about sex differently, based on equality, these would be less likely.

This entrenched sexism about sex matters when we consider what is going wrong in a society that is utterly failing to deter, reduce and prevent rape. These ideas are part of why reported rape prosecutions fail, as police and prosecutors decide they can’t build a case if they think a jury will see a woman who “failed to gatekeep” before they see a man who knew he was crossing the line.

This is why we are calling for more, accelerated and frank conversations about actual sexual practice. We need men to recognise their responsibility and accept accountability both for sexism and for good sex. We need to put an end to the notion that sex is something done “to” women, and to reach a place where enthusiastic, mutual consent, equality and pleasure in sexual relationships is the norm.

Sex will be so much better when it’s more equal.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What College Students Should Know About Consent

By Erika W. Smith

In 2015, artist Emma Sulkowicz wore a pale blue graduation robe and cap as they carried a 50-pound mattress across the stage, helped by four of their friends. Sulkowicz had been carrying the mattress — identical to those used in dorm rooms — around the Columbia University campus for an entire school year, as a performance art piece that doubled as their senior thesis. When they began the piece, Sulkowicz said they would carry the mattress until the student they said raped them in their dorm room was either expelled or voluntarily left school. But Sulkowicz graduated before either of those things happened.

Sulkowicz’s performance brought a new spotlight to the ongoing national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses. Now, the #MeToo movement has brought a new lens through which to continue the conversation. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 16 men will be sexually assaulted while in college, and according to the advocacy organization End Rape On Campus, nearly one in four transgender and gender non-conforming undergraduate students will be sexually assaulted while in college.

And many of the people (mostly cis men) committing sexual assault don’t understand that what they’re doing is sexual assault. One study found that male undergraduates were more likely to admit to raping a partner when the assault was described in other language (for example, “Have you ever coerced somebody to intercourse by holding them down?”) rather than when the word “rape” was used.

Ted Bunch, co-founder of A Call To Men, previously told Refinery29 that in his workshops for high school boys, only 19% can accurately define consent. “Boys actually think ‘no’ means try harder. They think ‘no’ means get her drunk or that they’re not approaching it right and they have to change their approach,” he said.

Campus sexual assault is so prevalent that it has often been called an “epidemic,” and yet only eight states in the U.S. require public school sex education to even mention consent. It’s vital that students understand consent before entering college — the first six weeks of college are sometimes called “the Red Zone” because this is the time of year when the majority of on campus sexual assaults occur.

As Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape editor Jaclyn Friedman previously wrote for Refinery29, “When I talk to students about sex and consent, I’m often asked — mostly by young men — how often they have to check in with a partner to make sure they’re doing consent right… But rape is not a technicality, and consent is not a one-and-done box to be ticked; it’s an ongoing process between two people, which requires treating your partner like an equal. Trying to reduce ‘consent’ to something you need to get out of the way so you can go ahead and get some means you’re more concerned with gaming the rules than with treating your partner like a human person.”

We’ll break down some of the intricacies and common misconceptions about consent here, but Friedman gets right to the main point of it: treat your partner like a human person.

What Is Consent?

At its most basic definition, consent means agreeing to do something. When talking about sexual activity, activists are pushing for laws that establish affirmative consent, or “Yes Means Yes.” This approach establishes consent as something you actively say “yes” to, rather than simply the absence of a “no.”

According to End Rape On Campus, affirmative consent laws “establish that consent is a voluntary, affirmative, conscious, agreement to engage in sexual activity, that it can be revoked at any time, that a previous relationship does not constitute consent, and that coercion or threat of force can also not be used to establish consent. Affirmative consent can be given either verbally or nonverbally.” Additionally, these laws make it clear that someone is “incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or is either not awake or fully awake, is also incapable of giving consent.” California and New York have such laws in place, as do a number of individual schools in other states, including the University of Minnesota, Texas A&M, and Yale University. Even if your state or school currently has a laxer legal view of consent, morally, this is the way to go.

How Do I Know If My Partner Is Giving Consent?

Sexuality educator Jamie J. LeClaire highlights five different factors to examine when talking about consent. They tell Refinery29 that consent must be:

 1. Voluntary: “Consent must be freely given without any threat, force, intimidation, or coercion.”

2. Informed and coherent: “Someone who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs and not entirely coherent, or asleep or not completely awake, is unable to give consent.”

3. Enthusiastic and unambiguous: “You shouldn’t be unsure of whether or not someone is into what’s happening. There should be no confusion as to whether your partner is a willing and eager participant.”

4. Reversible: “Consent can be withdrawn at any time. That first green light can become a ‘Time to slow down’ or ‘Actually, I want to stop,’ at any moment for any reason, and that’s totally 100% valid, and their bodily autonomy must be respected.”

5. Ongoing and specific: “Sex is an active, continuous interaction — consenting to some heavy petting isn’t necessarily agreeing to be flogged.”

Remember that, as LeClaire says, “Consent must be given no matter what your relationship status is with your sexual partner.” Whether this is a long-term partner or someone you just met, if they’re not into it, stop.

Consent & Alcohol Or Drugs

Some consent guidelines say that a person cannot give consent if they are “incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.” However, other activists push for stronger standards.

“When it comes to mixing alcohol and other drugs with sex, my advice is: don’t,” Sam Wall, Assistant to the Director at sex education site Scarleteen.com, previously told Refinery29. “Any alcohol consumption makes consent anything from automatically questionable to outright impossible.” However, she added, “Realistically speaking, we know people can and do have mutually consensual, non-sober sex.” So if you and your partner do decide to have sex after drinking or doing drugs, “clear verbal consent is a MUST, not a maybe, and ANY indication someone is simply wasted, or isn’t aware or alert or all-there should be a stop sign, no argument.

Research shows that around half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking alcohol, and that men who drink heavily are more likely than other men to report having committed sexual assault. If you think there’s any chance drinking may impact your ability to tell whether your partner is consenting, do not drink and have sex.

Consent & Condoms

In the past few years, there’s been a lot of media coverage of the rise of “stealthing” — the practice of removing a condom during sex without a partner’s consent. In one 2018 study, 32% of women who have sex with men and 19% of men who have sex with men reported having experienced this. Unfortunately, there are no laws in the United States that explicitly name stealthing as a form of sexual assault, however, activists and lawmakers are pushing to change that.

“If someone consented to sex using condoms or other prevention methods, that’s the conditions of sex in which they consented. Removing the barrier method without your partner’s knowledge is an absolute violation of consent and sexual assault,” LeClaire says.>

Consent & Nude Photos

Keep consent in mind when sending nude photos, too. Earlier this year, Texas introduced a bill that would make sending unsolicited nude photos a misdemeanor, punishable by a $500 fine. Many couples enjoy sending sexy photos to each other — but make sure that the person you’re sending the photo to actually wants to receive it.

“Unsolicited nude pics via text, SnapChat, dating apps, or whatever it may be, are a breach of consent. It’s really not that hard to ask for consent for sending naughty pics,” LeClaire says. “[Text something like], ‘I took some XXX photos of myself earlier, would love to send,’ and wait for permission. If they aren’t into it, respect that!”

If your partner sends you nude photos that you asked for, keep those photos private and do not share them with your friends or post them online. This is a violation of consent commonly called “revenge porn.”

How Do I Ask For Consent?

Some people think that asking for consent is “un-sexy,” but that’s not the case at all. As LeClaire points out, there are many different ways to ask for consent, up to and including dirty talk. Saying something like, “Do you like this?” or “I really want to [describe what you want to do]” are both ways of asking for consent. Your partner’s response “should sound nothing short of excitement, and it should NOT sound like hesitance, silence, or unease,” LeClaire says.

What Is Title IX?

In 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments banned discrimination on the basis of sex in “any educational program or activity receiving federal funding,” which includes both public and private colleges. Along with protecting students from discrimination in areas such as sports, Title IX applies to sexual assault and harassment. Title IX “provides protections for students who are survivors of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape,” LeClaire explains.

In 2011, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights introduced new guidelines for how colleges should handle sexual harassment and assault. However, President Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos, has worked to roll back these Obama-era guidelines. Still, Title IX currently applies to sexual assault on campus.

“Every college will have a Title IX coordinator. If you know someone has sexually assaulted someone, inform your school’s Title IX coordinator. If you or someone you know what sexually assaulted, tell your school’s Title IX coordinator (with consent),” LeClaire says.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sexual assault survivors are using this sex education app to regain confidence

by Cara Curtis

Sex is complex, but there’s a new wave of apps and websites that aim to help women connect better with their bodies and sexuality. One such app is Ferly, an audio app, that is redefining the meaning of online sex education while also helping assault survivors regain their sexual confidence.

The app, which was released on iOS last month, creates a community for women to learn more about their bodies through micro-podcasts on the science of sex, bite-sized articles on intimacy and sexual pleasure, and a journaling space to reflect on their growth.

The website reads: “This is not about great sex. It’ll never be about great sex. This is about you putting words to the shape of your pleasure, to acknowledge that it’s a strange, wondrous, and ever-changing thing. To develop an inner confidence that transforms your most important relationship — the one you have with yourself.”

“Ferly is an old English word that means ‘strange and wondrous,’ but it used to mean ‘strange and frightful,’” Billie Quinlan, the co-founder of Ferly, told TNW. “It was used to reference all the scary and unknown creatures, like witches. But as we came to understand they weren’t real and there was nothing to be afraid of, they changed the meaning of the word. We believe this is a beautiful analogy to female sexuality — something we once feared is now claiming its right.”

When the co-founders of Ferly — Quinlan and Anna Hushlak — came together to build a business that would support women’s relationship with sex, they found it helped tackle a much greater, systemic issue: female pleasure is taboo, and its veil of shame prevents us from achieving true equality.

For many women, understanding sex and being comfortable with their own sexuality is challenging, but for survivors of sexual assault, it can be even harder. Ferly provides a safe space for survivors to rediscover their sexual confidence and receive help from various listed resources – all in a safe environment.

How Ferly helps sexual assault survivors

Ferly was created from personal experience after Quinlan and Hushlak experienced sexual violence and assault respectively. “Anna and I have both navigated sexual trauma which had a profoundly negative impact on our sense of self and our relationship with sex,” Quinlan explained. “At the time, neither of us had the tools or community to help us (re)discover pleasure and invest in our well-being.”

The #MeToo movement gave other survivors the chance to speak up against sexual violence, and Quinlan and Hushlak realized they weren’t alone. In fact, there was a whole community of women who had endured similar experiences. “We wanted to build a safe, enjoyable, and scientifically grounded space,” Quinlan said.

While Ferly provides a space for survivors to get back in touch with their sexuality and confidence, the app’s technology comes with its limitations. For survivors to take their recovery process further, Ferly created a database of recommended resources and experts that can better support them. These resources will eventually live in the app so anyone can access them when necessary.

“I don’t think there are any substitutes for in person, expert support when it comes to such a delicate issue,” Quinlan told TNW. “But I do believe technology can work side by side with expert support and provide a space and tools that are available 24/7. That’s where we would like Ferly to progress to.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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If I Don’t Talk to My Patients About Consent, Who Will?

Here’s why I bring it up with all my patients.

By Natasha Bhuyan, M.D.

As a primary care physician, a significant part of my job is helping patients better understand and deal with the public health issues that affect our society—whether it’s the dangers of smoking tobacco or the importance of getting a flu shot or the need to get tested for STIs.

But there is one health issue in particular that is impacting so many and yet talked about by so few: consent. Talking about the nuances of consent can be complicated and uncomfortable. The subject has long been dismissed as a “mood ruiner” among sexual partners—and as a result, many choose to ignore these conversations altogether, creating a silence around something that desperately needs to be discussed and unpacked.

Since I know that many of my patients are not having these conversations with their friends, family, or even partners, I make it part of my regular practice to bring up the subject of consent with my patients. I talk to my patients about other necessities when practicing safe sex, such as birth control and STI-prevention, so I’m in a unique position to be able to also discuss consent with them. Even a simple question like, “How do you give and receive consent with your partner?”, can make a huge difference when it comes to starting a conversation and, ultimately, creating a safer, more comfortable environment for sex

When it comes down to it, consent is all about respect for another person’s bodily autonomy: when you want to touch another person or have sex with them, you should ask first (verbally) and continue to give and receive consent in this way throughout a sexual encounter. That doesn’t necessarily mean running through a monotone checklist of “can I…,” but it does mean paying attention to the physical and verbal cues of the person you’re with, while maintaining clear and open communication. Consent also doesn’t have to be sexual. Getting and receiving consent extends to situations such as borrowing your friend’s shirt or using your coworker’s phone. We wouldn’t do either of those things without asking, so of course an act as intimate as sex deserves the same consideration.

It also means being sure that the person is able to give consent. A few important factors to consider: is your sexual partner above the age of consent in your particular state? Are you certain that they are not under the influence of mind-altering substances, and they are in no way being coerced or pressured into saying yes?

The unfortunate reality is that a lack of consent can often be difficult to prove, which is one reason an estimated 80 percent of sexual assault and rape cases go unpreported and around 995 of 1000 perpetrators of rape will avoid prison. This lack of action through the justice system is one reason why it is critical to address the underlying cultural and societal issues as swifty and resoundingly as possible

This is why I talk to all of my patients (and anyone else who will listen, really) about the importance of both giving and receiving enthusiastic consent with all partners. In my work as a primary care physician, I have spoken to many patients about their experiences with sexual assault and consent. It’s a subject I believe all PCPs should broach with their patients if they have the training and resources to do so, since it directly impacts the physical, emotional, and psychological health of the people in our society

The taboo and shame surrounding non-consensual experiences coupled with the physical and mental trauma many survivors experience can cause severe health problems for years to come. Health issues like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and long-term physical challenges are far from uncommon in survivors and can cause irreparable damage, both mentally and physically</a

But, as it currently stands, only eight states require consent or sexual assault to be mentioned as part of public school sex education curriculum. These are typically as pieces of a larger discussion on healthy relationships, which doesn’t always help young people make the necessary associations between safe sexual activity and consent.

So, why should I—a family medicine physician—be the one bringing this up? The number one reason for me is that it ensures that someone does. Too often, other leadership figures for young people, like their parents or their schools, either don’t know how to bring up consent or simply don’t feel comfortable. Unless someone else—like a primary care provider—takes on the subject, sometimes it never gets broached at all.

When talking to patients, I do my best to normalize discussions about sexual activity by asking about things like the body parts they use for sex (vagina, anus, penis, mouth, etc.). In these discussions, I ask patients open-ended questions about how they would describe their communication with their partners, or any tension they feel in those relationships. I also ask them how they typically give and receive consent. Patients are often surprised by these questions. They may expect to be screened for STIs or asked about pregnancy, but they don’t usually associate consent with their overall health.

But the reality is that consent is a hugely important component of a patient’s sexual and overall health. Talking about consent can help me identify other conversations that I should be having with that patient and may lead to a bigger discussion about past experiences, mental and physical health, and sexual practices.

The reality of consent is that it’s not always as cut and dry as “yes” or “no,” which can make it difficult for people to speak up when a non-consensual encounter has occurred. In the past, I’ve had patients open to me about situations such as partners taking off the condom during sex without asking, leading to thoughtful discussions about bodily autonomy that they may not be having otherwise.

In my professional opinion, consent is a public health issue. I believe that viewing the prevention of sexual assault and rape through the lens of public health will help protect the overall mental and physical well-being of our society. But what exactly does treating consent as a public health issue look like—and why does that matter?

First, this would mean funding studies about attitudes toward consent and the long-term impact of non-consensual encounters by qualified researchers, helping advance policy that would advocate for explicit consent in sexual encounters as well as creating and promoting educational materials to introduce the subject to children in school.

Recognizing consent as a public health issue would also shape evidence-based guidelines for clinicians, allowing us to treat it as we would any other widespread health problem—by making it common practice to talk about consent with our patients in the context of their overall health, and by giving our patients a safe place to discuss non-consensual experiences. Smoking tobacco is a good example of a public health issue that both the medical world and general society have made strides towards improving. Many of us can remember watching anti-smoking ads on TV, or being shown an image of a blackened lung in a health class. When we go to the doctor, we’re always asked whether or not we smoke tobacco. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it shows the positive impact a multifaceted approach can have on public health issues.

As with any public health crisis, laws won’t be passed overnight and changes to education requirements can take years to go into effect—though we have and will continue to see strides made in these areas. Importantly, individuals also have the opportunity to take action now in small, deliberate ways. Perhaps the most critical thing that an individual can do to address consent is to discuss it in whichever ways we can with those around us—our sexual partners, our friends, and even our children.

While starting with the youngest members of society may sound difficult, parents and schools should introduce the concept of consent in elementary school, in the right way. While some might argue that doing so would expose children to sexual content too young, the truth is that consent can easily be introduced and reinforced in non-sexual contexts from a very early age. Familiarizing children with the idea of bodily autonomy—that no one has the right to touch them without their approval—can go a long way toward applying the concept of consent to their own bodies and those of their peers as they mature. For example, the District of Columbia’s requirements space out this subject over the course of an entire public school education. In the third grade, schools teach the importance of respect for other bodies. In fourth grade, students learn why talking about sexuality can be helpful. And in sixth grade, the curriculum includes a discussion on the repercussions of unhealthy or violent relationships.

When I look at how society has evolved in the last few years, it is clear that progress has been made. We are far more aware of what consent is and why it is important, but this education very often comes too infrequently and too late. Too many of us have long been uncomfortable discussing healthy and consensual sexual activity, but it is critical that we do so in order to set an example for future generations. One way to do this is to start talking about consent with people you trust. And in the meantime, I’m going to continue talking to my patients about the subject to ensure that they have at least one safe space—and a trusted confidant—to share.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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10 pieces of advice for helping a partner who has been sexually assaulted

By Sophia Mitrokostas

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, around one in three women and one in six men in the US will experience some form of contact sexual violence during their lifetime. People who have been sexually assaulted are more than capable of being in healthy and fulfilling relationships, but if your partner has experienced sexual violence, you may be lost on how to support them

Obviously, every person is different, as is their relationship to sexual assault. INSIDER consulted with psychologists and relationship experts to come up with the best pieces of advice for being in a relationship with someone who’s been sexually assaulted.

Don’t press your partner for details of the assault

Some people will want to share the details of their experience. For others, talking about the trauma may feel like reliving it.

“After a sexual assault, it can be re-traumatizing for the person to recall the experience in detail. Your partner may experience flashbacks of the assault as a result of PTSD. This may cause unwanted emotional reactions and further harm your partner,” licensed clinical social worker LaQuista Erinna told INSIDER.

Allow your partner to share as much as they want and make it clear that you’re willing to listen, but don’t push them to give details of the sexual assault.

Never put pressure on your partner to have sex

It goes without saying that you should never pressure any person to have sex at any time, but survivors of sexual assault may need more care when it comes to how and when you initiate sex.

“Sexual desire and sexual arousal can be difficult to achieve for someone who has been sexually assaulted, and it can take time for the survivor to feel comfortable sexually again,” psychotherapist and clinical traumatologist Silva Neves told INSIDER.

Giving your partner the time and space they need to feel comfortable with sexual intimacy is essential. Allow them to set the pace and don’t try to pressure them into physical contact before they’re ready. Talk to them about how they’d feel comfortable with you initiating sexual contact and keep that dialogue open.

Focus on incorporating consent into all aspects of your relationship

It’s crucial for all couples to talk about healthy boundaries both in and out of the bedroom, but having open conversations about consent is especially important when someone in a relationship has been affected by sexual assault.

“Your partner has had an experience of their boundaries being violated, and it’s important for you to emphasize that boundaries will be honored in your relationship. This may seem obvious to you, but it can be so powerful for your partner,” licensed sex therapist Vanessa Marin told INSIDER.

Talk about how you say “yes” and “no” to each other, and if your partner already knows there are certain things that don’t feel safe or good to them. It’s also important to understand that consent can be withdrawn at any moment and needs to be re-given in each new instance of intimacy.

Recognize that physical closeness of any kind might be challenging for a survivor

It’s understandable that sexual intimacy after a sexual assault may be difficult and complicated for a survivor. But other types of intimacy or closeness can also present challenges.

“It’s not just sex that can be difficult after a sexual trauma. Physical intimacy of many types can be challenging: holding hands, snuggling, hugging, even sharing the same bed. Patience, sensitivity, and clear communication are key,” clinical psychologist Forrest Talley told INSIDER.

Don’t assume that physical contact that isn’t overtly sexual will be comfortable for your partner. Instead, regularly check in with your partner about what kinds of touch make them feel safe and in control. Be aware that their preferences might change over time or even day to day.

Focus on giving your partner control over their body during sex

During a sexual assault, a person loses control over their body in a very profound way. As a result, they may feel uncomfortable with intimate activity that make them feel out of control.

“When engaging with a partner sexually after an assault, give them control. Let them make the first move, decide which positions work for them, and use verbal consent when you are escalating a sexual encounter,” sex and relationship counselor Niki Davis-Fainbloom told INSIDER.
Keeping your intentions and boundaries clear can help a survivor of sexual assault feel safe and respected.
If sexual intimacy is challenging, work on finding other ways to express love

Sex isn’t the only way to express love and desire in a relationship. If sexual intimacy is still too difficult for your partner, focus instead on finding non-physical ways to express affection for each other.

“How does the survivor feel the most loved? Is it with a touch? Hearing kind words? Having something done for them? Receiving a small gift? Or spending quality time with their partner? It is different for everyone, and you won’t know unless you have open discussions about it,” Neves told INSIDER.

Building up a non-sexual language of love and respect can help a couple dealing with the effects of sexual assault maintain a close bond even if physical intimacy is challenging.

Have a discussion about potential triggers

Sexual assault can traumatize the mind as well as the body. Some survivors may experience panic or anxiety when exposed to things that seem perfectly innocuous to their partners

“With careful, calm, and non-judgmental discussions, the partner can learn where the triggers are for the survivor. Triggers could include particular smells, parts of the body, heavy breathing, certain sounds, or specific words,” said Neves.

Triggers can be places, too. Having sex in places other than your bedroom may be a trigger or simply visiting a certain part of town can bring back harsh memories. Discuss any potential triggers with your partner and try to be sensitive to them.

Know that every day is different

No matter how long it’s been since their sexual assault, every day since will be different. Things like the news, speaking with old friends, or even anniversaries can bring up old feelings.

Just like every survivor’s experience with sexual assault is different, their feelings can also vary day to day. Again, check in with your partner and let them know that you’re there to talk — or to give them space — if they’re feeling particularly raw.

Learning about the common impacts of abuse can help you better understand your partner’s needs

If you’re in a relationship with someone who has survived sexual assault, it’s sometimes possible to misinterpret the effects of your partner’s trauma as a personal statement on your relationship.

“The best thing you can do to be a supportive partner is educate yourself about the impacts of sexual abuse. Learning about some of the common impacts of abuse can help you understand that these kinds of reactions are about the trauma your partner has been through, not about you as a person,” Marin told INSIDER.

For example, if your partner doesn’t feel much desire for sex, you may think that they’re not attracted to you. If they flinch when you touch them in certain ways, you may think that they don’t trust you. Learning about how sexual assault can impact a person with the help of a licensed mental health professional or free online resources can help you understand what your partner may be going through.

Be honest about your own concerns around sex and intimacy

If you have a partner who is a survivor of sexual assault, it’s natural to want to let them take the lead when it comes to sex and intimacy. However, you should also remember to be honest about your own needs in a judgment-free, no-pressure manner.

“It is important to consider your partner’s stage of processing the sexual assault and proceed with sensitivity. At the same time, failure to identify your needs can eventually lead to harboring resentment,” licensed professional counselor Aimee Yasin told INSIDER.

Make sure you’re communicating your willingness to work with your partner’s needs while still being open about your own concerns and feelings. Bottling up your emotions or ignoring the topic of sex altogether can ultimately work against the relationship.

Take advantage of resources for survivors and their partners

There are several different anonymous and confidential resources that offer advice and services not just to sexual assault survivors, but also for their partners.

Anyone can call or text the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 to speak with a professional counselor who can direct both survivors and porters to local resources or simply offer an understanding and anonymous ear. The RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE can also help anyone affected by sexual assault receive support, information, advice, or a referral.

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