Recently, there's been a lot of talk in colleges across Ireland around sexual consent classes. Talking on The Pat Kenny Show, Union of Students in Ireland President Annie Hoey, as well as ex-CEO of the Rape Crisis Centre Ellen O'Malley Dunlop, talked about what consent actually means and why it should be part of our college curriculum.
Hoey explained to Pat that the sexual consent workshops carried out by universities associated with the USI were "over-subscribed" and called them "sexual well-being workshops". Annie explained that the main reason people went to the workshops was "to get clarity around things" involving consent.
In Ireland, rape is the second most serious crime in our constitution and can carry a life sentence. Since the Sexual Consensus Bill 2017 was written into law, we now have a definition of what consent is and isn't. It's clear that this is something we have to teach children from a young age.
All of us have gone through the torture of sex-ed classes in secondary school but Annie made the point that classes are "clinical" and don't teach us "how to have relationships". The consent classes carried out in Irish universities aim to equip young people with language on how to "engage in a healthy way".
The ladies, of course, touched on the issues of trust and using dating apps. Tinder is by far the most used dating app available, with 25 million users. Hoey made the point that "we're moving into an age changing how we communicate with people". For a lot of people, Tinder is seen as a way to easily hook up and dating doesn't even come into the equation.
There clearly needs to be more concrete guidelines in the ways young people engage using the app. O'Malley Dunlop pressed how culturally we "really need to hone in on what we mean by yes and no". These sexual consent classes aim to help lay down boundaries for consent safety online.
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Although there was a lot of media attention on the fact that both UL and UCD had to cancel their sexual consent courses as not enough people went to them, Hoey made the point that USI affiliated colleges like Maynooth and UCC had to actually turn away people from the classes.
UCC have even taken the step to integrate sexual consent courses into the law department. The 'It Stops Now' campaign has been starting a conversation between students and staff alike. The campaign launched in April aims to end sexual harassment in Third Level Education.
Also Read: A Couple Got Engaged At Forbidden Fruit And It's The Cutest Thing You'll See Today
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