Consent Laid Bare

You are a 14-year-old girl at a party. You are drunk. All your friends are drunk. A boy is pressuring you to have sex. You don't really want to, but you don't know how to say no. You really want him to like you. So you say yes, at least you think you say yes. You can't remember. What you do remember is the shame that follows.

This scenario plays out across Australia, every weekend. We know, because in 2021, Chanel Contos invited girls and women to provide testimonials of their most negative sexual experiences. The nearly 7000 responses described behaviour that is, at best, chronically anti-social and, at worst, constitutes rape.

Knowledge is power. Consent Laid Bare is a conversation starter that will help young women feel less alone, less likely to feel pressured into sexual encounters that they don't want, less ashamed if they find themselves in a tricky situation and more inclined to hold their perpetrators to account in the moment and afterwards.