Talking about Consent
Roar with KK, Episode 31: Shafia Zaloom
Today I’m speaking with Shafia Zaloom. She is one of the country s leading experts on sexual consent education. Her book Is Sex Teens and Everything In between is the ultimate book for parents and teens regarding consent all the complexities of sex. Shafia’s curriculum has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, and more.
Full transcript below:
Katherine Kendall: This is Roar with Katherine Kendall. And today I am speaking with Shafia Zaloom. She is the author of the book ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between’. Shafia is an educator and consultant and has spoken to thousands of kids about the complexities of sexuality and the importance of consent.
Sex, Teens and Everything in Between, so I was thinking about your book a lot lately because I was thinking about how our teens, are they getting the lessons that we didn’t get, that my generation didn’t get. There are so many people that I know that in my generation, I mean, consent what are you even talking about? No one talked about consent. There’s no that seems absurd and then I think a lot of people also correct the idea that it isn’t sexy to ask for consent. There’s no way that makes that sexy. How do you do that? That seems a little bit contrite. But then what you have is they feel like you were assaulted or harassed. And then the other person thinks that no way, I, that wasn’t my experience at all. I totally didn’t harass you. I made a pass at you and you said, or I thought you said yes because your body said yes. And you know, I know you talked a lot in the book about your body’s response is not a yes. Arousal isn’t a yes. You have to actually get a yes. But I just thought we could talk about consent in general. Big subject but…
Shafia Zaloom: Sure, from our generation there weren’t a lot of people talking about it. Absolutely, exactly what you said. With this new generation there’s this greater awareness and obviously with the [inaudible] and everything else has become really apparent that we would have benefited from this conversation. And that they were actually greatly needed and not a lot of adults that I have across this in my parent education workshops is that a lot of adults never practice education yet we’re telling parenting adults and caretaking adults that they need to be having the conversations when they never actually have that themselves. So you know when I was promoting the book and presenting and talking to adult audiences, sometimes people would come up to me afterward and say, You know I really appreciated your book that I have to say I am gonna read it again to talk to my kid because the first time around I was thinking about myself and my own relationships and in my own understanding of how healthy sexuality and how consent factors into that. You know I think it’s a real opportunity for all of us in a myriad of ways because not only do young people need to understand what consent is and how it’s crucial and essential to protecting the fundamentals of the human dignity is that we can also then role model healthy vulnerability. Because to practice consent, you have to cultivate courage to connect to someone which can feel vulnerable, and a culture that forsaking the views vulnerability as weakness versus what Rene Brown says is the greatest measurement of courage is strength. There’s a two-part in there’s an opportunity for us. I really like to roll out to parents especially because we’re looking for hope. We’re looking to aspire to something different, for something better for our children that we can learn along with them and by role modeling how we do that we provide the greatest lessons. So as parents the most effective way to teach something to our children is to do it ourselves. I think that there’s a lot of opportunity in this conversation around consent now and how the media and those movements of #metoo has brought a lot of concept to the forefront. What we are talking about need to talk about how healthy sexuality in relationships.
Katherine Kendall: Yeah. I love that you say it really does that start with the parents, not educators like if you really try that appeals to parents to talk to their kids. But then if parents don’t have the tools, what on earth do they even say, hey do you want to have that talk? Hey, any questions just to call on me. But I also want to bring up that one thing you said about teaching consent with kids. Start by saying how do you feel when people grab your French fries off your plate.
Shafia Zaloom: Yeah, so I find that kids, first and foremost parents are primary sexuality educators in their child’s life. I don’t know any professional says an educator who doesn’t believe that. And they are the only one, like, there a lot of people in their lives said that we learn our lessons from not only by having them model them for us what they teach you as different roles in our lives as we’re growing up. So when it comes to kids, sometimes especially because they don’t have experimental concepts we want to get in front of this. We want to be talking about consent in age-appropriate ways across the developmental stages. Beginning from the time when they were very little and it’s really is about how we treat each other, how that matters. That does matter and what does that mean for us in our connection to other people. And kids were cultivating that with children from a very early age. And the lessons that we learn in our primary relationships are the ones that we’re gonna carry into those relationships we have and cultivate in our teen years, in our adult lives. So we are really establishing those patterns of behavior within relationship building with kids from the beginning. And I find that for young people when we come into this conversation no matter at what stage. It’s really helpful to draw upon concrete because they are in [] development, they are concrete thinkers, metaphor, examples, experiences that they’ve had so that we can bring empathy into that learning so that they have something tangible that they can hold on to. So that they can practice things that don’t make them feel like of pressure, or influence to have sexual experiences before they were ready. I like to use the analogy of French fries because a lot of us like French fries. When it comes to French fries you know, a lot of audiences that can be of any age, they can be students, teachers, parents who never who say okay so how many of you like French fries. Everybody raises their hands. The majority of the room will raise their hands. I’ll say what kind of fries that you can really dig into, like, people like garlic fries at the ballpark. Like special waffle fries was especial to us or shoestring fries, potato fries, sweet potato fries. It’s so fun depending on what state I am in. The sides, Alaska got sides, ketchup, ranch, barbecue; mayo will indicate where I actually am. And we can have fun with that, right? So you are engaging from that sort of fun, conversation that anyone can relate to. So you have this great deal potato fries and we are coming to a table of your family or friends and put your plate down. What happens? It’s pretty universal kids will definitely share, hands come darting in and picking off your fries. And when I talk about this to an adult audience, especially on the context of like, I’m doing a workshop on consent and they talk to their kids about it. And suddenly they go immediately to the last time that they did this with their kids because it happens. It happens the whole time. And they pick up your fries and also say, how many of you are actually ok with that? Very few. There’s one or two hands that go up but majority of the hands they down. Because people aren’t actually ok with that. And I’ll say to the couple hands that are up, tell me about, how come your hands is up. What’s going on with that? Because you know, if it’s my really good friend, and I know they’re gonna share their shake, or we’ve been sharing fries forever. Or I’m close to them, its fine. Ok, so you assume the context already exists. Or you have an understanding between each other about your fries. Like yes, that’s it. So we’re actually talking about what if it’s some random person. What if it’s just a friend of a friend? Oh, no way! So how come, what’s not ok about that? And people always tell well, they didn’t ask. Right? They didn’t ask, good manners should and also exactly how come it is so important to ask? They say, Well, good manners should we care about. Like their respect, your right to decide because they‘re yours. And I’m hungry and I want my fries. And they belong to me. They say. Ok, then you knows, that’s why it is important to ask. I’ll say, how would you know if you actually have to ask, if you say yes or no, and decide and also a lot of you don’t say anything. How many of you have actually save something when this happens and very few will raise their hands and say, what gets in the way. I don’t wanna be judged. I don’t want people to minimize. You know, there’s the thing you know, just fries, draw attention or contention in a relationship. Many have been taught to share, people don’t wanna come across as being stingy, they wanna come across this feeling generous, so have people perceive you. All these things in a way were socialized, right? So then kids start to really glimpse to these. Like, so we’re talking about sexual consent, so how does this relate? What else belongs to you? Your body. Your body and your sexuality. And then kids were like, ahhhhh… And you go this concrete bridge over it to the context of sexuality, so kids can actually understand the concept in a way that they can connect to it themselves without having to feel like they need some sort of sexual experience or context to get at it.
Katherine Kendall: How old were the kids that you’d be talking to this point?
Shafia Zaloom: You know I have a national consulting business and I consult from kindergarten to college-age kids. And that school that serves that age proves my sweet spot is high school. So typically, adolescence so that maybe middle school sometimes, definitely high school. I find that in college kids are very much in need of all the sciences that reporting towards this the data in terms of their social capacity to engage in this sort of conversations in this kind of relationship-building are behind. Really this is really like an adolescent conversation. French fries, little kids, elementary school kids can get them French fries conversation for sure. So typically, the majority of my audience is going to be teenagers.
Katherine Kendall: We’re talking to elementary kids, do you actually do you actually use the words sex? Do they know what you’re talking about sex? Or do you just use metaphors about boundaries?
Shafia Zaloom: Well, I always like to frame some things, say will depend on what kind of education the kids already have. It will depend on the language the school is using with them around these sorts of things already. I think it’s totally appropriate to use the words sex. They would probably hear it already. To be really specific and concrete with them about what that means and to acknowledge sex is kind of a funny word. Let’s talk about how come when do we hear about the word, what does it actually mean? What does it include for someone your age? Because it means different things to different people in different situations as they get older and grow up. Always making sure that we’re normalizing this language so that kids can have meaningful sense of conversation with adults about it as long as it is age-appropriate. That’s a big piece. I think a lot of people; will soon use the words sex. You know they bring their own sort of lack of education, issues, beliefs, teaching, whatever it is misinformation, price of information it all comes with, it is very loaded word and so I think it’s fine to use that kind of a language at that kind of language I absolutely do. For I am also very specific about what I mean about that in age-appropriate way because that’s also we’re just many situations has to do with the type of body you have, right? So if you’re female body person or your male body person it is your sex assign at birth. Like that word comes up and a lot of different kind of context they’re just exploring that with kids. Explaining that to kids what’s appropriate, what is it I think is really relevant and important to delve into from the beginning?
Katherine Kendall: Do you ever find yourself a few work discovering, maybe that somebody is, perhaps a perpetrator in the making, or someone’s being abused, somehow at home, or school. That comes up a lot I think what’s really important and what I strive to teach when I am working, where I am working because the young people in particular. Because I am, I am working with kids and there is all kinds of opportunities for growth and self-actualization and evolution when working with children. And we know this because their brains are so neuroplastic like literally they are being shaped. Right? Like, with every day, with every behavior, as they grow and so to be someone in a position where you can enter, influence, teach I think in engaging in this conversation that are honest and genuine which is always what I try to cultivate in my classroom things will be revealed. You know sometimes it is in a classroom where I teach regularly and kids will want to make an appointment to talk to me because something has come up for them. I always frame this conversation that my kids know what’s gonna be talked about. I always ask confidentially. If they anticipate anything in the class that I’m gonna be teaching and I’m very transparent about what it’s gonna be learning if anything might be difficult or too challenging for them and then I’ll talk to them and counsel them, work with them. If I need to bring parent in the conversation or we need to come up with alternative in roads to the information or either they want to do something else there’s always options for kids. When I go to school when they might now know me and the same way on regular basis I will have kids who have just learned about what consent is for the first time literally have a realization in the class or in the workshop that they have no consensual situation or oh my goodness this is what I've been wrestling with this whole time. Or wow, that is really painful. I have a friend who is in a horribly abusive relationship and they will come to me and I never want kids to share something that wheels emotion that gave them lose control of. So that’s a very delicate like you said, situation typically at a school. I have a contact person, an adult who will establish with them before with trust and I always make sure that when they introduce me, they talk about how kids can research themselves for they think of things should come up for them. If they come up to me afterward they have conversations with them before we get into anything explicit. There’s cruelly trauma, I will make sure that my conversation is trauma centered in a sense that I’ll say, ok, here are the things we can talk about, things that you may want to consider, here are the places you can go to get resources and support. I just want to make sure you feel empowered in what you’re doing and what you are sharing. And they don’t want to compound any trauma that you might have because that happens a lot. I never want to [inaudible] in a situation where we are triggering PTSD, where the trauma becomes very intense for them. And they don’t have anywhere to go or anyone to talk to. So I am always so purposeful, very intentional when I go in, when I’m working with the school or organization, and kids to talk about those things. And make sure they know where to go to get help. If they presented having these really hard times, make sure they are trustworthy adults in that school know what’s going on.
Katherine Kendall: I was thinking about people that grow up to be let’s say, like harming ones and I think when it started for him. Who’s taught him what he knew about sex? Or any of these guys that are serial perpetrators to start in high school, to star in their formative years. Could we have caught it? And averted it. Do you think of a time you’ve seized someone in high school if somebody is exhibiting behaviors that don’t care about consent. Do you think they can be taught at that point still? Or sort they die as cast or on already on a path. And that’s a pretty deep question to ask.
Shafia Zaloom: There are lots of different ways in which we learn about our relationships as we grow up. And I don’t think that there’s one single way that there’s that one formula that tracks down this particular type of person. And I think that everyone who knows about human development or on a psychological development will agree that there’s actually a variety of those who come together. You create in that kind of situation or that kind of approach or when it comes to the perpetration of sexual assault. And it’s interesting in doing work for survivors and talking about consent and non-consensual situations and consensual situations and talking about it in such depth for so long. People hurt and I started out as a social worker and I work with perpetrators and survivors in the same residential treatment center they were all teenagers, young people and what was really clear is there certain generation on all kinds of cycles of abuse and violence where people hurt that whole thing. There’s another piece where we learn about relationships not only from our families primarily but also from culture, greater culture or schools, all these social institutions that socializes what sexuality actually is. So there is spiritual communities and religion, there’s government institution, there are friends, there are workplace or for young people school. There is family and there’s the media. So these are all the social institutions that socialize us to understand what sexuality is and how we approach relationships and have them in addition to and I think some aspects and personality, some of which may be hardwired but then are nurtured in a very specific way. And I think what you are asking me is was is there a point where we could have intervened. I think it would absolutely depend on the individual and all the different things that are coming together in their lives. I find that at least now when I talk to people who feel entitled to someone else’s sexuality or entitled to someone else’s body or entitled to use someone else’s body for their own gratification and pleasure. For their own sense of power control, that’s a learned behavior. That is truly a learned behavior and that it’s insidious. There are a lot of things that I can point to in our culture that I think reinforces rewards allows for that kind of a thing. And I think that the #metoo movement has highlighted so much of that. So how we tend to dehumanize systemically discourage disconnection right through objectification over-sexualization and media and things like that. How we culture tends to avoid vulnerability which required people to be emphatic and to connect. I think there’s a lot that comes together to create that kind of situation. If you talking about young people that particularly I am working with teenagers the majority of the time. I absolutely don’t know a single young person who doesn’t know for authentic connection. The problem is they are hitting against all these obstacles narrative in the culture that’s telling them actually now disconnect. Objectify, dehumanize and organize by gender. Whether it is to disconnect from pain or stay in this toxic beautifully in her book, Cross and Sex and Poison Sex, she talks about how girls systematically encouraged to disconnect from their bodies and their experience through their bodies. And that boys are actually systematically encouraged to disconnect from their hearts and how that impacts their relationships in the people they care about and love. And when you put those two things together you really get that that leads to disconnect from dehumanization and non-consensual sexual experiences and sexual violence and all these different ways and so I think there’s a lot we need to work on and I’m sorry I’m sort of you know talking into things with you.
Katherine Kendall: No.
Shafia Zaloom: But it’s very complex.
Katherine Kendall: It is complex and you’re heading on some other really important subject that I look into my friends and my teenage girls, let’s say beautiful young women who might really want to have a lot of Instagram followers and then I see a picture of them with crop top or something and I’ll think by no means am I gonna say you’re wearing a crop top that’s inappropriate or judge them or anything I don’t want them to feel like I don’t think they are beautiful but I wonder if there’s a part of them that’s trying to get likes by some ways looking sexy or cute. And how do they fall into that over-sexualization and of themselves because you know how do they fall into wanting to get the peer pressure of liking to get attention and what sexy has to do with that and what their idea of sexy or revealing clothes or body parts?
Shafia Zaloom: There so much to that, yeah so I think that being that looking into that cultural norm, first one is that body pride is beautiful. Body pride is beautiful that we do want girls to be empowered on their sexuality and that’s a huge part of #metoo movement is to how to have sexual autonomy. And to feel like you have agency when it comes to your body and your sexual expression and your sexuality and that no one else is entitled to it. That is so important. The question is how we then cultivate that in our girls and in our kids. In general, regardless of gender what we can speak specifically to girls right now because our society is so gender and organized by gender. Even these issues manifest their treatment based on that. Is that neurologically programmed to seek the approval, the attention and approval of peers in the better culture? From that extra-environment, there’s actually neuroscience behind that. And there’s also how do we then socialize them and how do we encourage that or support that or pray into that. How does that happen? And when it comes to how we validate our self-worth so many of us as women are socialized to believe that our self-worth comes from the attention we got from our parents or the attention that we get from them. And I want to acknowledge too that this is very sort of binary conversation, very exclusive which the gender norms are. And so when it comes to our popular culture too we see this sort of objectification of sexuality, this dehumanization of it, and kids are really. I have this teenager say this to me when I was writing my book referring to teen culture çoz I would say something like this, in teen culture we would see something like what you just noticed and asked me about. And one of the kids have a review proof for my book in 18 or young 20’s or something to review everything in the book to make sure was real and relevant to their experience. And she says, you know, everyone talks about teen culture, we are just trying to navigate the gauntlet to adult culture so we are looking in to adult culture and interpreting that and emulating that for ourselves. We are trying that on so many ways. We are just holding mirrors at. And I think that is really true. And so you know adult culture in terms of what we reward, what we value, what we give attention to is something that we really need to address. And there are lot of people kids are looking to as they try to figure out their own identity and navigate that process of identity formation of what their looking to connect to. Identify with try on. When you look into a popular culture, that’s what they see. And I think a lot of kids misunderstanding girls in particular of what empowerment truly is. Boys came to that matter when it comes to that sexuality In this topic. And that you know empowerment is self-actualization. It’s internal and personal growth. Where we are in the integrity, we have integrated who are outside selves are and our behavior with our inside selves are and are truth. And with that, when we and we are in control or that narrative, right? Coz we want to encourage sexual autonomy. When we battle it up, that requires us to be able to make choices which are fundamentally what consent is about for ourselves. About what we want in our lives or relationships, what we do. That’s agency and autonomy. A lot of girls think that empowerment comes from the objectification at which point we actually lose control of that narrative. So it’s not actual real empowerment. Because once it goes out into the cyberspace, people can screenshot it, they can download it. They can masturbate to it, they can do exploit it, they can do whatever they want with it. And once we lose control of our own narrative, we lose that agency. Unless we are willing to freely give it up knowing what the consequences could be I think we really need to talk to kids about what misunderstanding of true empowerment actually is. And there are ways girls can be empowered in their body parts and their sexual agency and autonomy. Girls can embrace their bodily agency and autonomy and their sexual agency and autonomy but I don’t think it comes from unwilling objectification. I believe it comes from experiencing that in real relationships through authentic connection with other people. It can be impersonal like if it’s your decision or for sexual gratification and not for relationship or whatever it is. As long as you’re making that choice, for yourself then I think that is healthy. But I find that girls really look into Instagram a lot of time to validate appearance and attention through appearance to try and figure out to own their sexual autonomy and bodily autonomy through this channel this way or choose trial and error. And also don’t realize they actually lose control to all of that narrative should someone choose to exploit what it is that they are showing. And so that’s where I start to get really concerned and that’s why I think its caring adults will need to be talking to kids about that’s the real thing. Because there’s a world we want to live in, where you could post whatever you want and you’d be honored and respected. And you wouldn’t be making yourself exposed to someone’s exploitation. And there’s a world we actually live in, those things exist. And so we have to help girls navigate when it is okay for them to do that in a way that safe and honors who they are in all that beauty of body pride and sexual autonomy and when it probably won’t be. Or it might not be. And that’s the tricky part.
Katherine Kendall: yeah, that is tricky. So do you think that we are learning as a culture, we’re getting better? To think we are starting to get consent and that the next generation of adults would be better off?
Shafia Zaloom: Well, the state of sex education in our country right now is rather abysmal. Only half of the United States requires to have sex education be a part of public high school education. Only 13 of the states require that it would be medically accurate and only 8 of the states require consent to be a part of that conversation. I know. So we have in terms of you know currently in the federal funding for sex education has been allocated to reinstate abstinence-only education in certain states. However, absence only education has been proven to Congressional research actually be to the detriment of young’s people well-being. Now just as they say, abstinence is unvalued, it is, it is such an important aspect to consent and practicing consent. To be able to choose to abstain, to honor what your own personal desire and boundaries are. Absolutely, but abstinence-only education has been politicized and has a very specific agenda and curriculum. There’s that piece I think that there are lot of amazing medically accurate resources from young people and adults online. I don’t think a lot of young people are called in that direction that they are looking to things like pornography which has become a bit super easily accessible and other less credible research resources to try and figure out what sex is like. That would be like watching the Fast and the Furious to learn how to drive. We really then need to come up with a strong counter-narrative to say we want you to aspire to healthy relationships that are mutual and balanced and respectful and grounded in the conscious practice to care and dignity for each other. Those are safe and that feels good. That is the whole point. It is ok for us to tell kids that the whole point of romantic and sexual relationships is to feel good. For it to feel good it actually requires that it be in the context of individual sense of readiness. That it be paced, that it means missing thing for two people. All those things that are inherited in good quality sex education. And so parents I think more of us are doing this in the media, we’re having conversations, we are having this podcast and you know there is more conversation. There are more resources; people are really taking an initiative in a movement to encourage healthy sexuality and relationship education. There are amazing things happening all over this country within this context. And we have a lot of work to do. And the majority of that work especially now that we are in the context of Covid-19 and the pandemic and kids going to digital learning sex education has been sacrificed. It is very difficult to model things that you are hoping to teach in terms of how you built trust, how you role model healthy vulnerability and all those other things in a zoom context or a digital context. So, It really left to parents to do that now and they are the best and the most important people to do this. It’s a call to action on the part of caretaking and parenting adults to start having these conversations with kids. And 95% of quality sex education is values-based. And the only people who can teach those values caretaking adults and parents closest to these kids. I just read something, actually on Twitter, it was a quote from someone in particular and it said like, sex education that only talks about STD’S is like going to culinary school and only talking about food poisoning. It’s ground in fear and shame and it really is about so much more. And we need to talking about our kids about love and care about what that’s like and what that feels like and we are all deserving of that. And to feel good in our bodies, in our experience in our hearts, in our minds when we are with someone that we are gonna share ourselves with.
Katherine Kendall: Yeah, absolutely. For what I’m gonna give your book to all my friends with kids. I think they need it and thank you so much for all this information. There’s so much there but it’s like not dark information, it’s not scary. It is actually really positive. It makes me feel better about relationships when I read your book.
Shafia Zaloom: Thank you. Thank you for your interest. I appreciate it.
Katherine Kendall: yeah. And good luck with all the pandemic teaching out there, I mean teaching through zoom, getting your message out there.
Shafia Zaloom: Thank you. Health educators are coming together to get creative with what we are doing so there’s a community and for those kids to who we can give it to, I hope we can give something that’s quality and that be able to embrace.
Katherine Kendall: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.