Not Your Cup of Tea

The Trials and Tribulations of Discussing Consent

Consent! It’s simple as tea. Do not force tea down someone’s throat. Do not give an unconscious person tea. And if a person declines a cup of tea, then, under no circumstances, should you give them tea.

This almost ludicrously intuitive line of reasoning was a message of Sciences Po’s mandated gender-based and sexual violence (GBSV) training session. The ubiquitous tea video has been viewed over 150 million times across different viewing platforms and serves as the default teaching tool when it comes to exposing youth to the idea of consent. Using tea as an analogy for sex is palatable. The slogan, “consent, it’s simple as tea” is straightforward. The video, just under three minutes, is pithy. And because of that, it is a complete and utter cop-out.

The last thing we need in our discourse surrounding sex is to oversimplify the meaning of consent. Its prevailing definition almost always hinges on the “yes means yes” and “no means no” binary. It preaches “just don’t assault people.” A French track 1A, who opted to remain anonymous, seems to have internalized this mode of thinking. “[We’re always told] that we have to respect consent, to not rape people. But I know that. I’m not a rapist.”

Nicole Cushman, executive director of Answer, a national organization that provides sex education to the masses, posits that, “an effective lesson on consent is not just about providing a legal definition and a script that young people need to follow.” This, however, was precisely what Sciences Po’s GBSV training did. Rather than acknowledging that unequal power dynamics, coercion, and substance abuse (according to a 2009 study published in the Journal of American College Health, 80% of university sexual assaults involve alcohol) can lead to a consensual gray area, we were offered the cute but cursory tea video.

SciencesPo Menton had the opportunity to redeem itself, to provide the venue and time necessary for students to have a more in-depth conversation about consent. But administration failed its student body when it refused to host the Feminist Union’s (FU) annual Integration Week Consent Talks — an event that aims to initiate conversations about consent and sex — on campus this year.

Co-president of the Feminist Union, Zélie Savinien, reached out to the school administration hoping to secure a place in the Integration Week schedule to hold the talks. “They told us that they had institutional priorities. They had seminars regarding the institutions at Sciences Po and they didn’t have space nor time for us,” said Savinien, who eventually resorted to presenting Consent Talks in Soundproof’s living room. “We think that if it had taken place on campus, we’d have had many more people coming.”

The value of having conversations about consent cannot be overstated, especially on a college campus where hookup culture runs rampant and where students may be experimenting with alcohol for the first time. The anonymous 1A did not feel the need to attend the Feminist Union presentation. “We already have (obligatory consent training) with Sciences Po, I don’t think it’s useful to do it many times.” However, these discussions give us the lexicon to express our personal boundaries to our partners. According to a University of Arkansas study focusing on heterosexual college students, 61% of men use body language to gauge whether a woman is consenting. Conversely, only 10% of women actually express consent through nonverbal cues. This definitional disparity can only be reconciled through dialogue and active engagement with the idea of consent.

Despite not being able to host her talks on campus, Savinien was pleased with the turnout. However, she still wished that more students had shown up. “People thought they were educated enough on this issue, but I think everyone should have come.”

Further investigation into why some people did not attend reveals a plethora of different experiences and opinions at SciencesPo Menton. Some decided not to go because they feared that the mention of sexual assault would be a triggering experience. “Consent Talks should have the infrastructure to be more inclusive to survivors,” said a 1A who chose not to go. For others, a deterrent was the Feminist Union itself. “What I didn’t like is that it’s done by an association that is not neutral at all. The Feminist Union has an agenda,” said another student. These grievances help to shed light on how we might be able to better structure or frame the Consent Talks so that they do not become potentially triggering or polarizing.

Under capitalism, we have been conditioned to commodify our bodies, to treat sex as something merely transactional. Perhaps if we shifted this paradigm, if we tried to understand sex as a shared experience, a conversation between two people, that consent might be an easier notion for us to grasp in all its complexity and nuance. Perhaps it would mean that we wouldn’t have to use tea analogies anymore.

- Lara-Nour Walton