“Speak About It” Visits Campus

By: Max Mantel, Ethan Benenson, Anvi Bhate

On Monday, Sep. 19, upperclassmen attended a play about consent and sexual education titled “Speak About It” performed by a traveling theatre group of five actors. The actors shared firsthand accounts from high-school and college students around the world to explore diverse experiences of healthy and unhealthy relationships, identity, and sexuality.

“Speak About It,” sponsored by Exonians Against Sexual Assault (EASA), encourages sex positivity and open conversations about the subject through short skits. Upperclassmen participated in brief discussion groups following the play, which were facilitated by volunteer student leaders, to unpack what they had just watched and share opinions. The goal, senior Sophia Green said, was “to remind students that though conversations around topics of sex, intimacy, etcetera can feel uncomfortable, they are important conversations to have nonetheless.”

Upper and EASA co-head Nupur Malhotra led the event and was involved in a large part of the planning. “Dr. Palmer and EASA started working together last year, and Dr. Palmer brings a lot of the events to campus like boundary training and consent workshops,” Malhotra said, explaining how they decided to bring the group to campus. “We had talked with her over the summer and she wanted to bring Speak About It to campus to perform about healthy relationships and consent.”

Malhotra continued to describe how the group had come to campus in 2019 and received positive feedback for a similar performance, encouraging Dr. Palmer to invite them back. “This was their first year doing this specific programming. Moving forward, we hope that we can work with Speak About It to reflect students’ feedback and help construct a better suited program for the students,” she added. 

On the same day, preps and lowers attended the digital presentation “Our Digital Selves.” The slideshow sought to challenge assumptions surrounding gender identity and relationships. As the speaker posed questions to the audience, students were able to share their ideas directly to the speaker or through an anonymous text line for questions and advice.

Some underclassmen found the presentation awkward. “Aside from the expected goofing off, students spoke up with questions and comments even if they weren’t entirely sure about what they were saying,” lower Bea Prairie said.

Lower Ethan Liu agreed with the sentiment. “I think it’s sort of a way of coping with the awkwardness. The presenters also accepted that this is who we are at that age,” he added.

Students still acknowledged that the presentation was necessary and helpful. “I do think presentations like ‘Speak About It’ are important, due to the fact many students never got the opportunity to learn about this openly,” Liu said.

“Without formal settings to learn about these topics, people would be left with varying levels of information which can lead to unsafe situations,” Prairie said. “It began the conversation, and that’s an important first step towards a healthy sex culture on campus.” 

Many upperclassmen agreed with the necessity of boundary and consent training, and many had positive reactions to the Speak About It performance. “I thought that it actually did a good job of keeping the subject matter in an approachable way, without diminishing its importance,” upper Alex Rosen said. “I do agree, though, that they treated some parts, especially the parts with sexual assault, with too much levity.”

Senior Eric Zhang had similarly positive thoughts about the performance. “I thought that the actors were very enthusiastic, and we definitely learned a lot of information that is very important for the student’s health and well-being,” Zhang said. 

Upper and discussion facilitator Akubah Ndubah also spoke about the aspects of the presentation she really enjoyed. “It was a lot more straightforward than I expected, which I liked. They didn’t really try to beat around the bush about any of the topics,” Ndubah said. “I thought that sharing real stories of people was also a very interesting aspect.”

“I really like how they incorporated the whole active bystander idea, and showed different ways that you could intervene. I think it is something that people don’t really talk about enough, so I think it is really cool that they did that,” Ndubah added.

“I thought that when the performance took itself seriously, it was good,” senior Liam Brown said. “The stories that they shared were impactful, and when they were doing things like providing advice for mitigating the effects of alcohol and its potential ability to enable assault, I thought that was incredibly important and well done.” 

Reflecting on the performance, Zhang said, “The biggest takeaway for me was the importance of practicing safe sex and making sure that all parties’ interests and feelings are represented.”

Many students, though they enjoyed the performance, suggested ways that the play and the organization could have been improved. “I think it would’ve been good if the students had the opportunity to interact with the actors,” Zhang said.

“I think they could have looked into this school a little more and how it works,” Senior Oliver Brandes mentioned, adding another way it could have been slightly improved. “They just were trying to be relatable at the start and they didn’t come across as well as they, I think, would have liked to.”

Brown agreed. “Sex is inherently awkward. It’s an awkward conversation because we live in a culture broadly where talking about sex is taboo. And so when people talk about it, there’s chuckles, there’s laughs. Trying to get over that with jokes, I understand that,” Brown said. “But there’s got to be more effort put into it. That cannot be what the final product looks like because making people laugh through it doesn’t work in having a mature conversation about sex. We need to be able to speak anatomically correctly. We need to be able to say very explicitly what we are talking about.

“When you use jokes to get over that initial awkwardness, that’s great,” Brown continued. “But when you do it like that, you undercut your message. You make it impossible for the audience that needs to hear it most, which is especially the older athletes and men on campus, to feel like they’re being spoken to without being spoken down to. You make it impossible for them to relate to the performance and think about it in the context of their own behavior.”

Some upperclassmen felt a lack of consistency between the presentation and the culture on campus. “I think that the presentation did a good job of highlighting the importance of consent, and that people will have it more present in their minds, especially in these upcoming weeks,” Rosen said. “But I do think that Exeter as a whole isn’t doing enough to promote safe sex practices and sex positivity.”

“Not being able to have these conversations without laughing creates an environment that fosters sexual assault. If we cannot do better, it is genuinely worrying for the direction that Exeter is going,” Brown said. “And I think we have made a lot of progress, but I think it’s impossible to ignore that this has been an ongoing problem. There are people on campus who have been victims of it. And the perpetrators are also in some cases on campus. We are not outside of the scope of this problem, not by a long shot, and we cannot treat it as if we are.”

Upperclassmen also commented on the effectiveness of the brief discussions following the performance. As a discussion facilitator, Ndubah described how the discussions’ depth and length didn’t match some of the facilitators’ expectations. “I expected to have it be more focused on the discussion, but I feel like people didn’t take it as seriously. It felt more like an afterthought to the people who attended, which I thought was interesting,” Ndubah said. “I sat down and tried to get a conversation going, but then all the other groups started getting up and leaving, and I feel like no one really wanted to be there.”

Malhotra, who facilitated upper and senior discussions, commented on the intentions behind the discussions and compared those with the actual impacts. “The whole idea was to talk actively about consent, answer any questions, and not let the performance go in through one ear and out the other,” Malhotra said. “Consent isn’t talked about very much on campus, so one way to start those conversations is to have these facilitated discussions, and having them run by students allows it to be less formal and allows people to open up more.”

“In my experience, in my discussion groups, there wasn’t much conversation happening,” Malhotra continued, referring to the actual day of the event. “I think this can be attested to the fact that it was very late at night and people were tired.”

“I think the intent of the groups was good, to start those conversations. I heard from other people that it was hard to get people to start talking about it. So maybe that is something we can work on as a community— to make these conversations about consent, relationships and sex more normalized,” Malhotra added. 

Still, senior Matt Dame felt like the overall impact of the performance was positive. “I think having the discussions after is a good way to solidify any information and it’s also a good opportunity for people to ask questions,” he said, commenting on the discussions that followed. 

With the opening of Visitations after the performance, uppers and seniors also discussed how it would affect these policies, and how the school creates a positive culture. Dame shared “the school stays away from the fact that kids are having sex–that’s just a fact of high school.”

Dame continued “If the school is not giving any options for a safe environment, kids are going to be stuck in more dangerous situations.” 

Malhotra shared some ways that EASA plans to address such topics in the future. “I think there are many different views on these boundary trainings. I think in one way, it is very good to have repetition, to have these every year and really get it stuck in your brain, and to start these conversations,” she said. “But, also, a lot of people get tired continuously listening to these boundary trainings and feel stuck.” 

“The training is happening with faculty too. The faculty on campus go through training every year, where they talk about student relationships, faculty relationships with students, and how those should be.”

“I think going forward, they are super important, but up to conversation as to how those should look, because once again, these are for the students,” Malhotra said. All that the boundary training is trying to do is to inform everyone of how to respect other people and how to ensure that you yourself are respected.”

Looking to the future, Brown shared ways that students could better handle issues of consent and sexual education. “People should talk to their friends about this, but also check them when they make jokes or make light of the importance of consent.”

“Don’t be mean about it—you are their friend for a reason—but tell them that it’s not acceptable,” Brown added. “I think if the Academy is not going to step up and make meaningful change, students have to.”

“Just know that there are resources on campus and there are people that you can talk to,” Malhotra said, as a message to all students. “If you were going through anything, there are your student leaders, student listeners, proctors and faculty that you might feel comfortable with. There’s CAPS. There are so many people here to talk to, so don’t ever feel that you are alone.”

“It is so easy to feel lonely in such a big school where you’re without family, but we are all here for you,” Malhotra concluded.