One-in-five teenage boys do not believe consent is always necessary before having sex, according to new research.
The Consent Communication study from NUI Galway surveyed 600 fourth and fifth students and found a gender gap in how boys and girls view consent.
It found that 93% of girls believe consent is always necessary before sex, while just 79% of boys felt the same.
Of the 21% of boys who did not feel consent was always required 18% were neutral and 3% disagreed.
Some 6% of girls were neutral and 1% disagreed.
Meanwhile, 62% of the boys and girls surveyed said consent always needed to be verbal and 60% said non-verbal consent was sometimes OK.
On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Dr Padraig MacNeela, Co-Lead of the Active Consent Programme at NUIG said many teenagers change their views when different scenarios are put to them.
“We would definitely like to see an improvement in those figures because, when we give people kind of real-life stories then we can see them struggling a bit,” he said.
“Thinking for example a smile is enough for different types of sexual activity or even if there is no non-verbal consent coming from the other person, a significant proportion of people – again mainly boys – thinking that is OK to progress with that type of situation.”
He said the study highlights the need for a more systematic approach to consent education.
As a result, the Active Consent programme for schools is being launched today.
The programme is made up of four main components, which can be delivered together or on a stand-alone basis.
- An in-class or online sexual consent workshop for people aged 15 to 17-years-old.
- A set of seminars for parents and guardians and education/training resources for teachers.
- An e-learning resource entitled ‘Sex on Our Screens’ which is designed to increase young people’s critical literacy skills on sexual media, porn, body image, and consent.
- A film entitled ‘How I Learned About Consent’, which aims to introduce young people to issues of consent in a more emotive manner.
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