“So how do you get consent without making it awkward?”
Blank stares. Some guys shift uncomfortably in their chairs. I have just told a room of 18-year-old men that the state of Virginia legally defines effective consent as “the presence of a yes, not the absence of a no.” How we go about getting to yes is the topic of conversation.
“You just kinda feel it out, ya know? Like, you feel the mood, and make your move…”
The laughter in the room ranges from uncomfortable to relieved, and we get a valuable glimpse of the way we men think about sex: you get a sense of the playing field, and then you move. Like football. Like chess. The guys who think about sex as football probably have more sex than those who think about it like chess, or at least so they would have us believe. Either way, the woman is our opponent; we have to maneuver the situation to where she’s willing to “give it up.” Then we can “get some.” Out of renewed silence, another hand creeps up.
“Ask if you should get a condom?”
Nods of assent. This seems reasonable. You still look certain, masculine and your intentions are pretty clear. This young man has identified the most important element of consent: opening a space for your partner to communicate a decision with confidence that you will respect it. I often say when I’m talking to groups like these, “if someone wants to have sex with you, and you ask her permission, that probably will not change her mind.”
I’ve been involved in One in Four since 2011. An all-male group, we spend our days speaking to men around U.Va. about consent, supporting survivors, and bystander intervention. About how what we say affects how we think. These are all related, and the most important part of our work is demonstrating to the men we meet that sexual violence is not just a women’s issue. It is a human issue. We take our name from the fact that one out of every four college-aged women in America has survived rape or attempted rape since her 14th birthday. One in four. Look around your next lecture hall. Look at one of the long tables at Newcomb or O-Hill. Look around the dance floor at Trinity. One out of every four women you see has brushed far closer to this darkness than they would ever let on to you, the casual stranger.
But it goes beyond that. One in every 12 men have been sexually assaulted. Every survivor has friends and family who love them and are forever changed by the process of helping them recover. If they even get the chance to help. Many survivors fear they will not be believed, and tell no one to save themselves the pain of putting their story on trial. Only 5 percent of rapes are reported to the police, meaning that the suffering of sexual violence is borne most immediately by its survivors and their families, and offenders carry on with impunity. This issue pervades our lives, and yet remains unaddressed, festering in an atmosphere of suspicion and fear. This brings us back to that room of 18-year-olds who may have been afraid to come to our presentation because they don’t want to be accused of being rapists.
None of this will ever stop unless we can have a conversation about it. But it’s about more than just talking. When young men grow up having their first sexual encounters with computer screens, and young girls swim in the crosscurrents of sexualized marketing and values-based sex ed, how do you drag sex out of the netherworld of cultural discomfort? The twin messages of “you should want sex!” and “don’t you go having sex!” are too much for anyone to bear, and create a toxic environment where we don’t know what to expect, often drowning our uncertainty in alcohol before diving in. We live in a society that is sexually traumatizing down to its very language, so how are we supposed to talk in an open, healthy way about sex, much less sexual trauma?
It’s a movement with no center, a revolution with no leader. It has to be a change in consciousness that emerges individually in thousands of different minds across the university and far beyond. It comes from people who make a choice not to be afraid. It comes from asking someone who says “that test raped me” to choose another word. It comes from believing a survivor when he or she tells you a story of suffering, and offering yourself as a support on the path to recovery. It means having a conversation, a dialogue, not just having sex. Only by being unafraid can we help others define their expectations and articulate a new conversation.
Matt Menezes is a second-year graduate student in the Batten School and the president of One in Four.
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