Talking to friends about sexual consent (part one)

Superdrug’s You Before Yes Campaign delves deeper into the crucial, but often overlooked world, of consent. It opens up important conversations about what it actually means, helping you feel in the know and empowered to find your voice when it comes to all things consent.

In this blog post from the series, Fumble, the free digital sex education platform, discusses how you can talk to friends about sexual consent.

Sexual consent outside of your sexual relationships

This topic is too important to keep private, behind closed doors or solely between sexual partners.

Sexual consent can feel really tricky, despite the general oversimplification that it’s ‘just’ about saying yes/no to what we want sexually. There are lots of reasons why it can feel more complex:

• There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding sexual violence, e.g. the belief that most sexual assaults and rape are committed by strangers, when Rape Crisis actually shows that 1 in 2 women experience rape from their partner or ex-partner, and 5 in 6 women experience rape from someone they know.
• A lot of us grew up without adequate, quality sex education that taught us about understanding and communicating sexual consent and boundaries. 
• Porn has unfortunately filled the ‘sex education’ gap for lots of people, and is still used as a ‘how to’ in the absence of formal sex education. Among other things, mainstream porn rarely shows realistic sexual consent chat.

When you think about sexual consent as navigating sexual desire and rejection, it’s not really that surprising that it feels complicated. This is then coupled with the stigma and shame that still surrounds sexual desire and pleasure, particularly for women and people assigned female at birth.

So, we need to be talking about all of this more. There may be a particular reason why it feels important to talk to a friend (or someone else close to you). Here’s some support and suggestions on how to bring it up.

How to support a friend/family member who’s experienced sexual violence

• Believe them and don’t blame them

Devastatingly, there is a victim-blaming culture that often surrounds sexual violence and it makes it even harder for the survivor to process what’s happened to them. As a close person to your friend or family member, you can provide a lot of support just by believing them and not blaming them, and saying this out loud to them. Avoid anything that questions their behaviour or makes them explain their situation.

• Listen

Listening to what they say is such a valuable way to give support. Try not to interrupt or ask questions. They may go into detail, but they may not. Avoid pushing them to share more – this is about their comfort levels. You may notice that the story jumps back and forth, or that there are inconsistencies. This is really common for any traumatic experience; it has nothing to do with the validity of what happened.

Listening to a friend or family member talk about a traumatic event is difficult and emotional. It’s very understandable to feel upset or angry for them, and you don’t need to hide your feelings. Just try not to let your emotions take over the conversation.

• Don’t tell other people or report it ‘for them’

This isn’t your experience to tell. One of the reasons sexual violence is so traumatic is because it can take away a person’s sense of control. You may want to report what happened to the police, or book a doctor’s appointment for them. These are all understandable feelings; you want to do the best for your friend/family member. But this isn’t your decision to make, it’s theirs. The best way to support them is to follow their lead on what they want to do next.

• Show them where they can get further support and information

There are lots of services that offer support to people who have experienced sexual violence. Reassure them that they don’t have to manage this alone. There are doctors, nurses, advisors and counsellors who are specially trained to support survivors of sexual violence, and they want to help.

• Look after yourself and get support as needed

As much as this experience isn’t yours to tell, it’s important that you look after yourself and have a space to talk about what your friend/family member has gone through. You may also have experienced sexual violence of some form yourself, which can bring up some difficult memories. Reach out to services specialising in sexual violence support; they will also offer support to friends/family members supporting someone who’s experienced this.