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TOMORROW IS THE International Day of Consent, and it is important that we situate consent education in the context of human rights and sexual rights.
Sexual rights can be defined as all persons have the right to control and decide freely on matters related to their sexuality; to be free from violence, coercion, or intimidation in their sexual lives; to have access to sexual and reproductive healthcare information, education, and services; and to be protected from discrimination based on the exercise of their sexuality.
To highlight how consent fits into a positive sexual rights framework, we need to understand how effective education can be developed to allow each individual to understand consent, boundaries, sexual violence, relationships, and more.
Education is key
There are several ways that positive sexual rights can be achieved through education, which will allow people to access comprehensive ways to live their best sexual lives, free of coercion, control, and abuse. This educational approach can include some of these factors outlined by McKee et al:
Sexual violence does not just happen on an individual basis. It is systemic in our society and underpinned by racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and sexism.
Therefore, in order to tackle sexual violence from the roots upwards, we need to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach. It is essential that this process includes parents, teachers, support services, Gardai, the legal system, and more. Addressing consent through this cultural model can help us build a consent culture across Irish society.
Tackling sexual violence means educating young people on more than just the biological or physical side of sex. It is critical to explore the emotional side of sex with young people so they can make informed decisions about when to have sex, who they want to have sex with, and understand what kind of sex they are consenting to.
Young people need to understand boundaries, pleasure, risk, and how to communicate if they are to empower themselves to make decisions about engaging in sex, but also to identify healthy and unhealthy relationships.
Creating a ‘culture of consent’
Ensuring that young people experience good sexual health is a key public health concern. We know from research that in Ireland young people are already experiencing sexual violence and harassment and that there is an epidemic of domestic abuse in this country.
Positive sexual rights are supported by a culture of consent, where victims of violence are supported to access support, and the justice system is overhauled to ensure that it is not re-traumatising for victims, and perpetrators are dealt with appropriately.
Ensuring young people experience good sexual health is a key public health concern, as according to UN research ‘few children and young people receive preparation for their lives that empowers them to take control and make informed decisions about their sexuality and relationships freely and responsibly’.
So it is not surprising that young people, whether in school or college, are asking that sexuality education moves beyond biological functions, sexually transmitted diseases, and reproduction into issues like dating, online behaviour, sexual pleasure, relationships, sexual agency, consent, LGBTQI+ concerns and sexual coercion.
Such holistic sexual health programming needs to be delivered in an environment that normalises conversations surrounding sex, sexuality, and sexual health.
While we await the updated RSE curriculum to be announced from the NCCA, there are some areas that we can work together to address, as there is still some reluctance to deliver sexuality education that actually include crucial information and skills needed to form healthy relationships and content related to sexual pleasure.
This leaves our children to learn about sexuality from a range of sources, including entertainment media. Their online sexual experiences (e.g., pornography use, sexual chatting, sexualised social media use, and nude image exchange) provide a new context for sexual socialisation of adolescents.
Young people actively seek out entertainment media because it gives them the kinds of information they want, in ways that seem relevant to them, which is often not the case in the kind of classes they get in school.
Parents and teachers
The role of parents in their adolescent child’s sexual and relationship decision-making is crucial, but they can find communicating with their teens about these topics really difficult.
Few parents had comprehensive sex education themselves, and this compounds concerns about the effects of sexual media on their children’s ideas and aspirations, worries about the adequacy of teacher training to deal with sensitive topics and possible conflict between school and parental values.
All of which makes the NCCA’s aspirations to update our RSE programme to include sexual rights fraught with difficulty.
The Active* Consent programme works within a positive sexual rights framework to create safe spaces for young people to unpack gendered sexual scripts, social norms, internalised peer pressure, the nuances of consent, and ways to improve their communication skills around consent.
To achieve holistic sexuality education, the different ways people learn needs to be accommodated. In order to meet these needs, Active* Consent has developed workshops, eLearning modules, social media content, a filmed theatrical production, and a soon to be released digital hub and podcast.
Over 27,000 third-level students have engaged with our workshops since 2020, and feedback highlights that young people do want to understand how to better navigate and negotiate intimacy and relationships.
The International Day of Consent provides an opportunity for us all to reflect on how we can build a consent culture and support everyone to develop the skills to be active in their consent communications. We can all play a role to ensure that everyone can have their sexual and human rights respected.
Dr Siobhán O’Higgins is a Team Co-lead and Dr Caroline West is the Outreach Coordinator for Active* Consent based in NUI Galway. Find out more at @activeconsent or https://www.nuigalway.ie/student-life/student-support/active-consent/.
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Yes, if it’s popular, I wouldn’t use it.
@Thunder Snowman: exactly this! I looked at the top 10 list when my kids were born, and ruled them out!
Notions!
@Thunder Snowman: things are popular for a reason,
@Thunder Snowman: the problem in Ireland with names is that masses of people have the same surnames. Eg hickey.. Kelly.. Murphy etc so by giving out popular names like John.. Jack. Mary
It makes it near impossible to trace old friends or contacts.. As. There’s billions of john murphys. Sean Brennan.. Parents are loath to be more creative. Such as elvis.. Johan.. Or non saints names..
@NotMyIreland: now that would be a good original name :)
The more popular the name the less likely I’d pick it. Poor child would end up with loads others in the school having the same name and end up being called by their surname instead of their given name.
Yes, exactly. Also at work. I remember two colleagues having the same first, last and middle name and our manager asking them to pick a way to tell them apart for paging and payroll purposes. It’s awkward enough. In the 80s I got cheques made out to various versions, Fitzpatrick, Fitzsimon, you name it, and had to have them reissued. The more unusual the name, the better.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: I was the same as this! Ended up calling us by our first name and then the county we were from as our second name!
@Johnny B: Exactly. I was born in 1954, The ‘Marian year’ .. in Tipperary. Practically every girl in my class was called Marian Ryan ha. Thank goodness for my late mother’s independent thinking!
@Fiona Fitzgerald: I worked in sales at a company once where there were four Mark,s. When the fourth one came on board he was asked to answer the phone as John. Naturally what followed was hilarious as the poor lad had to adjust to not using a name he’d used all his life.
@Johnny B: Unusual names sentence your child to a lifetime of being asked to spell or repeat their name. I am variously called Colin, Donal, Colm, Connell etc and my name is not that exotic.
Just name your child what you want and stop jumping on the bandwagon. My wife and I are quite happy with our newborn Jorge, pronounced (Horhay)
@Ricky: Lovely name, but if you have to spell a name, and then tell people how to pronounce it, it’s a bit awkward. I suspect he’ll end up being called George by everyone else.
No way I’d let the popularity of a kids name effect my choice. Just ask my son, Adolf.
A lot of people don’t seem to care as they are still naming their kids Jack and there must be about 5 of those in every classroom now.
@Fandandi: it’s impossible to trace old friends in Ireland because of all the Jack’s. John’s.. Sean’s. Murphys.. Hickeys etc. Its like tracing win wing woos in China.
Yes I don’t want my kids to have basic names like Jack but nothing too over the top like Dymphna either.
@rice water: Dymphna is hardly over the top. I wonder were there any Assumpthas born this year or any of the names that were common when John Paul II was visiting
Sure every Tom Dick and Harry is called Jack now !
I’d never pick a name for popularity’s sake. I would give my child a name that has meaning
I wanted to call my daughter Emma but was nervous that she would be one of 10 or so girls called Emma in her school. For a while I considered Éabha instead purely because it was less popular. Anyway, I called her Emma and she ended up being the only Emma in the entire school. There was another Éabha in her class though. Just go with the name you like, your child will have it for life.
I’d always be inclined towards fairly plain names. I just could never imagine Nevaeh-Lily – Rose being taken very seriously as a presidential candidate, for example
Our twins boy+girl were born in 2014.stayed away from the popular names and tried to pick something totally different and in hunter and raven I think we succeeded.
@Tony Hanratty: good luck getting jobs lads
@Tony Hanratty: I think they will be changing them when they hit 18.
@Tony Hanratty: Fan of the 90′s show Gladiators by any chance?
I was weirdly pleased when my boy babys name( born in 2019 ) wasnt in the top 100..no other Harrisons in his class !!!
@Lisa Quinn: there are 2 in my sons creche. Like the name though, almost went for it myself. Dexter’s son was Harrison
@Lisa Quinn: there’s a good reason for that
@Wheresmyjumper: ask me tits
@Wheresmyjumper: also youre slaggin a newborn ye dick
@jzT: ha no way!!! 2!! That shut me up!! Its after George Harrison!
I’m teaching 13 years and have one Emily in my class, 11 years ago. Two Jacks in 13 years. Think we have one Jack and one Emily in the school now in a school population of over 400 children
@Mary Josephine: it’s because there’s a bigger variety of names people are choosing from. Even though jack and Emily are the most popular, it’s still less likely they’ll be used than Catherines or Johns were 30 years ago.
My husband’s name is Kim, he’d have much preferred to be called Jack! Think carefully folks.
I went with what was popular in 1969 lol my daughter born last Jan was called Mary-Anne after my godmother and my granny ❤️
Is there a difference between popular and common?
@Marg FitzGerald: Yes, rain is common in Ireland, but not popular.
I really don’t get if for example Emily is number one for 9 years how you’d add onto that list and have your kid forevermore Emily H. or Emily M. Or whatever in a class full of Emilys! But I’m obviously in the minority! I say this as someone who had 4 or 5 of same name in my class all my life and hated it.
@Sinead Mooney: Pick a name you like, nevermind whether it is no.1 or no.99 on the list. Picking a name based on the popularity is silly, yes there may end up been three or four in their class at school, but what does that matter! School is for a few years, a name is for life!
Yeh, I wouldn’t use a popular name. Maybe Virginia for a girl
@The only INFP in Ireland: your daughter will sue you.
Nope, I’m happy with mine.
I haven’t heard of anyone copying my kids snot and puke name,I wonder why
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