Youngsters feel consent is important when contemplating sex, but do not always know how to ask for it. That is why the Flemish centre of expertise in sexual matters, Sensoa, is launching a campaign about consent. ‘Nowhere are young people taught how to ask consent,’ says Jolien Peeters of Sensoa.
‘Consent starts with a chat’ is the motto of Sensoa's new campaign. The aim is to impress upon youngsters that it is normal to ask consent during sex and to have an explicit conversation about it.
According to the organisation, consent is still too often treated as something strange or uncomfortable. ‘Nowhere are youngsters taught how to have that conversation. Schools do not teach them how to check or how to set boundaries. It is rarely discussed on television too,’ says Sensoa’s Jolien Peeters.
The organisation wants to lower the threshold with regard to asking for consent. And that is necessary, because although almost all young people consider it important to ask for consent, 1 in 4 feel it’s a difficult thing to do. This is clear from a survey Sensoa conducted among 500 young people between the ages of 16 and 25.
Conversation starters
Sensoa is also launching a number of concrete conversation starters in its campaign aimed at helping young people start a conversation about consent. Examples include: “Is this okay?” and 'May I?'
These various “conversation starters” were developed together with young people themselves. ‘They said that it helps to have concrete examples of how to ask consent,’ explains Peeters. ‘To come up with these phrases, we asked them what they themselves would like to hear during sex.’
Constantly changing
Sensoa is using this campaign to explain to young people that consent can change constantly. ‘In many campaigns, consent is a clear “yes” or “no”, while the reality is much more complex,’ Peeters continues.
"Consent is dynamic. Agreeing to one form of intimacy does not automatically mean that you want other things. You actually have to continuously check, even when you are intimate online or want to have sex with your regular partner."