I am pleased to share some of the best, most comprehensive and most badass explanations of enthusiastic consent, “Sex Talk” below.  We at SAFER can’t emphasize enough how important it is that a sexual assault policy be sex positive. And I know at first glance that might have a strange ring to it, but gimme a minute and I’ll lay it out for you.

A comprehensive and usable understanding of consent is the absolute first step to preventing sexual violence.   In turn, a strong definition of consent in a sexual assault policy on a college campus is how to make policy sex-positive.  Policies should not simply “condone” healthy sexuality and “prohibit” assault, but actively encourage the community to engage in the practice of affirmative, enthusiastic consent.   If we are all engaging in the asking and telling of what we desire than we can also clearly point out instances for ourselves when our line was pushed or directly violated.  If we all share a deeper understanding of what it means to consciously engage in the sex you want to be having, than we will effectively eliminate victim blaming that comes along with so-called “gray rape.”  Prime examples include: “they were both so blitzed… who knows what actually happened” nights or the “well, they were making out on that couch for hours, so clearly that was a green light.” responses.  We can build a culture that values knowing what you want and having the mind to ask if it’s also what your partner wants.   We can extend that cultural value to creating clear community standards of what will happen when someone’s consent is violated and they want to take action for justice and perpetrator accountability.   It starts to slowly but surely un-do all of the awkwardess of uncertainty and amps up the hotness of getting (and giving!) a “hell, yes!”  Last week I wrote about “green dots” on campuses.  A commitment to enthusiastic consent in every sexual encounter you have is one of the biggest green dots you can earn.

For more on definitions of consent, check out this article in the Activist Resource Center. We also have a giant list of different definitions of consent that you can pull and mix and match with.  If you’re interested in this resource, please e-mail us at contact (@) safercampus (.) org

The second part of this whole equation, of course, is learning how to accept a “no, thanks” gracefully.   I’ll let you know when I come across more stunning graphic art covering the subject.  Big thank you to Maisha for permission to post her art!  You can see her other work here.

I admit it, sometimes I get really tired of discussing the problem(s) of sexual violence/assault.  I believe that most feminist/anti-violence organizers come to a time when we GET IT – we understand the problem and the prevalence of sexual violence and rape culture.   What we don’t always have is the gratification of solution-oriented perspectives that pull us into the light of the possibility of a world free of sexual violence.

I recently had the pleasure of witnessing Dr. Dorothy Edwards live in action describing a down-to-earth and accessible bystander intervention program, Green Dot. Dr. Edwards owned the room as she explained a simple but powerful idea live in front of the audience of the MCASA (Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault) conference, Preventing Sexual Violence: A Team Approach for Campuses.   She definitely articulated the concept/program better than myself, but for the sake of avoiding plagiarism, I’ll put it in my own words from what I gathered last Thursday in MD.

The idea goes something like this:

Imagine a map of your community (for the sake of keeping things relatively simple here, let’s say your college campus).

Now take the ultimate bingo-blobber of your creative imagination, and make a red dot on your community map for every instance of violence happening on your campus.  For the sake of this mental exercise, violence is defined as any act of sexual assault, rape, stalking, or form of dating violence.  It also includes humiliation, coercion, threats, shaming and victim blaming.  Furthermore, and most importantly for this exercise, it includes every time those acts or behaviors were tolerated, ignored, laughed with, scoffed at, replicated or simply received/accepted with no form of intervention what-so-ever. We know the stats here – your imaginary map will quickly fill with a sea of red dots.  This is rape culture in action.  This is bystander apathy at its worst.  This is what we’re up against.

But now, let’s flip a switch of possibility.  For every act of intervention, for every attempt at raising awareness or active prevention of sexual violence – let’s blob a green dot instead of a red.  These green dots represent witnesses, bystanders to sexual violence who chose to do something, anything to take action and contribute to safety.

Dr. Edwards spelled it out pretty clearly for me – that every person has an obligation to do something, (really, anything!) to put a little more safety into our communities, and thus, the world.   Of course, I’m already on-board with this – but she framed it in a way that made it seem so deeply, innately easy.  There’s not just one way to put a green dot on the map.  In fact, there are at least three major pathways to doing something in the heat of the moment where a red dot is just about to take formation on your community map.  People can take action through any of the three options below:

1) Direct - directly address the behavior, act, words, gesture etc.
2) Delegate – recruit!  You don’t have to do this alone, find someone who will either do it for or at the very least, with you.
3) Distract – Diffuse the situation with anything.  (Examples include: telling someone that their car is getting towed, cutting in to dirty dance, starting up a riveting game of charades etc.)

In fact, here’s a giant list of concrete ways your can add a green dot to your map everyday.

We at SAFER have another idea to add to the list, something you can do without leaving the comforts of wherever you’re reading this online.  Our challenge to you is to use the Campus Accountability Project to put a Green Dot on your campus map.

Take the time to find out what your school (or your Alma Mater, or your local college/university) is doing to prevent and respond to sexual violence by checking out the entry in our policies database.  If your school is not in our database, contribute to the research so that future anti-violence activists can build off of your work.   You can submit your policy research here through our easy step-by-step form. (CAP submissions are for students only – if you are not a current student and want to see a school in the database, reach out to current campus activists!)  We want schools that both need an enormous amount of improvement and good examples of the best practices from around the country.  (For more on the Campus Accountability Project, please read more here)

Listen, we are accountable to each other’s safety, health and well-being.  SAFER can help you figure out how to make your school accountable to your safety and the safety of your community.   Help us build the infrastructure to contribute to future research on how to best remain solution-oriented so that we can all look forward to maps that are seas of green dots.