FACT SHEET
Consent Can’t Come After You Do
Overview
Sexual assault in Australia is a serious, enduring problem. And despite being a shared problem between genders, the facts are that the victims are overwhelmingly female.
This fact sheet aims to help spark an important conversation that Australian society is only now beginning to take seriously.
Background
The statistics around about sexual assault in Australia are shocking, and they’re very one-sided.
In Australia, one in five women will experience a sexual assault [1]by the age of 16. And this statistic doesn’t even include those who are too traumatised to report it. Across the entire age spectrum, girls between the ages of 10 and 14 are the greatest proportion of victims/survivors of sexual violence. The second highest category was is young women between 15 and 24 years.
Just one in six reports to police of rape, and less than one in seven reports of incest or sexual penetration of a child,result which results in a criminal prosecution.
According to the United Nations, Australia has one of the highest reporting rates for for sexual assault in the world. In Oone study, published in 2014 in the respected journal The Lancet[2], revealed that Australia’s rate of reported sexual assault was more than double the global average, with almost one in five women people reporting that they had been sexually assaulted by someone other than an intimate partner at least once in their lives.
And as for intimate partnersrelationships, the figure is even worse – one in four women people in Australia have experienced pyshicalphysical or sexual violence at the hands of the the person they love.[3]
The most damning of these statistics – and the one that must spark a conversation among men - is that 93 per cent of people prosecuted for sexual assault in Australia are male.Put simply, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual assault.[4]
What about giving consent when intoxicated? Unfortunately this can often be a grey area surrounding consent, but many Australian states have laws which state that there is “no consent where the complainant is so affected by alcohol or other drugs as ‘to be incapable of freely agreeing’ to the sexual activity”.[5]
The path to sexual assault starts with consent. And that includes social settings with strangers, and long-term relationships.
Receiving consent is a black and white issue. A ‘maybe’ or an ‘I don’t know’ isn’t a ‘yes’.
And iIf you don’t have receive consent before you have sex , you’re committing rape.
Arguments against consent
There are none. Non-consensual sex is rape.PeriodNo questions.
Specific rebuttals to these arguments
None needed.
Potential key messages of the campaign
Consent Must Come First.
Consent Always Comes First.
Consent Always Comes Before You Do.
Consent Must Come Before You Do.
You Come Last. Consent Comes First.
If Consent Doesn’t Come, Neither Do You.
Sex without consent is rape.
The KISS Principle: Keep It conSensual, Stupid
What Does A Cock And Consent Have In Common? Both Can Be Withdrawn.
You Can Withdraw. So Can Consent.
You Can Withdraw. So Can She.
Be Anal. Ask At Every Step.
Be Anal. Check At Every Stage.
Be Anal. Check Along The Way.
A Good Time Or Jail Time: Both Depend On Consent.
Aural No Means No Oral
Oral Also Means Hearing Yes
She’s Wasted? Consent Can’t Come. Neither Can You.
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