This month, the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct, in collaboration with the Peer Support Center, the Sexual Information Center, and Survivors of Sexual Harm and Allies, have organized consent workshops to inform students about consent in a variety of situations in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month this April. 

“The Office of EDI and PRSM started Consent Month in 2018 when PRSM was still a fairly new organization,” Suzanne Denneen, Title IX prevention and program coordinator, wrote in an email to the Review. “We were trying to figure out what we were all about, and the trainers had ideas about workshops they wanted to run on consent-related topics that weren’t part of the mandatory first-year workshops. Over the years it has become a collaborative event on campus with any groups that want to participate. SOSHA and SIC are the main collaborators, but any groups that want to participate can.” 

While PRSM facilitates mandatory consent training for all first- and third-years, this year’s Consent Month workshops are designed to discuss consent within more specific scenarios or communities. Upcoming workshops include CON-sent, where students will engage in scenario-based learning and discuss effective communication for musicians; Roommates and Party-Planning Consent; and Kink and BDSM: Safety and Consent. Last week’s workshops covered Judaism and Consent and Consent for Men. Consent Month also featured a keynote speaker who shared their experience, both professionally and personally, with sexual harm. This year’s speaker, Eris Eady, gave a lecture titled “Race and Consent: Sharing Your Story as a Black Student.” 

“I was able to book Eris Eady — they used to be the greater Cleveland area coordinator for Planned Parenthood, but since then have kind of gravitated to a more motivational speaker sort of position,” Bour Opoku, a senior PRSM leader and fourth-year College student said. “And so, we sort of just got together and I asked her if she’s done any work on storytelling because I think a lot of what’s lacking for Black students, especially Black women on campus, is the space and the resources to be able to feel empowered to tell stories. And so it was kind of important to me that we got somebody who was able to do that. So Eris Eady came and gave a lecture talking about oath and honoring your story and the tools on how to do that. And then the workshop involved making vision boards to go along with your oath and whatever you wanted to represent. I’m really glad that we were able to get Eris Eady because I think one of the challenges that I faced working as a PRSM trainer is getting the resources to put on events like this.”

In previous years, Consent Month has had smaller-scale events due to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The format, however, has not intentionally changed. The Consent Month calendars date back to 2018 and have recently returned to their original, larger capacity. With the increase in events, organizations have had the opportunity to increase their collaboration and cover more ground in terms of themes. Workshops delve into topics related to stigma, safe sex, pleasure, race, religion, professional spaces, and more. 

Third-year Conservatory student Gabi Allemana spoke to the collaboration between the SIC and PRSM in organizing this month’s events. Next Tuesday, Allemana will lead the How to Please a Vulva workshop. 

“So initially, PRSM reached out to the SIC,” Allemana said. “We’ve always had open communication because PRSM is funded by the Title IX office and we’re funded by Student Health, which means that we are two separate parts of the school. The people from PRSM reached out to us and were like, ‘We want you guys involved in the consent workshops because we want people to know about you guys: we know you have resources that would be helpful’ — because [the SIC] also is connected with STI testing locations and access to effective transgender healthcare. So they specifically wanted us on their ‘How to Please Series,’ which is next Tuesday at noon. We planned the How to Please a Penis, How to Please a Vulva, and How to Please Everything Else workshops.”

Allemana also communicated the importance of this month’s consent workshops, but highlighted that conversations about consent shouldn’t only happen during April. 

“I think a lot of these conversations that we will be having are conversations that everyone should be having normally,” Allemana said. “Talking about effective communication isn’t just important in sex. … It spread[s] so much farther than sex. Learning how to be effective communicators is really important to be a functional human being. But it’s not really talked about very much in our classes and stuff, and that’s why so many people suffer in silence, you know? All because communication isn’t really encouraged. We just bottle so many things up that create these systemic issues. And so embracing that part of yourself is, I think, a forefront of this series.”