Defining Consent
Now have students complete the interactivity in the student chapter Consent Is… to identify one aspect of consent based on each scanrio.
You may have students complete this individually, in pairs, or in groups. Depending on whether or not you divided the class in the previous activity, you can either have each student, pair or group do the exercise with just one scenario, or with all of them.
When students have finished, have them propose their aspect of the definition to the rest of the class and discuss it.
Make sure the following aspects are included:
Consent… has to be real: Jasmine said yes when Abigail asked to share her Instagram account, but if Abigail had been paying attention to how Jasmine was acting she would have realized she didn’t really want to do it. We can’t read minds, but we can pay attention to how other people are feeling: if we think they don’t really want to consent, we can either ask them if they really mean it or else act as if they haven’t consented until we’re sure.
Consent… has to be conscious. Jaime couldn’t consent to having Marc take or share the picture because he was asleep. Anytime you’re not able to consciously make a decision – because you’re asleep, if you’re intoxicated (drunk or on drugs), or if you’re below the legal age of consent for certain activities, you cannot give consent, and nobody should do anything to you that requires your consent.
Consent… has to be active. Kelly should not have assumed that it was okay to look at Grace’s computer just because Grace didn’t say not to. It’s not enough to say “you never said no”: a person has to say “yes” to anything that requires consent. If the word “yes” isn’t used then they have to show consent very clearly in some other way (see “consent has to be real” above).
Consent… has to be informed. Lucas couldn’t give real consent to watching the video because he had no idea what it was about. You don’t need to know every detail, but you have to have a clear idea of what you’re consenting to. And don’t assume you know what’s important to other people: you may not need to know whether there’s nuts in something before consenting to eat it, but someone with a nut allergy does!
Consent… has to be freely given. If you can’t say “no”, you can’t say “yes”: Anthony didn’t feel free to say no to Mia because he was worried she would break up with him if he did. If you pressure or threaten someone to get them to do something, or if you have power over them for some reason (like an employer and an employee), then they can’t give you genuine consent.
Consent… has to be specific. Giving consent to one thing doesn’t mean giving consent to any other thing, even if they are connected: Isaiah gave Dylan permission to use his computer to check his email, but not anything else – and certainly not something that could damage Isaiah’s computer or get him in trouble.
Consent… has to be given every time. Zach had always agreed before when he and Natalie talked about posting their videos, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have to ask this time too. Everyone has a right to change their mind, and to be asked for consent every time.
Consent… is a right that never goes away. Just because Anna sent the photo to someone, that person still had to get her consent before sending it to anyone else. Even if she had given that person consent, anyone else who received the photo still had to get her consent before sharing it with anyone else.