On the blog “Hyperbole and a Half,” there’s a post about the phrase, “Please Stop!!” It’s an account of children discovering the limitations of using that phrase for world domination.
But the phrase itself is somewhat more nuanced than the blog post may lead you to believe. I myself have used it as both a weapon and a defense, like most little kids who learned just how powerful “please stop” could be. But the effect of this tool carries beyond childhood – it develops into a useful skill, the ability to ask someone to stop what they’re doing. But it should not have to be our primary defense. People should be expected to ask permission rather than have the expectation and responsibility fall on the subject of the actions.
Consent involves two parties – one asking for consent and actually accepting the answer given, and the other party either giving or withholding their consent. This idea is not that hard conceptually, but when taught at a later stage of development – say, early adulthood – the full breadth of its applications becomes harder to grasp.
Currently, most consent education is taught between the ages of about 16 to 20, and deal primarily, if not only, with sexual consent, though the content of such education varies from state to state, even between school districts. While these are very important times to pose reminders of how important consent is, and to suggest ways to avoid potentially dangerous situations, this is too late to introduce these ideas. Not to mention, focusing only on sexual consent makes it harder for people to realize that consent applies in more areas of life than just the bedroom, although sexual consent does hold the most dangerous implications if not properly understood.
If the concepts of consent in both sexual and nonsexual contexts are being newly presented during this period of development and transition, then there is less time for students to fully adjust to the new information being given to them. Furthermore, without a habit of asking for consent, asking can feel awkward. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be that hard to ask for and give consent, but with so few examples in people’s lives or even in popular media, it can easily be an uncomfortable or “weird” question to stop and ask – and there must be room to withhold consent.
At large family gatherings such as Thanksgiving, children are usually told to give their older relatives a “big hug” or even a kiss, regardless of whether or not they want to. Similarly, when one small child forces a hug on another child, the scenario is often called “adorable,” even if the one being hugged expresses discomfort or is displeased with the situation. This renders a child’s consent unnecessary, negating any cursory attempts at teaching consent earlier, or even worse, teaching children that consent only must be asked for, and not actually given.
If all of this is happening, then does it seem logical to cram a whole bunch of relatively new information about consent into a fairly short period of time? Sure, if the consent education during orientation, both at UCLA and online, were used as a refresher course during a scary and sometimes overwhelming time for students. However, since students have not been consistently exposed to the concept of consent prior to coming to UCLA, it’s easy to forget all that new information from orientation, especially when it’s presented rather briefly
Instead, it would be much more reasonable to space out consent education over the course of students’ educational lives. If the concept of consent is introduced early in childhood, then students have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the basic idea of it – to ask if something is okay when it affects another person, which isn’t that complex of an idea. Sure, children are taught to say please, among other ways of asking for some form of consent, but they are also not given the space to withhold consent, and therefore aren’t properly taught about consent. They should be given time to work up to the bigger, more complex issue of sexual consent, as opposed to the limited, rushed programs in place now, if they are in place at all.
The more exposed people are to an idea over an extended period of time, the better they will remember it. By failing to teach the full breadth and importance of consent, and by not starting this education earlier in childhood development, we set ourselves up to fail, or at least to make more mistakes than necessary. We need to set up a system that allows children to grow up understanding that consent is not only necessary to ask for, but is required in more than just one area of life.
I like to think that someday we might live in a world in which saying, “Please stop” isn’t a necessary skill – instead, it can just part of a game that kids play.