Yes Means Yes: Rethinking Consent in Sex Education

• In Event: 56.022 - Reimagining, Rethinking, and Reorienting Trans-formational Curricula and Pedagogies

Abstract

Conversations about consent in sex education have increasingly embraced models of “affirmative consent.” In contrast to the older feminist slogan, ‘no means no,’ affirmative consent is founded on a yes. In this paper, I juxtapose the conversations about this new model of consent in sex education with the uneven patchwork of age of consent laws in North America to raise questions about how consent is being framed in sex education. I explore three issues that arise out of this contrast: 1. the continuing assumption that women give and men receive consent; 2. the rise of the neoliberal subject of sex education who is able to freely choose or refuse sexual activity; and, 3. the spectre of ambivalence in sexual decision-making.

Author

• Jen Gilbert, York University