Next Gen Mentors: February Recap
This session focused on the reasons why consent education often isn’t as relevant, resonant or realistic as it should be for boys and young men. How do we teach consent in a way that reflects the complexity of real relationships? How do we equip boys with skills that remain largely invisible in traditional representations of manhood?
Downloads
Key Themes
Consent Has to Be About More Than Stop Signs
Most often, consent education in schools remains focused on the ‘stop signs’ (e.g. intoxication, nonverbal communication, ‘no means no’), with the goal of violence prevention. This is an important element to consent, but it is not all. Boys want to know about the landscape of relationships—beyond the stop signs, they want to talk about speed limits, decision-making, practice, and more. As a college student told researcher Peggy Orenstein: “What we get told about consent is like being given a set of car keys and being told not to run over the little old lady down the street. Well, of course you aren’t going to try to run her over. But that doesn’t mean you know how to drive.”
If this caught your interest…
Read Boys & Sex by Peggy Orenstein
Read The Talk: How Adults Can Promote Young People’s Healthy Relationships and Prevent Misogyny and Sexual Harassment, a report from Making Caring Common
Watch the short film Locker Room by Greta Nash
Boys Feel High Stakes
Because of the pressures and expectations associated with masculinity, a boy who finds himself alone with a girl may feel an immense amount of pressure to ‘get it right’—in order to achieve a sense of manhood, to maintain status with his peers, or to receive the validation of the girl he is interested in. When the stakes are high, it’s a lot easier to just stay silent.
If this caught your interest…
Read Creating Consent Culture: A Handbook for Educators by Marcia Baczsynski and Erica Scott
Watch American Male short film from MTV’s Look Different Creator Competition
Read The #MeToo Balancing Act in High School by Andrew Reiner
Boys Have Their Own Boundaries Disrespected
Because of the normalized violence that they experience throughout their young lives, many boys are familiar with the sensation of having their boundaries crossed and their feelings invalidated—as Peggy Orenstein put it: “If guys are supposed to deny their own violation, how can they feel compassion for a girl’s? If they can’t say no, how are they supposed to hear it?”
If this caught your interest:
Read What Is It Like to Be a Man? by Phil Christman
Watch the Boys Don’t Cry PSA by White Ribbon Campaign
Listen to How to Talk to Boys About Sex by Robyn Silverman