Rethinking Sex Education: Affirmative Consent, Pleasure, and Autonomy
by Nnenaya Bloomstein (she/her) Williams College Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies student and Mabel Wadsworth Center intern
Over the past decade or so, consent has become a cornerstone of sex education in the United States. The formal inclusion of affirmative consent in sex education began in 2014 in California public schools and has since spread across the country (Naide). This includes Maine, which passed its first act to include affirmative consent in sex education in 2019. The incentive and drive for affirmative consent policies was an effort to reduce and prevent sexual violence (Bangor Metro). Maine’s law around consent and education was updated again in 2023 and requires that a student’s “secondary course of study must also include instruction on affirmative consent, communication and decision making regarding sexual activity.” It defines affirmative consent as “consent to sexual activity that can be revoked at any time and does not include silence, lack of resistance or consent given while intoxicated” (Maine State Legislature). Yet while affirmative consent education is “required” in Maine and dozens of other states, it isn’t enforced or regulated, meaning students aren’t necessarily receiving comprehensive or effective education about consent. Even if public schools were forced to provide students with affirmative consent education, the larger problem is that public sex education is almost always centered around cisgender and heterosexual people and fails to think about how age, race, and sexuality change the way we should be talking about sex.
Within this deeply misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic framework, consent education reinforces the idea that “normal” sex is always heterosexual, penetrative, and reproductive. This isn’t to say that all penetrative penile-vaginal sex within cisgender and straight couples, for reproduction or otherwise, is a problem–the issue is framing this narrow definition of sex as “normal” and everything else as “abnormal” or nonexistent. Only teaching students how to consent to cisheteronormative sex is not teaching students about affirmative consent. Current mainstream sex education makes queer sex and all of the ways we can experience pleasure out of reach for so many young people. Rather than supporting students with the information they need to begin learning about sex and sexuality, we undereducate them, leaving them unequipped with the tools they need to make informed decisions about sex.
The inclusion of affirmative consent in public secondary education has been a largely ineffective method at reducing stigma and preventing sexual violence. However, this doesn’t mean that learning about consent isn’t essential. Consent is one of the most important aspects of sex education, that, when used effectively, promotes both safety and pleasure for everyone involved. There are many examples of how sexual health educators can use consent effectively, one of which is the Portland, Maine organization Speak About It, which is a “consent education and sexual assault prevention non-profit” that educates young people about safer sex practices through the art of theatre (SpeakAboutIt). Another organization doing amazing work is called “YES! Your Empowered Sexuality” which is a Philadelphia-based group providing “anti-oppressive, consent-based, pleasure focused sexuality education for people of all ages” (YES!). The Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MECASA) is another institution that utilizes a comprehensive approach to consent education and believes that it is part of the primary prevention against sexual violence (MECASA). In addition to these and many other alternative sex education resources, Mabel Wadsworth Center’s very own Aspen Ruhlin, our Community Engagement Manager, teaches sex education that is also trauma-informed, pleasure-focused, and queer-inclusive. For sex educators like Aspen and the many others doing this essential work, consent isn’t taught as something that a man asks for and a woman provides. Instead, consent exists in all sexual relationships as a way to provide both/all individuals with autonomy and pleasure. It’s taught in both a nuanced way that acknowledges that consent looks different for everyone, and also in a way that allows us to see how we navigate consent outside of sex every single day.
These approaches to sex education reveal that consent isn’t the problem here. The problem is our cultural understanding of sex itself, which teaches us that sex is something to be shameful of rather than something to celebrate. But this no longer has to be the truth, and those engaging in alternative sex education are modeling this. While our understanding of what good sexual health education looks like will be constantly evolving, we know that sex education must start earlier on, provide students with accurate information, and ensure that they can play a role in their education. Using this approach, affirmative consent can finally function in the way it’s supposed to, as a tool to make sex more safe and joyful for everyone.
Works Cited
Bangor Metro. “Why Maine High Schoolers Are Now Learning ‘Yes Means Yes’ in Health Class.” Bangor Daily News, November 5, 2019. https://www.bangordailynews.com/2019/11/05/bangor-metro/why-maine-students-are-learning-about-affirmative-consent-and-how-it-might-change-a-culture/.
Maine State Legislature. 20-A §4723: Health and Physical Education. Education, 2023, Maine Legislature Maine Revised Statutes, https://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/20-a/title20-Asec4723.html
https://doi.org/10.1002/sgp2.12040.
Albert Sekhar, Monica et al. “Understanding Comprehensive Sexuality Education: A Worldwide Narrative Review.” Cureus vol. 16(11):e74788. 29 Nov. 2024, doi:10.7759/cureus.74788, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11683015/.
Naide, Sophia. “State Lawmakers Say Yes to Consent Education.” Guttmacher, Guttmacher Institute, January 2020, https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/01/state-lawmakers-say-yes-consent-education.
“Hey! We Speak About It. Do you?” Speak About It. 2020, https://wespeakaboutit.org/who-is-sai.
“YES!” Your Empowered Sexuality. 2022, https://yourempoweredsexuality.org/.
“Home” MECASA. 2026, https://www.mecasa.org/.