October 9, 2026:

Untangling rape culture is complicated. Teaching kids that you need permission to touch someone else’s body is not.

The Cornell University rape case has spurred a renewed flurry of media attention to the issue of campus sexual assault—and sparked new conversations about consent education. 

A civil lawsuit filed on Sept. 16, 2026 alleges that a female student, known only as Jane Doe, was gang-raped by seven men at the Chi Phi fraternity house during a party in 2024. The group assault occurred over the course of many hours, according to the legal filing, while the then-20-year-old woman was under the effects of alcohol and ketamine. 

It also alleges that a fraternity member sent a message to a Snapchat group offering “free p**sy”  and saying that the “shop was open.” That invitation apparently prompted some of the seven alleged rapists to join in the group assault. 

Some commentators are talking about why the university—and not police—handled this case. Others are discussing peer pressure, fraternities, and the culture of drinking on many college campuses. Some are calling out the tendency to scrutinize the victim’s behavior rather than the perpetrators’ actions. Women across the country have posted “I Am Jane Doe” in solidarity. 

Meanwhile, conservative talk show hosts like Megyn Kelly have questioned whether this really was rape. The president worries that New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has now been appointed to investigate the case—and whose office previously investigated Trump—won’t give the perpetrators fair treatment. 

Untangling rape culture is complicated and often painful. But as a sex educator, I keep coming back to the idea that consent itself is very simple. Teaching kids that you need permission to touch anyone else’s body early—and then being explicit about how this applies to sex as they get older—is the first step to creating a culture of respect that was apparently in short supply at Chi Phi. 

What is consent?

This is basically all anyone has to know about sexual consent:

• Don’t have sex with someone unless you know they want to have sex with you.  
• If you don’t know whether someone wants to have sex with you, ask. 
• If they don’t say yes, don’t have sex with them.
• If they are too drunk or high to say yes, don’t have sex with them. 
• If they are passed out, don’t have sex with them. 

My favorite tool for teaching about consent is a 2015 video that compares sex to making someone a cup of tea. It was created by the U.K.-based Blue Seat Studios and blogger Emmeline May, who wrote about feminism and body positivity. 

The black-and-white video features stick figure animation and a narrator with a genteel British accent who points out that you usually start by asking someone if they want a cup of tea. If they say, “Oh my God. I would love a cup of tea, thank you,” the narrator intones, “then you know they want a cup of tea.”  

On the other hand, if they’re not sure about tea, the video adds, “you could make them a cup of tea or not—but be aware that they might not drink it. And if they don’t drink it then, and this is the important bit: Don’t make them drink it.”

The video covers simple rules. You don’t make tea for someone who says they don’t want tea, because they said they don’t want tea. And if a person says yes to a cup of tea but then decides they don’t really want it, you can’t make them drink the tea.  

I suppose the most relevant part of the video for the students at Cornell is when the person you’re offering tea to is found lying on the ground. 

“If they’re unconscious, don’t make them tea,” the narrator says. “Unconscious people don’t want tea. And they can’t answer the question ‘do you want tea?’ because they’re unconscious.” 

This video was later used as a public education campaign by the Thames Valley police South East England. I used it every semester with the college students in my sociology of sexuality classes and have repeatedly shown it to my own children 

Unfortunately, the Tea and Consent video does not mention bystanders or upstanders—people who witness wrongdoing and make the choice to get involved. 

The video’s creators could be forgiven for thinking this was obvious, but perhaps they needed to add: “If someone texts you that a person is passed out in their room and you could come upstairs and force tea down their throat, you should instead go upstairs and stop other people from pouring tea down their throat.”   

In less than three minutes, the video explains (nearly) everything young people and adults need to know about consent. It works because of the absurdity of forcing people to drink tea, and the fact that tea does not carry the cultural baggage that sex does. 

How to teach kids about consent 

The video demonstrates that we don’t have to talk about sex to talk about consent. We can start by teaching kids that everyone is in charge of their own body, and no one should touch anyone else without asking. More importantly, we can model this behavior in our own lives.

When relatives come over, make a point of asking them if they want Grandma or Uncle Jim to give them a kiss, and feel free to correct the relatives if they go in for a smooch without asking. 

Ask your kid if they want to be tickled. If they tell you to stop, stop—even if they’re laughing hysterically and clearly having fun. Point this out when you do it: “I stopped because you told me to stop. We shouldn’t ever touch anyone else’s body if they don’t want us to even if we think we’re having fun.”  

Then talk to them about the playground or the lunchroom. Ask them what they would do if they ever saw anyone getting picked on or bullied. Tell them why it’s important to step in or to get an adult. Make sure they understand that it’s not okay to just watch it happen and do nothing, and it’s definitely not okay to join in. 

These conversations with young kids provide the building blocks for more mature conversations with tweens and teens that you must have before they go to college.  

The points you make should be similarly simple, with messages like: Don’t have sex with someone unless you know they want to have sex with you. If you don’t know whether someone wants to have sex with you, ask. If they don’t say yes, don’t have sex with them. If they’re passed out, don’t have sex with them. 

And, maybe, if you get a text advertising that a semi-conscious woman is available for sex, don’t stand by while your seven of your fraternity brothers take turn raping her or ask if you can just whip it out. Help!

I’m being snarky, but I do believe that we have to have these conversations very explicitly. Use this case. Tell your kid that it’s not enough not to join in—they have a responsibility to get involved and help stop it. If they don’t feel safe or comfortable stepping in alone, they should grab some friends. If they’re scared to intervene at all, tell them to call the police. 

When there are many witnesses to a crime or an emergency, individuals are less likely to step in. It’s called the bystander effect. Remind your kids that they can’t assume someone else will do something. But mostly, tell them again and again that they have to help. 

Consent education is the starting point

When incidents like what happened at Cornell come to light, conversations in the media and on social networks often get bogged down in questions like whether the victim was drunk when they got to the party or whether they went to the room voluntarily. 

People want to know whether she resisted enough. In this case, many people want to invalidate Jane Doe’s account entirely because a campus disciplinary panel found that she had agreed to have sex with two of the men earlier in the night (though alcohol seems to have been involved then, too).

The cultural messages that lead to this kind of victim-blaming are complicated and they absolutely blur whatever message of consent today’s college students got growing up. I know that dismantling rape culture in our society is not easy. 

I also know that consent is simple, and I remain hopeful that education can break through.

Source

Source link