#MeToo Movement Exposes Incomplete Sex Education in Schools

“I was sexually assaulted by my ex-boyfriend,” revealed Megan Antone, a freshman at Boston University’s College of Communication. The relationship was “always a bad thing,” she explained, but it became violent three weeks after they broke up. “I saw him and he said, ‘I think you should have sex with me. It will make me feel better and make me like you more.’ We started to have sex and I was crying hysterically. I said, ‘please, I don’t want to do this,’ but he kept going.”

One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, according to the National Sexual Violence Resources Center. With the recent #MeToo movement, survivors have stepped up to share their stories on social media. “For too long, survivors of sexual assault have been in the shadows,” declared Tarana Burke, the founder of the movement, on the #MeToo website. “We have been afraid to speak up, to say, ‘Me Too.’”

Antone is grateful for the #MeToo movement and is one of many who have spoken up about their sexual assault experiences. While the #MeToo movement shines a spotlight on the fact that sexual assault is common for women, it also brings up questions: Where does it start? How do we stop it?

“I went to a religious private school in Texas and the extent of my sex education was ‘don’t have sex until you get married,’” said Antone. “Texas is an example of a state with poor sexual education,” reports Dana A. Raphael of Duke University in her report, The Effect of Sexual Education on Sexual Assault Prevention. “In 2010, Texas received nearly $5.5 million from the federal government for abstinence until marriage programs.”

Antone’s high school didn’t teach her about protection, STDs, how to get tested or sexual anatomy. “They also didn’t teach about consent,” said Antone. Her ex-boyfriend went to the same high school.

Antone went through a whole month of feeling like her assault was her fault. A lot of women feel the same way after being assaulted; somehow they did something that caused the act to happen. However, it’s clear that Antone did nothing wrong and there’s a different place to point the blame: her high school.

“It should be taught that consent isn’t a one-time thing. If you get consent to take off an item of clothing, that doesn’t mean that you get to have sex with them,” Antone proposes. Many people don’t understand that consent needs to be constantly reiterated. “Consent isn’t something that you get once and do forever, every time you do something physical with someone you need consent, even if something is not quite as intimate as sex.”

“I know for a fact if I asked him if [the sex] was consensual, he would be like ‘yeah!’” said Antone, “He wouldn’t consider that sexual assault. I don’t think he even thinks about it.” Many sex education programs don’t teach the reality of sexual assault, especially the fact that there are many forms of it. “A lot do stuff that is sexual assault but in their mind the only thing they know about sexual assault or rape is a woman they see on CSI Special Victims Unit.”

“Only nine percent of the information adolescents receive about sexual assault comes from school-based education. Most teens receive their information on the topic from the media, most often television (43%) or the internet (38%),” reports Raphael. The media often creates misconceptions about sexual assault, and school sex education should dispel these myths.

One of these myths is that “sexual assault is only with strangers,” said Antone. “People

always say sexual assault is with a girl who went to a frat part and some guy she didn’t know raped her. That’s definitely the case sometimes but it’s not always that way.” Antone and her ex-boyfriend dated for nine months and it still happened.

Because there is a lack of sex education in American schools, many young boys turn to pornography as a way to learn what sex is, said Virginia Sapiro, a professor of Political Science; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, while at a BU Student-Faculty Forum about the #MeToo movement. Boys learn that women are constantly pleased during sex and love everything the man does to them. In pornography, consent is never necessary. Improving sex education is one way to combat pornography’s false reality and erase sexual assault.

Sex education in schools must start early, because the risk of sexual assault starts early. Studies by the American Association of University Women found that 48 percent of students in grades 7-12 said they experienced some form of harassment based on their gender during the school year.

Luckily, some non-profits are on the move to make a change. The Robert Crown Center and Answer are two organizations that developed new curricula in which sex education is taught on a continuum, according to the Chicago Tribune.

This modern curricula starts in Kindergarten with “lessons on how to be a good friend,” an important beginning in the process of learning about respect and kindness. This idea is vital since consent isn’t the only component lacking in American sex education. “[My ex-boyfriend] was pretty mean during the relationship,” recalled Antone as she explained how he constantly criticized her about her height and weight. “He was emotionally abusive...emotional abuse can be just as detrimental as physical abuse.” Antone’s education neglected to teach “how not to treat people and what counts as physical or emotional abuse.”

Unfortunately, voluntary after-school programs run by non-profits are not an adequate solution. In-school sex education needs to change to make a lasting impact. California provides a bit of hope, however. Noticing the #MeToo movement, the state has created a new sexual health education law for grades 7-12, according to the New York Times. Beginning January 1, 2018, schools are now required to provide information about sexual harassment and affirmative consent. The program is called “Yes Means Yes.”

The #MeToo movement and survivors like Antone have taught us that sexual assault is real. The next step is to reverse the trend early by providing sex education about assault and consent. “When you hear #MeToo, will you stand up to say #NoMore?” asked Burke. “Let’s get to work.”