Well. I can't honestly tell if she's consenting and anticipating an ace night with the man of her dreams or whether the man has broken in while she's taking a bit of me-time and she hasn't realised he's there yet... but either way, her pleasure at this point seems pretty evident...

I promise this will be the last post about consent for a while and that the inclusion of pleasure will lead us to a new friskier topic but in the meantime, bear with.

Pleasure, largely female pleasure, is key to consent in hetero sex. And the fact that we have an odd twisted relationship with female pleasure means that when women either don't know or are unable to express what they DO like/want, it silences them when they are needing to express what they DON'T like/want.

Cliffs Notes on various aspects of this that I'll return to in the future are:-

The idea that female pleasure is mysterious and elusive, that there are 'magic buttons' and special techniques to learn., as opposed to male pleasure which is 'obvious'.

That although that myth prevails, there isn't much apparent effort to crack these codes of magic buttons and special techniques bar the deployment of electronic devices.

That the orgasm gap shows us that maybe female pleasure isn't so mysterious after all, as good lesbians have always known. 

The idea expressed regularly by classes of 12 - 14 year olds investigating 'what is a slut? (in order to challenge the use of this word as the go-to put-down for any girl over the age of 11) - that a slut is amongst other things, 'a woman who enjoys sex' or 'a woman who likes sex too much' or 'a woman who has too much sex'. Woah.

That a girl who doesn't is frigid, and a girl who does is a - yup, you guessed it, a slut. If this is the message that you soak up from all around you, from a young age, where exactly do you place yourself and still make pleasure a priority? You don't. Sex becomes transactional, like a worrying naughty game of chess - you want this (crazy porn activity) but if I give you it, I'll be called a slut, so I'll give you this (less crazy porn activity) because it will shut you up. The question of what would a hetero girl like; what would she enjoy; what would feel good is never asked by her partner OR HER.

That in porn, female pleasure is pervasive and generic - female characters make semi-orgasmic noises throughout - when the pizza arrives, when the pizza delivery boy takes his top off, when she's on her knees in front of the pizza delivery boy, when the pizza delivery boy makes his 'final delivery' - she's making the same noise throughout - no one is clear what made her this excited, he's barely touched her after all. And there are definitely no clues about how to push her over the edge into an orgasm or any hint that she might quite like that.

That 99% of porn (even so-called lesbian porn) is designed to make men horny and get them off, not to inform or teach about females getting off too. And that because porn is our young men's main source of information about sex and relationships.... And because our young women learn about sexual expectations through boys by osmosis and picking up on subtle social cues.... And because sex education is completely inadequate at equipping young women for negotiating this new sexual landscape..... And because we are still very oddly prim about young women as sexual beings...  Because of all these things and more.... hetero female pleasure is no one's consideration, let alone priority.

That there is a clear message that female pleasure is most easily dealt with by mechanising it with electronic devices, and therefore bizarrely disconnects women from touching their bodies even when they are finally being 'allowed' or encouraged to explore pleasure. 

All of these things and many more mean that females, especially young women, are disconnected not only from touch and sensation but also from any sense of ownership of pleasure, any expectation that sex should be a fab experience, any sense that it might even be possible to have a self-centred time. They focus instead on what they are prepared to give in order to face the least amount of flack when everyone else hears about it but still keep their boy happy.

And this is all still in the realm of consensual, wanted sex.

So then what happens when you don't want to? How can you say no when you've never really said yes? If all you've ever done is 'gone along with sex' why wouldn't you 'go along with this?' Saying no is going to cause a big fuss, goodness knows what you'll be called if you're already called a slut when you're keeping a boy happy...

And so no, it doesn't look like rape, and juries won't convict it, but this is not how sex should be. Sex should happen with the echo of a loud cheery enthusiastic 'Yes' still in the room. It should be a delicious, giggly, rude, delight. We have long discussed about how we get girls to say no; any rumour or gossip about sexual encounters will include the idea that if she didn't want to, she should have said no. But I think that before we can expect our girls to say no, we have to teach them to say yes. Yes to themselves as sexual beings, yes to their bodies, yes to sensation, yes to fun, to feeling horny, or not feeling horny, to feeling cuddly or frisky. Or. Or. Or... 

Only when are they free to say a loud enthusiastic 'yes' when they want to, will they be able to find louder, clearer, angrier voices to say 'NO' when they need to.

Consent is like a cup of tea is a now fairly well-known video about, well, how consent is like a cup of tea. If you haven't seen it then go look below... I recently read an article challenging it which was interesting, but that's for another day.

Consent for kids is made in the same style and is a brilliant introduction to consent as a concept. When teaching consent and even talking about it with adults, I'm immediately aware of what a slippery concept it is, particularly I believe, for Brits and other cultures where politeness, putting-up, and general stoicism are valued and taught from birth.

Consent for kids feels particularly 'American', individualistic, possibly even bratty... and yet every time I watch it, I want more and more for children to have that understanding of themselves, the clarity about their personal boundaries, and the confidence to speak it politely and definitely that the video encourages them towards.

I am, after all, that parent. I did make my children talk to people they didn't want to. I did demand that they look everyone in the eye when they were spoken to. I did make them hug everyone when we said goodbye. I do feel pride when they do those things automatically now and am told what polite kids I have. But. Last week the 9 year old told me that although he didn't like being held down and kissed by girls in his class, it was OK "Because consent isn't really a thing for boys is it? It's really for girls and gay people isn't it? Boys just get on with it, don't they?"

Ouch. After some great conversations in the past about consent and what it means, after showing him this video a while back, after everything, he can still make that kind of assumption about what it means to be male. Implicit assumptions about boys being perpetrators and girls and gay people being those who consent or don't.  That boys 'get on with' whatever is on offer regardless of how they feel about it. The same way they had to get on with hugging people they barely knew goodbye.

​Bugger.

This stuff is deep within us. And needs unpicking.

So. Consent for kids is a great place for all of us to start. To connect us into the foundation of it without its sexual packaging. To start at the beginning and re-construct its meaning. Adults and kids alike.

To the Belfast rape trial complainant,

I just wanted to say #ibelieveher. I am on holiday atm and find myself thinking of you a lot. I keep reading up on the reports, trying to find a path through your story that makes sense.

I guess my fixation is two-fold, one is that I teach consent to young people and am currently producing resources for others to teach consent. The other part is that I am a Mum to two boys.

At first I thought my contribution to help would be to make sure my teaching was shit-hot. To really engage every young person with the complexities of consent whilst helping them to seek a simple 'Yes, that's great' repeatedly, enthusiastically throughout any sexual encounter.

It didn't seem enough though. Because as I read the WhatsApp messages sent between the defendants I didn't see the cold-hearted predatory rapists who lurk in alleyways, the ones we were taught to avoid. I saw men-boys, raised on porn and stupidity and peacocking machoism and notching up acts. 

I know so so many boys who will be appalled at your story, shocked, declaring it could never happen on their watch. And I truly believe them. But I also believe our culture has no clue of what real consent looks like. A video I get young people to work with shows a young man accused of rape being asked if the young woman responded in any way to indicate that she wanted to have sex with him. He replies 'Yes... no... maybe... But she wasn't upset or anything'. If consent means a partner 'not being upset' that's a pretty low bar.

A 2015 US college survey asked male college students if they would commit rape if they could be guaranteed to get away with it, 13.6% said yes. Which is frightening. But the same group were also asked if they would force sexual intercourse on a woman if they could be guaranteed to get away with it. And 31.1% said yes. Same act, different words. WTF?

This is so screwed. How will we ever unravel consent? 

And then I started to think about my two boys. And that maybe as well as teaching young people who are 15+, maybe my real responsibility is to teach my boys who are 9 and 11.

As part of what I teach young women around consent, we look at the idea that parents teach their girls not to get raped but that maybe it's time parents teach their boys not to rape. It's a good conversation with the group, the young women get a bit fired up. But now, because of you, I see the problem with it. It requires parents to imagine their boys as future rapists! Ouch! Imagining your daughter as a future victim must be an horrific feeling that quickly brings on warnings about dark alleyways, short skirts, and getting drunk or high, ffs. But to imagine your boy? Your sweet darling? No, he would never be capable of that.

But he would, in our current culture. He would be capable of one-upmanship, of show-boating to mates. Of ignoring a partner's discomfort or quiet unwillingness. He would be capable of expecting crazy porn activities without asking. It would probably not occur to him to ask if something felt nice, or would something else feel nicer. He would be capable of focusing solely on his own pleasure.

Not because he's the evil predator, but because we have allowed porn and popular culture to teach our boys about sex. And it's left out all the fun, the deliciousness, the mutuality, the giggly rude delight. And we've left you all clueless on what having a great time really looks like.

So my darling girl, I am so, so sorry for the part we have all played in your story. I pray that you go forward from here and heal and grow and bloom. 

I will continue to teach. But my promise is to push and agitate all parents to be sure that it really won't be our boys - not because we can't imagine it, but because we can. #notmyboy

Am working at the moment on collating all the resources I've written about consent so as to make them available to youth workers, teachers and parents in the near future. I had intended to write some pieces here about girls stuff after starting with boys stuff but am full of consensual thoughts so girls will have to wait...

Above is my favourite consent video, it's funny, elegant, sweary, and completely instructional without preaching. Incredibly most young people I come across have never seen it so pass it on if you love it too.

Consent is a gnarly emotive subject and for most adults it's one of the ones we feel at sea about (a lot changed in a short time) and so we don't have conversations with our small ones until it's too late.

We have long taught our girls not to get raped/assaulted. The times (and laws) are changing to focus on teaching perpetrators not to rape/assault. This sounds simple and obvious but actually requires a massive cultural and relational shift and produces surprising reactions in most of us...

Can you be asking for it if you wear a short skirt?
Should you expect sexual activity at the end of a date you paid for?
Can two drunk people consent to sex?
What about one drunk person and one sober person?
If you flirt all night and get into bed with the person at the end of the night, can you still refuse sex?
If you don't hear a 'No', does that mean you're good to go?
Do some women need persuading? Often a 'No' eventually becomes an 'OK then...'

Much more to come....

So it's cute huh? A boy, he's noise with dirt on him. But how many quiet clean boys do we know? And how many noisy dirty girls? And if it's not many then why not? 

Science tells us that this stuff is not innate. It is instilled. By us. And a million trillion billion teeny social factors - for the subtlety of this see the BBC toys experiment - www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWu44AqF0iI - it's only 3 minutes long - I love one of the adults' reactions that she was astounded by her own behaviour because she thought she had a really open mind :D ).

Another factor to consider is that in our current cohort of 16-25's, 20% do not identify as wholly one gender or another. It's a big subject that I'll wonder about in the future but for the sake of this particular wondering :- if 20% of our kids are going to at the very least question their gender, then our stereotypes are really going to annoy them!!

So if we want quiet, sensitive, gentle boys, or bold, loud, whole-hearted girls or just fully alive engaged humans, then maybe we will have to start thinking out of our boxes, encouraging, cheering, cajoling, praising, calling them on to be whatever they are whatever the shapes of their bits...