It’s time we had “the talk”
Excerpt from the policy proposal I presented to provincial government changemakers through the LEVEL Vancouver Foundation Youth Policy Program. My full policy proposal calling for comprehensive reforms to British Columbia’s (BC’s) sexual education curriculum that emphasises consent, sexual well-being, gender-equitable relationships, and the full inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity can be found here.
It’s time we had “the talk”.
The overwhelming majority- ninety-seven per cent of us- will engage in sexual activity at some point in our lives.
However, only twenty-eight per cent of us understand what it means to give consent.
This is in part because our sexual education curriculums have failed to teach young people to respect one another’s boundaries.
This failure comes with reprehensible consequences. For example:
Fifty per cent of women in Canada report that they have felt pressured to consent to unwanted sexual activity.
Forty-four per cent of women in Canada report experiencing some form of psychological, physical, or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes.
For those with identities at multiple intersections of marginalization, we know that these rates are even higher, while their access to justice is lower.
Gender-based and sexual violence is 100% preventable.
But it will take major shifts in policy to create a world without violence.
That’s why I am asking government leaders to place consent at the forefront of sexual education curriculums.
In my research, I sought the answers to one question:
What should youth be taught in their sexual education classes so that they enter adulthood knowledgeable about consent?
After conducting a thorough review of best practices, I came up with a list of recommendations for the Government of British Columbia to implement:
Schools need to explicitly mention consent in their sexual education lessons. Teaching students how to effectively give consent and respect the consent of others contributes to a safer world for us all.
Students need to be taught that they have a role to play in eradicating gender-based violence. Including everyone in these conversations will ensure that misconceptions about gender-based and sexual violence are dispelled and that violence is no longer deemed a “woman’s issue”.
2SLGBTQQIA+ sexual activity and sexual health need to be included and normalized as topics in the sexual education curriculum. Having representation that extends beyond identity will ensure the curriculum is relevant to all students.
Digital and printed resources need to be developed so that parents and guardians can understand why the lessons covered in sexual education curriculums are so necessary. This will garner their continued buy-in to the curriculum as it undergoes transformational change.
Sexual-education curriculums need to emphasize positive sexual well-being instead of just the prevention of negative outcomes. By reframing sex as a pleasureful, life-enhancing experience grounded in consent, safety, and respect, we make the curriculum more meaningful to students.
As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse as well as sexual assault, I came to this research with a lived perspective.
Had I been taught comprehensive sexual education, I could have known the difference between “good touch and bad touch” as a child.
As a teenager, I could have learned that my sexuality was valid, that sex isn’t supposed to hurt, and that my personal bodily autonomy deserved to be respected.
As an adult, these lessons could have prepared me to identify unsafe people in my life, and leave abusive relationships before they escalated to the levels of violence they did.
Instead, I learned what consent was by experiencing what it was not.
I was failed by my sexual-education curriculum. But the youth of today don’t have to be.
The government of British Columbia has the power to build a comprehensive, consent-based sexual education curriculum for youth.
I hope the government chooses to take on that responsibility as though the lives of youth depend on it -
because they do.
