Teaching consent, policing intimacy

Article here. Excerpt:

'Until recently, the idea of consent was associated with acts that are voluntary, free of coercion or compulsion. As theOxford English Dictionary puts it, consent is a ‘voluntary agreement to or acquiescence in what another proposes or desires’. It is ironic, therefore, that advocates of so-called consent workshops in universities want to make them, well, non-consensual. As one supporter of consent classes said: ‘It’s crucial they’re compulsory or the people who need to go won’t go.’

It seems those demanding that consent workshops be made compulsory have little understanding of the idea of consent. But then, these workshops aren’t really about the meaning of consent. Rather, they are informed by a desire to police intimacy and to moralise about student behaviour.

Take the UK National Union of Students’ ‘I Heart Consent’ guide for consent-workshop leaders. It says consent workshops should provide a ‘safer space where people feel comfortable to explore topics, definitions and myths’. But the discussion it advocates is anything but exploratory. The guide promotes a rigid party line and any view that deviates from this line is castigated as a myth or as a ‘problematic’ view that must be corrected. The guide insists that workshop leaders must ‘challenge myths and rectify problematic perspectives on consent’ as well as ‘encourage a healthy view of consent’. ‘Healthy’ here is not a medical term; it’s a moralistic one, referring to ‘healthy’ attitudes and ‘healthy’ sentiments.'