These last few months, it seems a single day hasn’t passed without a new story about sexual misconduct. Some are clear-cut, like Harvey Weinstein. Others have sparked debate, like Aziz Ansari — a case that focused many more people on the issue of consent. That conversation is starting to become a cornerstone of sex education in Boston high schools.
In a classroom on the second floor of New Mission High School in Hyde Park, Jess Alder and Taquari Milton kick off the class with an ice-breaker game called Partner-to-Partner. Standing around the room, students are asked to make physical contact with the person next to them. It starts out light.
“Hand to hand!” Alder called out. “Shoulder to shoulder!”
She elevated the intimacy level with each request.
“Back of the head to back of the head!," she continued. "Knee to knee!”
When she belted out “belly to belly,” the vast majority of students demurred and stepped back.
Her last command — “Nose to nose!" — elicited guffaws and a chorus of "Nos."
“No?” Alder replied. “Alright, take a seat, take a seat.”
The point of the exercise is to open up a discussion about boundaries and reading nonverbal cues through body language. Alder is acting program director of Start Strong Boston, a program run out of the Boston Public Health Commission. She said the program uses real issues and platforms like the #MeToo movement to open discussions about what constitutes a healthy relationship.
“It can be really confusing. If a young girl talks about how some boy is teasing her at school, her guardians, teachers will often say, ‘Oh, that just means they like you.’ That's putting the woman in a position of, ‘Okay, it's okay for me to be treated that way,’" Alder said. “And it's also giving assent to guys that are kind of picking on somebody to get their attention. And so, everyone is receiving a mixed message.”
Milton, the program's coordinator, said when he talks to teens, he senses many of them are confused about what consent really means.
“In hearing stories, boys are saying, ‘Oh, she's playing around because [she wants] to give it up.’ Certain comments like that. It's like, no she's just not comfortable, like, you need to have consent and actual stuff like that,” he said.
Alder and Milton visit middle and high schools around the city. Their instruction supplements the sex ed curriculum that’s already in place in many schools. During these visits, they address a range of topics, from the various forms of abuse to the barriers the LGBTQ community faces. They also explore how rape accusations divide a high school through their web series, The Halls.
In the last few years, there has been a push started by the Obama administration to elevate discussions about sexual assault on college campuses. But some research indicates brief interventions are not effective. Only longer, continuous interventions are effective in changing attitudes about rape.
Nate*, a New Mission High sophomore, said he appreciates the candor in the Start Strong class and admits he thought he knew more than he did about consent.
“I thought I had a strong grasp, but today showed me that I really don't,” Nate said. “Because you don't always know what consent is. Like, sometimes your consent is different from somebody else's consent.”
His classmate, Ayleen*, said she likes learning about what to look for in a relationship.
“And what’s a good relationship and a bad relationship,” she said. “And when you should know you're in a bad relationship.”
Ayleen added that she has learned the ways that abuse can take shape in a bad relationship.
“Abuse is not from the jump," Ayleen said. "It's, like, when it's a constant cycle.”
These are the takeaways that Jen Slonaker, vice president of education and organizational development at Planned Parenthood Massachusetts, is hoping the Healthy Youth Act proposed in the Massachusetts legislature will further cultivate.
“When young people are given the skills and the information to have healthy relationships whether it's friendships or relationships with trusted adults early in their life, they are going to be that much better able to negotiate romantic or sexual relationships later,” Slonaker said.
Comprehensive sex ed, she said, should provide young people with information well before they need it.
“Comprehensive sex education really does have the ability to eradicate the sexual misconduct epidemic at its roots and transform that culture,” Slonaker said.
Last summer, the state Senate passed the Healthy Youth Act, which mandates all sex education in Massachusetts be age-appropriate and medically accurate. It’s now pending in the House. WGBH News repeatedly reached out to multiple House Republicans for a statement on the bill. They either didn’t respond or declined to comment.
Alder of Start Strong said even without new legislation the discussions around consent and sexual assault have helped change students’ attitudes over time.
“What I've noticed most with young people that are able to stay in our program for a handful of years is the direction that they go — from victim blaming to becoming an upstander in the field,” she said.
*The Boston Public Health Commission requested that WGBH News refer to the students using their first names only.
