New Times
9.9.15 | Camilla Lanham
Empowerment revolution: Society's approach to sexual assault is morphing, and Cal Poly's ahead of the curve
Think about sex like you would a corndog. If you buy someone a corndog at the Mid-State Fair, and they don’t want it, you aren’t going to force them to eat it with ketchup and mustard.
Now trade that corndog in for tea and you have “Tea Consent” by Blue Seat Studios, which uses a cup of tea, stick figures, and humor to illustrate the concept of sexual consent. The
2 1/2-minute video (posted on YouTube) opens with: “If you’re still struggling with consent, just imagine instead of initiating sex, you’re making them a cup of tea.”
It’s a simple message. If someone doesn’t want tea, or changes their mind about wanting tea, or passes out, you wouldn’t make them drink tea.
Cal Poly’s Safer—which address the issues of sexual violence, dating violence, and domestic violence by providing services like preventative education, confidential crisis counseling, and advocacy—uses the video as an icebreaker. It’s the lead-in to that seriously uncomfortable discussion about sex and sexual assault during Safer’s presentations to students. And it’s definitely going to make an appearance, or 10, during the university’s upcoming Week of Welcome for incoming freshmen.
Those fresh-faced 18-year-olds are also likely to come across T-shirts and pins emblazoned with the saying: “I [heart] consensual sex.”
Safer Coordinator Christina Kaviani said she tries to get through to students using every angle she can to prevent sexual assaults from happening, to try and change what she sees as a culture that is society’s enabler: media images, gender stereotypes, sexuality and intimacy that isn’t discussed, victim-blaming, and sex education in high school and junior high that doesn’t do much more than preach abstinence.
