It Never Ends — a Reading From Consent Laid Bare

Maddie 0:00

This episode is about sexual assault and consent. It's honest and some of it is hard. If today's not the day, that's okay. We'll still be here when you are. You're 12 years old and out for a run. A block away from your home, you get catcalled by a grown man. So you stop exercising in public. You're 13 at your first party when someone grabs your ass. Then another boy does, and then another. You start counting how many do and equate it with how hot you look that night. You're 14 and everyone is gathered around to look at the most recently leaked nude photo from the girl at the school down the road. You're 15 and you see a boy fingering a semi-unconscious girl on the sofa. The social code is to turn your head away and give them privacy. So you do. But of course, everyone still talks about how embarrassing it was for the girl to be so drunk. You're 16 and you wake up to your boyfriend having sex with you. You're shocked, so you just lie there. You find it hard to sleep for weeks after. You're 18, and your manager at work makes comments about your outfit and touches your back every time he walks past you. You feel icky, but you need the money, and there's no point making a fuss. You're 20, and someone starts choking you in bed. You can barely breathe, but the fear of him telling people you are a prude makes you go along with it. You're 22 and you have a lovely date with a guy you've been crushing on for ages, but you're actually crushed when you realize he took the condom off when you weren't looking. You're 25 and a stranger airdrops you an unsolicited dick pick while you're on the bus home. You look around not knowing which man just violated you. So you get off the bus four stops early. It takes an extra 15 minutes to walk along the well-lit route, but you don't want a repeat of that time someone followed you home. You're 35, and your husband makes jokes about you being his ball and chain and complains to his friends that he doesn't get it enough. So you have sex with him out of obligation. You speak to older women and realise it never ends.

Meet Chanel Contos

Maddie 2:12

Our next guest started with one petition. It collected more than 7,000 testimonies, changed the national curriculum , and drove consent law reform across this country. Most recently, she's driven the new government legislation on algorithms and digital duty of care. She's a BBC 100 most influential woman and the founder and director of Teach Us Consent, Chanel Contos. Welcome to literacy. Chanel Contos, welcome to litHERacy. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Maddie. We ask all of our experts this one question. What do you wish someone had told you when you were younger that has nothing to do with your field and everything to do with being a woman?

Chanel 2:55

Oh, oh my god, is it so bad my first like mind reaction was this is kind of to do with my field, but I wish I got told to pee after sex to prevent UTIs.

Maddie 3:06

Oh my god, that's such a good one.

Chanel 3:08

Like I wish I knew that they were preventable.

Maddie 3:13

Oh my god, I'm so glad that you said that because I think every girl should really know that, and we have not touched upon that yet, so that's fantastic.

Chanel 3:21

There was this moment when we were updating the consent education curriculum and they're like sending me the like final PDHP thing, blah blah blah. It was like all done, and then like the secret step, like a separate topic on health. I was like, any chance while we're here? Trying to get UTIs put in there. I was just like, really important, and they're like, I think that's different. I was like, I won't, I won't die in this hill right now, but I will one day.

Maddie 3:44

It's all related, isn't it?

Chanel 3:48

Yeah, and is there anything else? yeah, probably. I wish I could have like, I guess, a more in detailed conversation with my younger self about I wouldn't have even known what this word's meant, but like internalised misogyny and kind of the way that we experience womanhood, and part of experience womanhood as a teenage girl is a lot of the world kind of like ridiculing you and being against you, but then also you kind of being like co-opted into that as well to be part of that for other mainly women and kind of playing into things that men want as a way of social survival. And I don't know, maybe even if I didn't know all those things, I still would have ignored it. But I kind of wish I could talk about that.

Maddie 4:40

I'd like to think that you were definitely smart enough that you would have heeded to that advice as well.

Chanel 4:44

Yeah, hopefully.

What Algorithms Feed Boys

Maddie 4:46

I don't know. , let's talk about your Fix It Feeds campaign. Congratulations on that. You've just helped push the digital duty of care legislation that helps drive and exposes how algorithms are feeding boys our misogynistic content within minutes of them signing up. You say it's making teenage boys, not adult men, the most likely perpetrators of sexual abuse. Why is that?

Chanel 5:12

So just tiny nuance that I'll add to that statistic. So in Australia now we have it that a teenage boy is the most likely perpetrator of sexual assault and also child of abusing another person under the age of 18. That used to be a very grave and devastating title that was held by adult men. , what I'm talking about, and what those statistics are talking about, is physical sexual abuse. So we'll note that adult men are still more likely than teenage boys to perpetrate sexual abuse against under 18-year-olds online. , so there is also this kind of like rising cohort of online abuse simultaneously, and like also potentially adult men have pivoted to use these new technologies to perpetrate that sort of thing. But we definitely have had a very significant rise in perpetration by teenage boys. and researchers and academics think that it is most likely because of algorithmic recommendation content on social media that's skewing young boys' attitudes, which can then skew behaviours. So if they basically, if their attitudes change to dehumanise the girls and women around them, then it's very easy to perpetrate rape against the girls and women around them because if they've kind of been like indoctrinated to think of them as less, or if they're seeing content that encourages acts that are objectively sexual violence as acts that are normal. And then on that, the other thing is really pornography. So we really have like I mean, my generation I think was probably the first to be completely educated on pornography as a form of sex education. that was like definitely a problem for all of us. I personally never watched porn intentionally, but I still was socialised by the men around me and the men I was being intimate with, I was exploring my sexuality with when I was younger, were all porn educated, and that , you know, definitely posed some issues, and that's gotten like a billion times worse. I was speaking hyperbole there, not statistically, but it has gotten significantly worse as a driver. And I think when I speak to young people a lot, what I often hear is so the boys think they know what's going on because they're like, we watch porn and they're copying what they say in pornography. Something I frequently say is learning how to have sex by watching porn is like learning how to drive by watching Formula One and the kind of like metaphorical car crashes, I think, is a lot of the like a spectrum of negative sexual experiences to sexual assault and rape. but what I hear from a lot of young people is like, oh, the boys know what they're doing because they watch porn. and that like freaks me out as well because everyone's kind of been victimised by this to think that like porn is a tell all.

Maddie 8:02

Well, it'd be different if it was like your 70s moustache porn, but it's not, right? It's like very violent porn now.

Chanel 8:10

Yeah, I mean, like the Sydney Sweeney's ad, like the Sydney Sweeney ad, sorry, would have been classified as like hard porn like a few decades ago.

Maddie 8:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Chanel 8:20

Like an advertisement that's like allowed on social media and like entices people into gambling. , and it's probably targeted at porn addicts, which maybe more people are than we realise, but yeah, it's complete it's completely changed. It's not it's not a it's not a magazine anymore, it's a it's a multi-billion dollar industry that also uses algorithms to take people into kind of more extreme versions of pornography so that you know it really plays on people's dopamine receptors, and there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff about the design of these websites that's very intentional, including how they advertise to children.

The Mainstreaming Of Radicalisation

Maddie 9:03

It's awful. It's absolutely awful. Is there a way to tell a difference between a boy who's just being a teenager and finding his way and a boy who's genuinely being radicalised?

Chanel 9:11

I don't think so because I what I think we've had is a mainstreaming of radicalisation.

Maddie 9:15

Yeah, and desensitisation.

Chanel 9:17

Yeah, like what used to be I guess the whole point of the Fix Our Feeds campaign and the narrative behind this radicalisation of young boys and men en masse into misogynistic attitudes and behaviours. and I was actually thinking about this the other day because I was with my friend Bella. She she's not just Bella, she's a got she's a doctor, she's got a PhD in conspiracy theories and disinformation, but I used to live with her. And we started like I kind of forgot that the whole pre-idea for the teacher for the Fix Our Feeds campaign, because I did it as a university assignment and then turned it into a campaign. Pre that me and her were having a conversation about misogyny as a conspiracy theory, and it yeah, and it like is right, because it's kind of like this fear-based tactic of like this othering and these narratives of yeah, , you know, the yeah, the whole like red pill, black pill content, like red pill like being woke to the world and a world that's dominated by women, whatever that is, like those are all conspiracy theories. and the the whole point is these things that used to sit on the fringe have now been made mainstream, at least on the screens of young people for the purpose of profit. And then so I think it's really hard to tell how deep someone is into like actually feeling entrenched into those views versus like how much they're just kind of like regurgitating concepts they've heard online. and I think most of them are probably just regurgitating concepts they've heard online.

Maddie 10:51

Yeah, that's fair enough. I think that's why this this whole campaign and the legislation is so important to be able to turn that off and not to be able to like have that come at you. What was the statist the statistic on how quickly young boys when they sign up that they're exposed to Manosphere type of material?

Chanel 11:13

I think it's on average 23 minutes. So for some people it's a lot quicker.

Maddie 11:16

Oh my god, that's wild.

Chanel 11:18

Yeah, and then someone also did a uh I think it was just the Sydney Morning Herald. It wasn't like an academic study, but a journalist downloaded an account on a new phone with like no data, blah blah blah, and did the same thing saying it was a teenage girl. And I think it took 30 minutes for her to get manosphere content. So like our our girls are getting this too. and there is like a simultaneous indoctrination again. Like, I don't know, we we are seeing a lot of attitudes in teenage girls changes as well. You know, teenage girls are now more likely than than kind of 50-year-old women to hold certain views that unfortunately are part of their own kind of you know, that aren't equal and don't position them as equal in certain ways.

Maddie 12:14

Almost like the whole trad wife movement, right? It's you know, it's coming back the yeah, I think the conservative movement, there's a real push, unfortunately, towards that like stay at home, be his feet is every whim, that kind of stuff that girls are actually being fed as well as boys. I think that's why your your legislation, I'm just I'm in awe of of the fact that you do what you do time and time and time again, and that like what you're doing for young girls, it's just it's phenomenal. So well done you

Chanel 12:47

Thank you.

How A Girl Starts A Movement

Maddie 12:48

You were 22 when you posted one question on Instagram feed and you got thousands of testimonies that came flooding back in. How does a girl who's our listener's age end up starting multiple national movements?

Chanel 13:03

I think that if you're really passionate about something, which I was about consent education, like I think about my first advocacy for consent education actually when I was 15 years old and I went to a I mean, I don't not wow, like it wasn't particularly impressive, but like when I think back on it. we like metal. You were there meeting with Yeah, made like a meeting with the head of the senior school or whoever it was, to discuss the consent lesson we had had the day before. , and we basically were being like, we needed that earlier, and younger girls should have that earlier at our school. And obviously we were just like shrugged out the door like straight away, and , if anything, we were kind of told some problematic things, being like, Oh, this sort of thing happens to you girls because you're this type of girl, but like that doesn't happen to other people, it's not relevant, other people, whatever. I mean, they meant well, but anyway, , and uh and I was kind of like, well, yeah, we tried, like, me and my two best friends tried to get consent education taught earlier for the girls at our school younger than us, and I think that counts as advocacy, but then yeah, obviously, social media can be used for good, and I think the scale of social media and breaking that taboo topic in that space was really part of it. I think it was a conversation a lot of people wanted to have.

Maddie 14:29

What's the lashback that you've received from like the work that you're doing right now?

Chanel 14:34

Yeah, they're definitely not as much as you'd think. I've had more from the algorithm campaign than I did from the consent education stuff.

Maddie 14:41

Really?

Chanel 14:42

Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I think that the algorithm campaign has been misunderstood as something that like impedes on free speech, and I think that's like a very mobile lobby. whereas the like consent one, it's kind of like, oh, we're saying that children shouldn't be raped. It's pretty hard to like disagree with it I guess. Uh well some people still found a way to, but yeah.

Maddie 15:13

They always will.

Chanel 15:14

But yeah, but yeah, we worked with stakeholders that I guess you may like that we may stereotypically think might not be that keen on it. We worked with , you know, religious schools, religious leaders. it was a right-wing government that mandated consent education. We made it an apolitical issue and made sure that was very central to the campaign. So yeah, I'm not gonna pretend that there wasn't backlash, but I think there was very little kind of coordinated backlash and more just like generalised hate comments, which we know are all over social media anyway.

Maddie 15:51

Yeah, I'm

Sitting With 7,000 Testimonies

Maddie 15:52

really sorry that you went through that. That sucks. There are books that inform you and there are books that change you, and this one does both. I personally think that your book should be mandatory reading for every 12 and 13-year-old and every parent out there. I read it as a mom and a woman who has spent years minimalising certain experiences that I've had too. The slap on the bum while waitressing, the persuasive sex, the I felt uncomfortable, but I didn't know how to say no or get away from it, or I was too drunk to give full consent. I think a lot of women my age and older will look back on their own experiences and be shocked and horrified to think about the things that we just passed off as bad experiences. Writing this book meant that you sat with 7,000 testimonies for a very long time. What did that do to you as a woman and how do you separate yourself from other people's stories?

Chanel 16:49

It completely changed, I think, how I like perceive the world, how I orbit the world. I feel less like free in my body. Like I feel like I'm more like cautious of everything all the time. Like it was heavy. I didn't know what vicarious tra a was when I read the testimonies, but you can like experience the feelings of stress or trauma from like someone else's experience if you're kind of told it in detail, like felt it in detail. Uh so that happened 7,000 times, which is obviously not great. But I guess like, how do I separate these stories from myself? Partly I don't, and I also think that you can't really separate womanhood from these stories, like I don't think any of us can, because I think we all have come like at some point in our lives, part of part of I don't know, I think part of womanhood was having that conversation that I had with my friends that kind of made you realise, you know, why has this happened to all of us and why haven't we spoke about it before? and it shouldn't be part of womanhood, but it currently still is, and I think that like carrying the collective is kind of part of that. but then yeah, I don't I literally don't have an answer for you. I don't know. It was a privilege to be given those testimonies. I do not take it for granted. It was why teacher consent was so successful and sort of the basis for so much of what we do. but like it was also absolutely horrific, and there's just no two ways about that. But hopefully the outcome that's come of it makes it worth it.

What's Happening To Girls Right Now

Maddie 18:27

Yeah, for sure. I sit with girls age 15 to 18 more than any other topic that comes up. This is the one over and over and over again. Unwanted photos being sent, being asked for photos, getting groped at school dances and being told it was an accident, deep fakes of them being made and used to blackmail them. They're being hit with this constantly, and no one, not parents, not teachers, not schools, not government, are fully acknowledging what's happening to them. But you and I are hearing them fully right now. What do you want to say to them right now about what's happening to her?

Chanel 19:02

God, I'm so sorry. There's so many ways that technology is emerging and it's I don't know if it's because women aren't consulted in the process, I don't know if they don't care, but like it's so obvious to us that a new technology launches how that's gonna be used to make women feel unsafe. Because I think like as women we have to be so like vigilant about these sorts of things that we'll pick up on it straight away. And we're like, are you guys doing that because that's gonna get you money, or you just don't care, or you didn't realise? And yeah, like everyone talks about AI, like it's freaking everywhere. It's like AI this, AI that, blah blah blah blah blah, and you know, everyone's very worried about data centres and misusing AI and using it when you don't need to use it, and it's like 98% of AI-generated images are of the naked female body. So, like, are we taking that from the equation? Like, we could reduce 98% of that usage if people stopped being really freaky and creepy and degrading towards women. So it's missing from the conversation a lot, but I think what I would say to young people is there's such a disconnect between your experiences and the people who make policy decisions about your experiences, the people who are criminalising non-consensual deepfakes, the people who are writing the children's court laws or like blah blah blah, and this it's just it's yeah, it's like moronic how different they are. Like most young people will be like, we don't want this to be classified as fully legal, we don't want this person to go to jail, but there's kind of just like no in-between, and it just gets like further and further diverge. So my message to you would be, and I don't mean to put the onus on you, so maybe it's not that you have to, but if you're given the opportunity to feel comfortable comfortable to like really engage with like teachers or parents or politicians or advocates, or like anyone who you feel like could have say in this broader conversation that you can give your your experience to because whatever's happening to teenage girls right now, right this second, whatever the new trend is, there'll be laws about it being made in parliament in like five years from now, way too late. And those laws probably won't work in a way that's actually useful to young people. so basically just like really use your voice if you can, and maybe maybe force yourself into some into some rooms or some conversations or yeah,

Maddie 21:48

Follow

The Myth Of The Stranger

Maddie 21:49

your lead. The findings from your petition have completely dismantled the stranger danger picture. Who is actually committing sexual assault against teenage girls and young Women in Australia?

Chanel 22:01

Uh, it's most likely their current or former boyfriend or a male known to them. So basically they're friends, which again is why like the criminal system doesn't work because like most people don't want to like go through that for there's the mental strain, there's the social pressure, there's the fact that it's so normalised, you're like, what's the point? There's a question of consent that makes it difficult, or not even understanding that something counts, it's a non-consensual situation. it's yeah, it's and I think what that speaks to is not that these men or boys I should say, it's not that these boys are like secretly hiding a really dark personality trait that everyone is somehow like not seeing, but it's much more that sexual coercion very specifically, which is which is being forced into a sexual act in a non-physical way, so being threatened or pressured or tricked or blackmailed, you know, I'll send that nude you sent me last week to someone else if you don't give me head, or getting someone intentionally drunk so that they're quote unquote easier to have sex with, which would obviously again count as non-consent, but it's really hard to notice those things when you're younger. And I think it speaks to the fact that sexual coercion can really easily happen when entitlement to other women's bodies is socialised into boys and men, and that comes from the attitudes they're seeing on social media, that comes from the content they're seeing in pornography, that centres male pleasure and basically like omits female pleasure or consent, usually as well. And something I also often say is that sexual assault occurs when entitlement to another person's body outweighs the empathy that you feel towards that person. And I guess the reason this like stranger and myth is being trying to break that apart, and the reason that it's current or former boyfriends or boys known to the victim is because it's entitlement that is the main driver of this violence, not like some sadistic personality trait that's kind of like hidden in people.

Maddie 24:19

Yeah, they're

Entitlement

Maddie 24:20

not they're not monsters, right? They're ordinary boys that are entitled. How does that show up before anything else?

Chanel 24:27

It's hard because obviously you can be very entitled, and then if you know you've had explicit messaging the other way about consent of women's bodies, or like you might be entitled, but you also might respect women. Like it's not always entitlement's not always that, but they're they're very strongly linked. Like entitlement to women's bodies will also be linked to other forms of entitlement but I guess other ways of entitlement to women's bodies that could show up before an act of sexual violence might occur is the way you speak about women's bodies, and like again, like women like objectifying women instead of treating them as full human or other examples I've seen in teenagers a lot is it's common to kind of have like a s mer challenge list or like an end of school like bucket lists where again like women are gamified and their bodies and stuff like that is part of that. so yeah, if the reason that you're kind of like going after again, quote unquote, going after another like a girl is for this kind of like social clout, or as part of a game or a challenge or a checklist, that's a pretty big red flag that there might be a significant amount of entitlement in that situation and that like the result of that situation may be something that is fueled with a lot of external pressure.

Maddie 26:02

I feel so awful that these young girls are going through stuff like that when they are dealing with when they're just trying to get through their everyday, and then on top of that, they've gotta deal with lists and they've gotta be made to be so objectified and like they're not like they're just another tick on a piece of paper that's part of a scavenger hunt. Like that is I cannot think of anything more degrading to a young woman who is just trying to learn about herself and figure out life at that point to add that on top.

Chanel 26:36

Yeah, I mean, I do think being a teenage girl is literally the hardest thing in the world.

Maddie 26:39

So

The Boy In The Batman Costume

Maddie 26:40

I would a hundred percent agree with you. Somewhere right now, there is a little five-year-old boy in a Batman costume, wonderfully curious, open, full of everything good, and that same boy at 17 years old will create a deep fake of a girl and use it to blackmail her for sex. He's not that person yet. But at what point in his development does the education about respect, about empathy, and what another person's body is worth? When does that need to happen?

Chanel 27:09

I think it needs to start happening as young as someone can talk. Of course, not in a non-sexual way, but about concepts of boundaries and asking permission and denying permission and accepting permission and modelling, you know, parents modelling that as well, of course, or like the people they play with. You know, even as simple things like I've seen parents on TikTok say, you know, it's a rule in the house that no matter what's happening when they're playing, , if anyone says no, even as a joke or whatever, when they're that young, they're just it's just a binary no. So it's stop when that word's said, that's what that means. Like an example is like if a you know, two young siblings are tickling each other and they're like laughing, so they're obviously fine, but they're like no, no, and it's like that means no, like that's a stop there, even if even if they're laughing. And so I think you can model it really young, but I think it's also about like explicit conversations, , about you know, the sort of ethics behind these things, how these sorts of things make people feel, what content they're seeing, because again, that unfortunately, that five to five-year-old boy to 17-year-old boy, he'll most likely see porn accidentally for the first time when he's 11. He'll most likely actively seek it out for the first time when he's 13. He'll probably get on social media at some stage after that kind of like 11-year-old gap, and that might have like a lot of influence on the way he thinks about things and how he views the women or girls around him as equal. And then in that like five to eleven age gap, there's things like is he seeing his parents respect each other, like specifically his dad respecting his mum, or is he in a situation where that's you know, there's there's no respect or love being modelled? And you know, in worst case scenarios of which there are many violences being modelled instead, or belittling someone, or like is he seeing a healthy, happy relationship? What norms is he being taught? He's in a Batman outfit. Is his sister allowed to wear a Batman outfit, or does he always the hero and she's the damsel in distress as the princess? So, like, I think there's just a billion moments. You know, what books is he being read before he goes to bed at night? Are there female characters as the lead? Are there people from other races or religions included in these books? And kind of yeah, how does what movies is he watching? I always think about there's the I also always say it wrong, but I think it's called the Bechdel Test. You know what I'm talking about? No. it's I might be saying it wrong, but I think it is called the Bechdel Test. it's basically a test, and to pass the test, all a movie needs to do is at some point in the movie have two or more female characters alone, and all they need to do is talk about anything except another man. So they just need to. So actually, our conversation, I don't even know if we've passed the those shorts in this conversation, that's different. Oh no, we spoke about UTIs, it's okay. but when you realise how few movies do not show women existing without being relational to a man or centring men in a conversation or a plot, you're basically like, oh my god, what message has that taught me if 98% of the content that I've consumed watching TV as a child from the ages of three to eighteen, if only 2% of that time I saw women have an actual personality or their own needs or their own agenda or like anything, how does that kind of subconsciously shape things? And yeah, stuff like that really gets me.

Maddie 31:17

Yeah, that's fair enough. I think it's all about like I think you're totally right. What they're exposed to will change, and then as they get older, who they hang out with and

Chanel 31:26

oh yeah, big one,

Maddie 31:28

what they've been exposed to, it kind of it's like a ripple out effect, right?

Chanel 31:31

Yeah, no, I I mean I my friends raised me, like like it's just a fact. Could have been like completely borderline, completely irrelevant what my parents said or did it was just my friends I cared about and I have the best friends in the world, so I'm very thankful. But but it's so important who who people are friends with and stuff as well. And yeah, I feel like it also doesn't help when parents try to be like, you can't be friends with this person because of that, and then it doesn't work. It's kind of like okay, they're they're friends, they've got a connection so let's think about how we can have conversations if someone's being exposed to things earlier than a parent thought they

Consent Means Feeling Together

Chanel 32:16

would be.

Maddie 32:16

Yeah. School's taught us that no means no, but in reality, there's a whole lot of grey area there. I absolutely loved your definition of consent in your book. What should consent feel like to every girl?

Chanel 32:33

Yes, I think the definition of consent in my book, I did like the etymology of the word consent, and you kind of have like con, which means with in Latin, and then sentio, which means feeling, and it translates to feeling together which I just thought was so much nicer than any legal definition or

Maddie 32:51

I loved it.

Chanel 32:53

Thanks. Yeah, I it was a frontline worker in the northern northern New South Wales who actually told me about that many years ago and it stuck with me. And and basically I think consent should feel like comfortable and good. Also, I'm not gonna pretend it's all like chill and confident as well. Like the first time you the first few times that you're kind of intimate with someone, it's or with anyone, it's very probable that that that feeling will also come with like a bit of nerves or like a bit of excitement or a bit of you know, it's not always gonna be like dad-da-da-da. Like there's probably gonna be you're probably gonna be on high alert to an extent in these first situations, given how much like societal pressure is put on them, and the kind of like confusion and like insecurity that can be like really associated with them. But like crucially it's meant to you're meant to like want to be there and like it's meant to feel comfortable, and it's meant to feel good and you're not meant to be in pain. And I think that's something that was just like so omitted from conversations about sex when I was younger, especially for well all for girls, boys didn't have this at all, I don't think, was that sex is supposed to be fun. Like you're meant to be

Maddie 34:22

pleasurable

Chanel 34:22

It's meant to be pleasurable, and again, I don't I'm not saying that means that like the first time you have sex will mean that like you are having an out-of-body experience because the pleasure's so great, but you're meant to be happy and you're meant to be enjoying it. And I think what we have is like a really dangerous narrative in our society that for men and boys, sex is the best thing ever, like every it feels so amazing, and they love it, and it's all they want, and they're always gonna try and get it off you. And like, girls and women, you should never give it to them, and like don't give in to this. And then for girls and women, it's like, oh, it's gonna hurt like your first time, it's gonna hurt probably like you know, many times after that, don't do this, you're not meant to do this, like don't give in whatever, blah blah blah, like purity culture in there as well. But what that does is actually quite dangerous because it sets women and girls up to struggle to distinguish between consensual and non-consensual situations. If they've been told their whole lives they're not meant to enjoy this, when actually they are, and then so they have a thing and they're like, Oh, that was that was weird. Like, I did not feel good, I do not feel good thinking about it. It makes me really uncomfortable to think about it, I'm really embarrassed that people are talking about it or know about it, and then they're like, Oh, but that's it. Like, that is sex, like that's what I did, and it's like, no, no, no, that's not how it's meant to feel or be or any of those things. So, pleasure, women's pleasure, male pleasure has been so ridiculously centred in every single possible way. An example that I always think about is blue balls, which I'm sure that any teenage girls listening are probably familiar with.

Maddie 36:10

Stupid,

The Truth About Blue Balls

Maddie 36:11

stupid.

Chanel 36:12

Stupid, but not stupid when you're a teenager, because you're literally like

Maddie 36:19

Guilted

Chanel 36:19

Yeah so for anyone listening who doesn't know what blue balls is, blue balls is a colloquial term for an actual medical condition where basically being aroused for a prolonged period of time and not being quote unquote relieved can cause discomfort or an ache in the testicles. And that is technically a medical thing that can happen infrequently, very infrequently, to some people, and it's not serious at all. but we basically have this like overarching narrative for young people that like as soon as a boy gets an erection, he then must come, otherwise, he will have blue balls and he will be in pain, and it will be your fault. And your fault as a young girl who's always been told to like make sure everyone feels really comfortable and like not feel fuss, or whatever, you're like, Oh, I don't want someone to be in pain. So blue balls is a very common form of sexual coercion, and again, like, I don't even know if these boys know they're sexually coercing someone through blue balls because I think they think it too, like they're so entitled to sexual gratification that they think like because I'm having this experience, that means that like you know it started, so it has to finish, and basically, uh like girls or like anyone with female genitalia has the kind of exact same sensation of if you have been aroused and there's been like a buildup of blood that doesn't go anywhere, it can cause basically equivalent levels of discomfort and pain, but no one is talking about blue vulva. It's just like not, it's just not a thing. It's not a phenomenon, it's not a thing, and I think that just like shows the like mix of like sexual entitlement from men, the like centre of their pleasure and gratification, and how much that is like omitted from women's experiences, and then of course we have the orgasm gap, which I mean we don't even need to go into at this point because it's also so ridiculously high amongst younger people, but I think that yeah, I think it's so important to keep in mind that like again, even if it doesn't like the other problem that narrative is that like sex feels like a euphoric magic situation, which especially when you're younger, I think is not not realistic because again, these narratives were porn, but like whatever happens in the moment, it might be a bit awkward, it might be a bit clunky, there's gonna be like you know, again, weird mixes of like excitement and then also a bit of insecurity if you're like potentially being vulnerable with someone for a first time, but it really just matters like how you feel in the situation. Like, do I still want to be in the situation? Do I feel comfortable? Do I feel happy? Do I feel safe? Am I enjoying this like awkward, clunky situation?

Maddie 39:11

Yeah. On the blue balls thing, this was like a journey. This was a hill that I was gonna die on when I was younger because it I have been guilted, and I think the people pleaser, the nurturers in us, like you said, we don't want anyone to be in pain, we don't want anyone to hurt. So I went on a journey to find out from multiple men across multiple different generations if they had ever experienced blue balls. I would say 99% of them said no. And one guy even said, that's just a myth we tell women. So we'll finish. And I'm gonna speechless. They know. They know. So whenever I hear blue balls come up, I get like inside, I get furious. So, girls of Australia, I want you to know if anyone hits you with the blue balls, just walk away.

Chanel 40:08

Just also, if they do have that rare medical condition that one in however many thousand of men get sometimes, they can relieve themselves. Nothing to do with you.

Maddie 40:18

Yeah, yeah. I want to see that medical certificate.

Chanel 40:21

Yeah, yeah. Doctor's note, and then off you go, nothing to do with me. Oh my god, Maddie, one time I was giving a talk at , it was to about a thousand boys at a school in the UK. of all different ages, like year seven to twelve, and and I like spoke about blue balls, blah blah blah. And then at the end, like live question answer, like we're in this giant, there's probably more than a thousand boys, we're in like this giant hall, it was the whole senior school, and this like tiny year seven boy puts up his hand and he's like, Miss, my mum gave my stepdad blue balls and he had to go to hospital. The whole school just like burst out laughing, and I was like, oh my god, I don't get paid enough. Well, I was just like, I was like, again, medical things happen, and it's never you know your partner's responsibility to relieve that pain. Like you can either relieve it yourself, or if something more serious has happened, which I actually think you maybe had a twisted ball, which is different, but anyway. So I was like, I don't do you need to get off the balls. Anyway, I was like, take medical attention, sort of yourself, no one else's responsibility.

Know Your Own Body First

Maddie 41:38

No, I love that. I think you and I are both on the same wavelength about the pleasure conversation, and we've done a whole episode on female pleasure. And I think I said it in the episode, I will stand by this. I think every parent or every trusted adult should be giving a young girl a vibrator when they are 12, 13 years old to explore their own body, to know their own body before they let anybody else touch their body. They know it. I think, what role do you think in understanding your body and pleasure play in communicating your boundaries, your preferences, and consent in all future experiences?

Chanel 42:24

Oh, can I challenge you slightly on that, Maddie?

Maddie 42:26

Yeah, do it.

Chanel 42:27

This actually is in my updated book, which you don't have because it's in the UK and US, but I wrote I wrote a chapter on vibrators, because so, first of all, to set the record straight and to show that I agree with you fully in principle, is yes, young girls should be fully exposed to self-pleasure, and there should be no taboo around it, and it should be an encouraged thing from them to do from much younger than you think. I actually think girls can slightly spoil their sexuality personally, like sometimes a lot younger than boys do. But I kind of have a vendetta against vibrators.

Maddie 43:05

Alright, tell me

Chanel 43:06

Because I feel like I feel like we should be promoting self-pleasure in an analogue way. Like, there's still so much shame around, even amongst my friends, like we're now in our late 20s, there is still shame about talking about giving yourself pleasure. Like, I even feel like I'm even st bling over my words right now. This is literally ridiculous.

Maddie 43:32

Like digital stimulation.

Chanel 43:34

Yeah, there's shame around digital stimulation, or there's shame around like you know, doing anything yourself with whatever and only your own body, or like I don't know, your hands or a pillow or like whatever it is. Whereas women are sold this like vibrating plastic product that first of all we have to pay for, and then second of all, I think makes it like you can only you're only allowed to like access pleasure if you pay for it. Like men don't have to pay for that, and I think that I think very of course there are sex toys for men, but it's very different. I think like vibrate, and I think vibrators have done such amazing things for breaking stigma because I think it is like more approachable to think like, oh, here's this thing, and like people start talking about it. And also like I do think that the level of pleasure that can be experienced with a vibrator is usually probably gonna be like higher than what you can get with a sexual partner. So again, that's also like a concern, like what base level to like expectations at, but that can do like a lot of things for women exploring their own bodies and understanding what's actually possible for them to feel in terms of pleasure when uh when you know it's just them and they don't feel like insecure or they can like actually fully pay attention to their wants and needs. So, like, yes, I fully agree, but I also think we just need to be talking about women touching themselves for free and actually being in like in touch with their own physical body instead of being like, here's this pink vibrating object that you need to charge, you're only allowed to access pleasure if you pay it. It's probably owned by a company that's owned by a man. And yeah, you guys are allowed to do this so long as like you pay for it.

Maddie 45:19

I love that.

Chanel 45:20

But also, like obviously, vibrators are also great for like so many reasons. But I think that really what we should be talking to young people about is like you're allowed to like this is your own body, you can do anything with it, and like it should feel pleasurable and you should learn what makes things feel pleasure and just get rid of get rid of that taboo, and then if you know someone's curious about a vibrator or you want to share that with them, then go for it. But so long as it's not only vibrators, because I mean I I know so many women who can only orgasm with a vibrator, and it's kind of like yeah, it's like you need to I feel like there's such a disconnect or like there's still like a thing. It's like you should be able to feel comfortable enough in your own body because otherwise we're just feeling shame around the whole experience, like continuously.

Maddie 46:07

Yeah, I stand corrected. You

Chanel 46:09

No, no, not corrected, sorry, but just the footnote.

Maddie 46:13

No, I love getting that other viewpoint because that I think for me, it's like I just want women to experience pleasure. And for me, I went straight to the vibrators, but you are right. I think like younger women to be able to explore their own bodies, I just want them to have pleasure, like their own pleasure, and like you said, to know that whatever sexual experience they go into, they deserve all the same pleasure that their partner gets, that they're giving. They should be receiving. And whatever form that comes in, I want for them. That's and I think that your way is a beautiful way. And it's you're right, it's free and it doesn't revol it doesn't revolve on finding something else, or if you lose it, you're stumbling around. Like I think that's a fantastic way to do it. So I I'm happy to stand corrected. I am delighted to be.

Stealthing Makes Consent Void

Chanel 47:11

Your not corrected, just adding a nuance .

Maddie 47:11

I do want to talk to you about stealthing. I had never heard of stealthing before this past year when doing research and talking to young girls. If anyone doesn’t know what stealthing is, a girl has consented to have sex with a condom and he removes it without telling her. Does her consent still apply when that happens?

Chanel 47:11

So litigious consent has made it so that stealthing is a crime in most Australian states. So it’s classified as rape. Sorry, let me preface by saying it still is sexual assault slash rape, regardless. But in every state and territory except and WA, it's a specific standalone crime. Whereas you could still, like, it's still illegal, but you would have to kind of proof an it's a barrier of layer to that. So it is illegal no matter what. But no, once a like take the legal side out of it, because stealthing is probably one of the most undercharged crimes, probably like out of all of them, or like underreported, consent must be informed, and consenting to sex with a condom is very different to consenting to sex without a condom. So removing a condom or failing to put one on when you said you have is making consent void. And there's a yeah, there's a lot of nuances there, but I think that's a perfect example of how like a perfectly lovely boy can end up perpetrating rape by doing that. And what's really interesting is when we speak to younger people, because young like younger people use condoms less than anyone now, which is just mad. It's wild. But if you speak to anyone who grew up and remembers like the AIDS epidemic, and like anyone who kind of has any lingering memory of that will absolutely be shock and horrified at the idea of not using a condom in casual sex, or they like cannot understand why anyone would want to take one off because they would be like, Well, aren't you aren't you really scared of STIs, or blah blah blah. I think because young people have access to different types of contraception, they maybe think that the protection element of like sexual health protection of preventing STIs is not as important. or yeah, so it's first of all, use condom. Second of all, taking condom off mixed consent void without permission because then you're obviously there's you know there's much higher risks, including STI transmission or unwanted pregnancy, that require , if you're gonna take that higher risk chance, then it requires it requires specific consent. One thing I will say as well, when we did the stealthing campaign, like we spoke to so many people about this, and I think this is a really good nuance as to why intention and like body autonomy matter so much, because condoms can break and they do break. and if a condom breaks, you're basically faced with the same situation if you didn't use a condom, you're at risk of getting an STI, high risk, and again, like unwanted pregnancy could like be an issue with that. But it was an accident by like an inanimate object third party, and no kind of consent or autonomy, no body autonomy was violated or disregarded. And for a lot of women, this feels very, very different to someone who has decided to take a condom off without consent. So I think it's an interesting thing where it's like the ramifications might be the same, but it's so much about how someone sees you as like a human and your choice in a situation.

Maddie 51:07

So the rest of the country, as you said, has criminalised this. WA is still disgracefully the last state standing. What do you want to say to Western Australian legislators who still have an act and all of this?

Chanel 51:19

Yeah, we need I think one of the most important reasons that stealthing is criminalised is because some people are confused by this act. Like they don't know what's happened to them when it happens. And so they don't have like language to Google things, or like they don't when they Google if it's like illegal, it's all very confusing. And you know, I'm telling you as an expert who's researched this with other researchers and policymakers that it is illegal, but if you're just kind of a teenage girl Googling something, it's not particularly intuitive or like it doesn't come up very obviously, , because again, there's like such a barrier to like where it would fit in legislation. So yeah, we need some we need some reforms. I don't think WA has affirmative consent yet, either, does it? Probably not. Yeah, I might be slightly outdated on that, but last I checked, I don't think they did. , because part of the curriculum we did means that you have to teach consent edu like you have to teach sexual assault laws in the state or jurisdiction that you're in, having stealthing in legislation means that school kids need to be taught about it as well.

Maddie 52:25

And I don't know why they wouldn't put that into the curriculum to keep young women safe, and there's no downside to putting either of those things into the curriculum. I understand that it's policy and that's probably a lot of work, but to keep young Australian women safe and respected and to keep young men educated and empathetic, I don't understand why they wouldn't put that into policy.

Chanel 52:52

I agree. I didn't know what to tell you.

Questions from the Panel

Maddie 52:54

So we've got a couple of questions from a couple of young girls. A boy at school keeps asking me to send pictures and won't stop even after I say no. Is that actual harassment or am I overreacting?

Chanel 53:04

No, you're not overreacting. That kind of like persistent asking yeah, can fall into harassment and potentially coercion as well.

Maddie 53:17

Yeah, I feel like sometimes women the yes is easier than the tenth no a lot of the time, and they fall into that persuasion. So yeah, it's yeah, it's awful. Sometimes I laugh along when guys say gross stuff because it's easier than making it weird. Does that make it my fault?

Chanel 53:38

No, it's not your fault. I mean, we we're in a patriarchy trying to survive in it. It's probably something that when you're older you might like regret. But it's not, you know, you have to get by day-to-day with the people who are around you. Maybe there's like an in-between where you're maybe not laughing, but you're not like fully cluing them out. I think I mean I often reflect on my teenage years in the way that I upheld a lot of like gender imbalances and gender inequality as a woman because like it's I just didn't know any better. And it was yeah, it was it was just like it just made sense. It was easier to not think too critically about those things, or it was just so normal to like call a girl a slut or like whatever it was that there was no two thoughts to it. So if you feel like saying something, then that's incredible and fully support and please. But if you it's it's not your responsibility if it would make you feel in a vulnerable position or if it would make you feel like you would become the target of the harassment. There's potentially other things you could do as well. Like I don't know if you would want to like tell a teacher or like an older sibling or something, maybe you probably don't want to do that, but there's other avenues.

Maddie 55:03

What would you say to my parents who think all these conversations are too much for me? I'm 13.

Chanel 55:09

I think if I had your parents in front of me and they said they had a 13-year-old daughter and like they shouldn't hear this, and I would say, does she have a phone or a laptop or access to a phone or laptop? And I assume they would say yes because it's 2026 in Australia and I would be like, as soon as a child has access to the internet and all the content on the internet, you need to assume that they know everything but they don't know everything because they know like a very one-sided skewed approach, but they're exposed to the things you're most scared of them being exposed to, and you having a safe conversation with them, or me having a safe conversation with them, without you know, using euphemisms and being confusing and just being straightforward is is much is gonna keep them much safer in that like wild world of the internet.

Maddie 56:12

Yeah, and I would think also that a majority of these parents might not be having these conversations because it's awkward and uncomfortable for them, not that the child can't handle it or doesn't want to know about it. So I think it's our responsibility, me as a parent, to teach my son and my daughter and have these uncomfortable conversations. And it doesn't have to be the one giant uncomfortable conversation. It can be lots of little micro conversations and should be lots of little micro conversations along the way. So that when they get to their teenage years, they don't feel so overwhelmed by everything that's happening to them. They've got a toolkit of stuff that they're completely prepared for when stuff like that happens to them.

Chanel 56:55

Yeah.

Rapid Fire, And The Word She Learned Too Late

Maddie 56:56

All right. We've got rapid fire. Yes, no, or it's complicated. If she said once, she said yes to everything.

Chanel 57:03

No.

Maddie 57:04

Nice boys don't sexually assault.

Chanel 57:06

No.

Maddie 57:06

She was drunk, so it's her fault.

Chanel 57:08

No.

Maddie 57:09

Enthusiastic consent kills the mood.

Chanel 57:12

No, it's so fun.

Maddie 57:13

I would argue it makes the mood even better.

Chanel 57:16

Yeah, for sure.

Maddie 57:19

Lock locker room talk is harmless.

Chanel 57:22

No, two, it's complicated. Depends what the locker room talk is. Obviously, you're allowed to talk in the locker room, but referring to integration there's a quote, I think I think Malcolm Turnbull said this. It's like not all uh not all disrespect for women leads to violence, but all violence starts with disrespect for women.

Maddie 57:45

And we didn't even touch upon rape culture, but I think it can be a part of the whole rape culture. We all take part in rape culture, whether we think we do or not, and I think locker room talk is can be a factor in the I can't believe I even have to ask this one, but her outfit was a factor.

Chanel 58:01

No.

Maddie 58:01

She can change her mind halfway through.

Chanel 58:03

Yes.

Maddie 58:03

It only counts as assault if there was violence.

Chanel 58:06

No. Sexual coercion counts as sexual assault as well. Alcohol, drugs, blackmail, threatening pressure, relentless, like if it doesn't feel safe to say no, then the yes doesn't count.

Maddie 58:22

Good. WA needs to change its stealthing laws to being illegal.

Chanel 58:27

Yes. Please.

Maddie 58:29

Uh yes, yes, please. And silence means yes.

Chanel 58:34

No.

Maddie 58:34

Alright, our last question for you, Chanel. If you could go back and tell your teenage self one thing about all of this, what would it be? And how long did it take you to find out?

Chanel 58:44

Oh my god, to be honest, I think I would tell my teenage self what sexual coercion was. Like, that was that was also like one of the reasons I started teacher us consent because I was doing my master's degree. I had already done two undergraduate degrees. So I was like, objectively, statistically, one of the most educated women in the world at this point. And like , which does not speak to me being intelligent, just how inaccessible education is for women. You know what I mean? I wasn't I wasn't meant to be a fact, I was just being like, this is ridiculous. I was on my master's course at UCL in London when I found out what sexual coercion was. It was in a reading, and I was like, why the fuck did no one tell me this? How how how have I never seen these words before? and so I think that would really help me understand what the heck was going on. Because again, these acts of assault weren't they weren't violent in nature.

Maddie 59:49

I think learning that in and of itself would have changed multiple generations of women and the way that we have understood all of our sexual experiences. That's a good one. Chanel, thank you so much for being here. Your work is changing the world. You are making Australia safer and better. Consent Laid Bare for everybody, buy it for your daughters, for your sons, nieces, nephews, neighbours, grandchildren, everyone. And it should be mandatory reading for everyone. So thank you so much, Chanel, for being here. we're so grateful.

Chanel 1:00:33

Appreciate it so much. Thanks, Maddie.

Another Scenario Entirely — a Closing Reading

Maddie 1:00:36

Now let's imagine another scenario entirely. You grow up without any part of your body being taboo. You know the difference between your vagina, your labia, your clitoris, and all the rest. Just like you know the difference between your ankles, feet, and toes. You know that your body is yours, and that if anyone ever touched you in any of those places, you could detail what happened without shame and without being accused of making it up. You go to school and get taught about this thing you've heard of before called sex. It's not something that happens between birds and bees. It happens between humans. But you will do it when you're ready, and when you're ready, it will be fun. You go to a party and almost have sex with an old friend. You realise you're not enjoying the situation, and you know that it means you should leave it. He notices something is off, and he asks if you're okay and suggests going back to the party. Years later, you're in a similar situation again. You feel good, comfortable, and respected. You have sex and no one calls you a slut. You teach your kids about what you learned and about boundaries and respect. When they go to parties, you remind them to be considerate of other people's bodies, especially your sons. If one day your team comes to you and tells you they were subjected to an unwanted sexual experience, you do not blame them for it. You do not question what they were wearing or how intoxicated they were. You are grateful that you've created a self, a safe home environment where they feel comfortable speaking to you about it. You both know what sexual assault is and that it is not their fault or shameful in any way. But you take corrective measures instantly so the perpetrator is held to account and does not carry those values with them if they go into a position of power. The second scenario was standard practice. The structural conditions that maintain rape culture would fall in a generation. Thanks for listening to this episode of Literacy. Please take a moment to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow along on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts so you can listen on the go. For episode resources or downloads on how to continue these conversations, head to our website, literacy.com, L I T H E R A C Y dot com. Make sure you're following us on Instagram at literacy.pod and on TikTok at literacy so you don't miss a thing during the week. And most importantly, if you've got a friend or family member that would be interested in this episode, share it with them. Because we believe an informed girl is a protected girl.