New Affirmative Consent Policy to be Implemented

“My worst sexual interaction at Exeter was when I was coerced into doing something I did not want to do,” student Stacy* said. “I said no repetitively; they kept asking until I felt trapped and had to say yes.” Afterwards, Stacy did not report the incident To prevent other Exonians from experiencing similar circumstances, Director of Student Well-Being Christina Palmer and General Counsel Holly Barcroft drafted an addendum to the E-Book that changes the current consent policy to one that necessitates affirmative consent.

“We recognized the importance of providing clear and explicit language to the current definition of consent in the E-Book,” Palmer said. “It is an area of education that is necessary to support students’ natural navigation of adolescent development.”

Among other clauses, the draft defines affirmative consent as “a knowing, voluntary and mutual decision among all participants to participate in sexual activity,” and sets it as the standard for all sexual activity at Exeter.

A 2017 survey by the Preventions Innovation Research Center (PIRC) reported that 24 percent of Exonians who had participated in oral sex and 18 percent of those participating in vaginal sex within 30 days before taking the survey did not ask for verbal consent before doing so.

“We recognized the importance of providing clear and explicit language to the current definition of consent in the E-Book,” Palmer said. “It is an area of education that is necessary to support students’ natural navigation of adolescent development.”

Palmer and Barcroft presented the new definition during faculty meeting last week for discussions and a faculty-wide vote. “In the end, the faculty supported [it with] almost a full vote,” Dean of Students Melissa Mischke said. “It wasn’t 100 percent, but it was pretty close.”

Adults in the community acknowledge that asking for consent is not always a straightforward matter. “It’s not an easy thing to do when you’re in a very intimate situation, and I think our past policy also allowed for some sort of non-verbal communication,” Mischke said.

The ambiguous E-Book passage Mischke alluded to states: “Relying solely on nonverbal communication can lead to misunderstandings. If there is any confusion or uncertainty about whether a participant is consenting to sexual activity, stop and clarify verbally the person’s willingness to continue.” The E-Book’s passage, while not endorsing nonverbal consent, does not stipulate that affirmative consent is necessary.

“We are just trying to be crystal clear,” Mischke said of the affirmative consent policy.

According to History Instructor Betty Luther-Hillman, adding this clause to the E-Book signifies Exeter’s participation in a larger societal movement to shift the focus from “no means no” to “yes means yes.”

She emphasized, “This is a move that’s happening across educational institutions as well as the legal world.”

For English Instructor Courtney Marshall, the new policy’s biggest achievement is how it shifted discussion from preventing sexual assault to the concept of enthusiastic participation in sexual activity. “Affirmative consent puts the language of pleasure and connection back to the discussion of sexual activity and gets it out of that punishment realm,” she said. “I’d love to see more conversation about how you learn to advocate for what you want in a romantic sense; the school says your voice matters so when it comes to sex, we should talk about it.

Marshall is specifically concerned about how the message that young women receive is currently centered around the concept of chasing or being chased. “Women are taught to be prey and regard straight males as people who can potentially harm them. At the same time, it’s hard to try and get away from these motifs while rape still happens,” she said.

The new E-book policy includes a clause that addresses non-heteronormative sexual activity. It states, “The definition of consent does not vary based on the participants’ sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.”

As the head of Kirtland House, an all-gender dorm, Marshall noted that current discussions surrounding consent and sexual activity pertain more to heteronormative relationships, focusing on concepts such as penetration.

Lower Sam Park, a self-identifying member of the LGBTQ+ community, voiced similar concerns. “I don’t think there has been enough discussions on the subject [of consent in non-heteronormative relationships],” they said. “The idea that boys don’t need consent because they always want sex has more of a negative role in queer relationships when these issues can’t be divided evenly.”

Above all, Park welcomed this addition as something that will hopefully spark discussions regarding the issues of consent in queer relationships. “Consent is consent no matter what,” they emphasized.

In the past week, faculty members have brought the draft to advisee meetings and classrooms for further discussion with students.

Senior Madison Stern talked about the draft with her fellow classmates in the Book Club elective and said, “I think the draft is a good step in the right direction toward our school acknowledging that consent can be a nebulous topic, but there is no substitute for verbal, affirmative consent.”

Stern also believes that it is important for incoming students to examine this E-Book clause thoroughly during their first term at Exeter in health class. “This will help teach and encourage a culture of asking for consent,” she said.

Health Instructor Michelle Soucy explained the topics that the introductory health classes address to prepare students for later romantic experiences. “We discuss the ways in which students can express their interests in another person, what relationships tend to look like here at PEA, what healthy and unhealthy relationships are, what consent is, when they might decide to be intimate with someone [and] what they need to know about the physical and emotional health considerations,” she explained.

Soucy described the significance of consent and conversation. “Clear expectations with the other person are so important for how anyone experiences such an interaction. Students should talk to each other to make sure everyone knows what to expect and what they are agreeing to. Everyone should feel it was a positive interaction in the end,” she said.

Senior Gregory Miller commented on how it is difficult to get over the awkwardness of a conversation about sexual activity. “I think it can be uncomfortable acknowledging that you want to accelerate a situation; the other person might not want to. It makes you vulnerable,” he said.

Similarly, Stacy feels that students at Exeter mainly struggle with vocalizing consent because they are simply not familiar with the concept. “It’s hard because people come from such different backgrounds; they haven’t had that conversation [about sex] with their parents or friends, let alone their sexual partners,” she said.

Instead of trying to sound “cool” or “suave,” Miller thinks that students should prioritize conversations regarding sexual activity. “I think the ‘lameness’ of it definitely cancels out if the other person knows you’re doing it out of respect and legal consideration rather than out of an ‘I’m too nervous to just go for it’ kind of thing,” he said.

The implications of this deficit in communication are far-reaching; according to upper Gemma*, students at Exeter “struggle with assuming how ‘far’ another person wants to go.”

In her experience, if two people start kissing and one tries to stop it from going further, their partner may get upset, confused or even angry. “Exonians tend to think that getting consent for one thing gives them consent for anything they want,” she said. Gemma candidly shared stories of not being comfortable with what a boy wanted her to do while hooking up. “When I told them that, they got very defensive...I’ve heard, ‘Well, I heard you did it with so-and-so. Why not me?’ [and] ‘Why did you even come over then?’ and other things similar to this.”

Gemma emphasized, “It is important to understand that someone may be attracted to another person but that their personal boundaries set the limit of how far they’re willing to go, not necessarily their interest level in the other person.”

Gemma and many other students blame a hook-up culture at Exeter for exacerbating the issue of miscommunication and coercion. Senior Olivia Petersen said, “When you take part in the hook-up culture, there’s less emphasis on checking in with the other person because it’s supposed to be detached and less emotional...Unhealthy sex ends up being more common in hook-ups.”

Many students agree that social media is another factor that facilitates the hook-up culture. “I believe Snapchat has put a damper on developing relationships with other people,” senior and EASA co-head Brian Zhao said. “It is our generation’s way of downplaying intimate relationships and developing feelings for one another.”

As lower Dori* put it, the sequence of events preceding a hook-up between Exonians usually involves the use of Snapchat, then going to Evening Prayer or Stillwells, then an invitation to “hang out.” “There can be assumptions made about how someone feels depending on their response time [on social media],” she said. “When someone opens a snap immediately after it is sent, it is easy for people to think that there’s interest and that asking for consent each step of the way is not that necessary.”

Upper Lorelai*, meanwhile, attributed the prevalence of hookups on campus simply to the boarding school culture and students’ stress level. “The idea of being in a committed relationship can be overwhelming to people, which is understandable,” she said.

She also thinks that the locker room culture of bragging about sexual conquests associated with some sports teams also contributes to a hook-up culture. “I’ve been with guys who during their off season were super nice, but when the sport season came became a completely different person,” Lorelai said.

Though he does not want to generalize for all sport groups, upper Xavier*, a member of the boys’ varsity hockey team, witnessed instances in which “a team’s actions have contributed to the detrimental stereotypes and objectification about women, fostered by a hypermasculine setting.” He also brought up locker room talk, which makes athletes “feel pressured into doing this or doing that, or see certain people in a negative lens.”

Regarding the new affirmative consent clause, Lorelai remains skeptical about the actual effect that an addition to the E-Book could achieve. She believes there is a power imbalance between partners, particularly when there is a significant age gap. “A 19-year-old guy went after [my 14-year-old friend]. The level that he was trying to get her to come to his house and send nude pictures to him was incredible,” she said.

With all of these cultural forces in play, Marshall believes that students and faculty members need to closely examine the attitude surrounding sex at Exeter in general and how that could be improved. “Larger conversations with what we do with our body is essential. Are we using sexual activity as a way of compensating for some other needs, like connection or purpose?”

Senior Stuart Rucker would say yes. “Unfortunately, hookups are too often seen as a source of hedonistic pleasure or validation,” he said. “This leaves people with too much baggage to fully mentally commit themselves to someone in a meaningful relationship.”

Not all Exonians would agree that Exeter has such a problematic culture surrounding consent. “I don’t think that any high school has a healthy hookup culture,” senior Pablo* said. “We look at Exeter and we’re like ‘we have such a problem.’ I don’t know that we have more of a problem than any other boarding school or any other high school.” Pablo also mentioned that because Exeter is a boarding school with 80 percent of students living on campus, more sexual encounters are expected and normal.

However, all of this does not mean that there is no room for respectful relationships at Exeter. Lower Orion Bloomfield shared, “I have never been in any hookup situations due to some non-religious beliefs I hold about creating constructive social relationships.”

Musing on the concept of casual hookups, Zhao commented that it is odd that people who are intimate in one setting pretend not to recognize each other in a public space. He proceeded to cite the statistics from PIRC, which showed that 73 percent of Exonians want to be in a committed relationship.

Lower Pepper Pieroni thinks that being fixated on affirmative verbal consent can create a dynamic where students are constantly worried if they are in a consensual relationship or not. “Affirmative consent is an example of something that works in theory, but in reality, most students will ask for consent [at] the beginning and not throughout sexual interactions,” she said.

The revised E-Book definition of consent, however, does have implications for all sexual misconduct allegations in the event that either partner decides to report them. “In a case where there is no demonstration of resistance, but affirmative consent is lacking, any sexual activity which occurred would be deemed non-consensual sexual activity,” Barcroft said. She emphasized that “sexual activity” is not limited to penetration, but “all activity which is sexual in nature,” including kissing or touching.

Any disciplinary action that may ensue will go through the Principal’s Discretion process; in cases of sexual misconduct, the Principal, in consultation with Mischke and Palmer, has the discretion to determine the facts or appoint an investigator to do so.

Along with the policy’s rollout, Barcroft assured that there will be more extensive training on affirmative consent for faculty, staff and students in the upcoming year.

“I wonder what would have to happen for everyone on campus to feel like they could consent in the affirmative way,” Marshall questioned. “There’s always room for assumptions and misreadings because sexual activity is so complicated and fraught.”

How effective these programs will be, however, depends largely on the way they are carried out. Senior Alexis Gorfine shared her appreciation for past proctor and student listener trainings, which included events like “Slut: The Play” and the film “Escalation.”

“I think these videos and training sessions should be brought to some extent to the campus as a whole,” Gorfine said.

Upper Mahogany Johnson spoke about the advisory meeting in which her adviser not only presented the draft policy but conducted a role-playing activity for students to ask for affirmative consent.

“I think that was more effective than what we usually do,” Johnson said. According to her, girls frequently get the message to “say no and affirm your ground, make your stance”; however, in the moment, this might be more challenging. “If you really had to think on your feet about how to do it, it’s important to know how. That exercise really helped us with that,” she said.

Zhao thinks that, in some respects, the stigma surrounding consent and sexual assault can actually work to prevent students, especially male students, from experiencing meaningful physical intimacy. “It’s disheartening to hear. I believe a lot of the times [the male students’] reasoning is centered around ‘what will happen to me’ as opposed to feeling concerned for crossing another’s boundaries.”

Like Marshall, he advocates for a shift from talking about assault to considering the positives of engaging in healthy, intimate relationships with one another. “The truth is, a lot of us are just looking for love, ” he said. “Stay up late and tell you all my secrets kind [of] love.”