Hi! Um. Hopefully it’s okay for me to brainstorm here.
I’m not sure if I’ll really be able to write this anytime soon, but I wanted to pitch an article about the prevalence of COCSA (in America) as a natural result of our nonexistent sex & consent education in k-12 public school.
However, I’m… not entirely sure how I would look for sources outside personal experience? I already think this will prolly be me explaining what I’ve seen as more of an opinion/philosophizing essay, but I’d like to be able to comb over and direct readers to more on the topic.
I’ve never really done this before, but I keep coming back to the topic bc it’s not one I see discussed nearly as often as it should — whenever COCSA is brought up, it’s only ever in the realm of “minor who was very clearly ’disturbed’/aware of what they were doing hurting another minor”.
Hi, and thank you for adding your thoughts on such an unspoken issue.
Child-on-child sexual assault/abuse is a big issue, especially among teens.
As someone who is very much familiar with and has lot of strong feelings on the issue, I can safely and confidently state that the issues can very easily be addressed by comprehensive and standardized sexual health/education classes.
I think the fact that US states with mandates for proper sex ed courses in public schools, which are both dynamic and effective, have much LOWER teen pregnancy, teen STI transmission, and COCSA perpetration, as opposed to abstinence-only approaches, which are narrow in-scope and never work, have HIGHER teen pregnancy, STI, and COCSA perpetration, and these statistical differences not only being consistent throughout the years, shows how much of an asset education can be.
A lot of teens aren’t even aware that intoxicated people cannot consent to sex, or whether the way they approach their partners is intimidating and imposing and coercive, or that the discomfort victims feel from such interactions are actually psychological trauma vectors forming.
Teenagers need to know what actions can be considered consensual and what actions are not, and the consequences of such actions.
The National Adolescent Perpetration Network, which is now part of the Safer Society Foundation, may be able to refer you to sources as COCSA is one of their focus areas.
Even though people are used to Google and similar internet devices right now, taking seminars from local libraries on how to use their facilities (including internet) to find information can be a big help. For any topic that academics publish in - and I suspect this would be one – you’ll find that a lot of the more interesting material is paywalled, and having some types of library cards, especially university cards (which can sometimes be obtained temporarily by signing up for one night course) can gain access to that material. If scihub, the academic publishing bootleg outfit, is still around, that would also work. Or having a friend in the relevant academic community. Or becoming a student there yourself. Or joining researchgate (free) where many academics post their pdfs.
Thank you all for your replies! I will follow up on the recommendations as soon as I can, and at least try to compile some general info regardless of whether I end up writing this or not; it should be useful to have that stuff on hand for easy access.
A lot of teens aren’t even aware that intoxicated people cannot consent to sex, or whether the way they approach their partners is intimidating and imposing and coercive, or that the discomfort victims feel from such interactions are actually psychological trauma vectors forming.
This is extremely accurate. Though I’m 25 now and it’s Been A While, I grew up in central Texas; while our area was better about most things compared to a lot of the greater state itself, including a lot of the basic info re: Sex Ed… we were still behind a lot of other states. I’d say, like, a good third of the AFABs I knew got pregnant in High School – hell, there were always at least a few in each grade when I was in Middle School.
So many of us were sexually active, but we weren’t allowed to say that without getting in trouble… so we just didn’t talk about it with adults! We learned from each other. Which isn’t great.
(I knew more than most kids, but I know that my understanding of consent was abysmal, so a lot of people abused me and I abused others, without even realizing it. Lots of guilt over that.)
There’s a reason why states and locales with proper sex ed, whereby safe sex practices and actual information about both sexes is taught (periods, personal health), and methodology that isn’t just some knuckle-dragging, anti-secular ‘teacher’ shouting “don’t have it until you’re older and married, and you’ll be okay” tend to have lower teen STI, teen abortion, teen pregnancy, and teen-on-teen sex abuse instances.