With all of the attention that the Stanford rape case has been getting in the media, it has all of us thinking about the matter of consent.
In case you live under a rock, a judge named Aaron Persky is getting heavily criticized for the lenient sentence that he gave to 20-year-old former Stanford student, Brock Allen Turner. Turner received a jail sentence of only six months as a result of three felony counts: intent to commit rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object of an intoxicated person and sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious person.
Seriously, Persky? That’s it?
People are seriously pissed off (as they should be) that the judge had the audacity to let Turner get off so easily after committing such a heinous crime. Sexual consent is not something that should be taken lightly, especially when alcohol is involved.
In the spirit of spreading the notion of sexual consent, Thames Valley police in Britain made an amazing video that explains what sexual consent really means, for those who still seem to not quite understand the concept.
This video goes through all of the possible scenarios that could arise when engaging in sex, but replaces the act of sex with giving someone a cup of tea. If you offer someone a cup of tea and they reject your offer, would you still make them drink the tea? No, the answer is no.
By showing how ridiculous it is to force someone to drink tea that they don’t want, the video draws a parallel to show the absurdity in forcing someone to partake in sex that they do not want.
Check out this awesome video here.
The video was originally launched as a part of the #ConsentisEverything campaign, but is incredibly relevant right now with all of the craziness around the Stanford rape case. People need to realize that consent really is everything and nothing should be done without it, whether it is making someone a cup of tea, or having sex with them.