According to Utah Code (53G-10-402, Administrative Code R277-474 and R277-700), schools in Utah are required to teach students sex education twice between grades 8-12. However, it has a heavy “abstinence” based approach.
Students are not taught what consent is and how to know when you haven’t and have given it.
Sexual violence has a steady increase in Utah, a large portion of this could be avoided if students were taught what consent was when they were in school. If parents didn’t have such a huge hand in what can be in sex education, educated adults would be able to inform young students on what consent is, and could help hundreds of teenagers avoid the possibility of becoming a victim of sexual violence.
If both girls and boys knew what consent was, how to give consent, and revoke consent, so many innocent lives would be changed.
According to Utah Departments of Health and Humans Services, “studies in Utah suggest that 19.9% of females and 6.5% of males experience rape or attempted rape during their lifetime and nearly one in three women will experience some form of sexual violence during their lives.”
How could the education of consent change these statistics? If the Utah Board of Education would allow schools to teach consent, maybe the numbers of people who have been victims of sexual violence would decrease.
Mashaun Estridge-Jones, Draper
