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Key points
- Sex education standards remain a controversial issue in most states. An increased focus on the topic of consent has shifted the conversation.
- Physical and sexual dating violence are all-too-common in high school, but consent, relationships, and sex are often conflated in conversations.
- Consent education does not have to talk about sex to be effective and can be aligned to any values or curriculums.
Sex education has been a controversial topic for as long as I can remember. My own high school sex education experience in Missouri was focused on STDs and required the signing of an abstinence pledge. Although only 30 states (and the District of Columbia) require some kind of sex education, there are 37 that require the provision of information on abstinence, and 28 that require abstinence-only is emphasized.
School districts and state legislators are still battling over curriculum — recently, nearly 50 Nebraska school districts protested new state health and sex ed standards for elementary school students, which included lessons on same-sex family structures and gender identity. The battle lines of these issues are clear, with conservative religious beliefs about sex driving much policy-making. One notable shift in this national dialogue has been a new spotlight on the topic of consent.
This shift in subject matter and advocacy followed the Me Too movement, driven by a goal of preventing teen dating violence. According to the CDC, in the past year, nearly 1 in 11 female students and 1 in 14 male students have experienced physical dating violence; 1 in 8 female students and 1 in 26 male students have experienced sexual dating violence. The statistics show that this is an all-too-common occurrence for high school students, but the focus on teen dating violence has forced a conflation between consent, romantic relationships, and sex. What should be a fairly banal subject — setting personal boundaries based on your values and needs and respecting other people's boundaries — is now more fodder in the partisan battle over sex education.
Separating Sex and Consent Education
In reality, consent education doesn't even need to talk about sex to be effective. One successful program includes lessons on cyberbullying. Harvard Medical School emphasizes that consent can be about a young child deciding whether or not to hug a family member. And a recent Columbia University study found that teaching refusal skills in middle school — a key skill set often subsumed under resisting peer pressure — decreases the risk of sexual violence all the way into college.
Regardless of the political leanings of a state or school district, consent education can be aligned to any values or curriculum. Is abstinence-only the focus? Students can still learn refusal skills and how to set and communicate boundaries. It can even be separated completely from sex education, through professional school counselor-led guidance lessons about bullying, healthy friendships, or respecting religious diversity.
I have seen firsthand the kind of conversations students can have about consent. These amazing, transformative experiences can shift the entire culture of a classroom — or even a campus. Instead of focusing on inflammatory soundbites and misinformation to score political points, school boards and state legislatures could instead unite over consent education. Decreasing preventable relationship violence is a goal that transcends both political and religious beliefs about sex. Rather than controversy, consent education could be a beautiful compromise.
