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. That seems absurd. And then I think a lot of people also object to 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 contrived. But then what you have is they feel like they were assaulted or harassed. And then the other person thinks that no way, 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, for 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 Me Too movement and everything else, it has become really apparent that we would have benefited from this conversation, and that they are actually greatly needed. And not a lot of adults that I come across in my parent education workshops is that a lot of adults never received sex education, yet we’re telling parenting adults and caretaking adults that they need to be having the conversations when they never actually had them 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, but I have to say I am going to read it again to talk to my kid because the first time around I was thinking about myself and my own relationships and 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, it 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, in a culture that views vulnerability as weakness versus what Brené Brown says is the greatest measurement of courage and strength. There’s a two-part piece in there—an opportunity for us. I really like to roll this 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 like #metoo has brought a lot of these concepts to the forefront of what we are talking about and need to talk about: how healthy sexuality is in relationships.
Katherine Kendall: Yeah. I love that you say it really does start with the parents, not educators, like if you really try to appeal 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 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 the primary sexuality educators in their child's life. I don’t know any professional who's an educator who doesn’t believe that. And they are not the only one, like, there are a lot of people in their lives that we learn our lessons from, not only by having them model them for us, but what they teach us in different roles in our lives as we’re growing up. So when it comes to kids, sometimes, especially because they don’t have experiential 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 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 for kids, we’re 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 going to 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 things because they are in concrete development, they are concrete thinkers, so we use 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 there’s a lot of pressure or influence to have sexual experiences before they are 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 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 do you really dig into?" Like, people like garlic fries at the ballpark, like special waffle fries with special dips, or shoestring fries, potato fries, sweet potato fries. It’s so fun depending on what state I am in. The sides, we've 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 plate of potato fries and you 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 in the context of like, "I’m doing a workshop on consent and talking 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 I also say, "How many of you are actually okay with that?" Very few. There’s one or two hands that go up, but the majority of the hands stay down. Because people aren’t actually okay with that. And I’ll say to the couple hands that are up, "Tell me about it. How come your hand is up? What’s going on with that?" "Because you know, if it’s my really good friend and I know they’re going to share their shake, or we’ve been sharing fries forever, or I’m close to them, it’s fine." "Okay, 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 okay about that?" And people always tell me, "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 say we care about them. Like it's about 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. "Okay, then you know, 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 said something when this happens?" And very few will raise their hands. And I 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 as feeling generous. It's about how people perceive you." All these things are in a way we’re socialized, right? So then kids start to really glimpse this. "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 are like, "Ahhhhh…" And you go from 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 at 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 group—my sweet spot is high school. So typically, adolescence, so that might be middle school sometimes, definitely high school. I find that in college, kids are very much in need of all the science that’s reporting 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 the French fries conversation for sure. So typically, the majority of my audience is going to be teenagers.
Katherine Kendall: When we’re talking to elementary kids, do you actually use the words "sex"? Do they know what you’re talking about with sex? Or do you just use metaphors about boundaries?
Shafia Zaloom: Well, I always like to frame it that what I 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 a 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 assume when you use the words "sex," you know, they bring their own sort of lack of education, issues, beliefs, teaching, whatever it is, misinformation, or prior information. It all comes with it. It is very a loaded word. And so I think it’s fine to use that kind of a language. I absolutely do. For I am also very specific about what I mean about that in an age-appropriate way because that’s also where, in just many situations, it has to do with the type of body you have, right? So if you’re a female-bodied person or your a male-bodied person, it is your sex assigned at birth. Like, that word comes up in a lot of different kind of contexts. We're just exploring that with kids. Explaining that to kids—what’s appropriate, what isn’t—I think is really relevant and important to delve into from the beginning.
Katherine Kendall: Do you ever find yourself, through 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, is with young people in particular. Because 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 intervene, influence, teach, I think, and 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 going to be talked about. I always ask about confidentiality. If they anticipate anything in the class that I’m going to be teaching, and I’m very transparent about what they're going to 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 a parent into 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 a school when they might not know me in the same way on a 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 been in a non-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 unveils an emotion that would cause them to 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 I will establish trust with them before. And I always make sure that when they introduce me, they talk about how kids can research themselves or if they think of things that should come up for them. If they come up to me afterward, I have conversations with them before we get into anything explicit. If there's trauma, I will make sure that my conversation is trauma-centered in a sense that I’ll say, "Okay, 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 I don’t want to compound any trauma that you might have because that happens a lot. I never want to be 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 a school or organization, and with kids to talk about those things. And make sure they know where to go to get help. If they are presented having these really hard times, make sure they are trustworthy adults in that school that know what’s going on.
Katherine Kendall: I was thinking about people that grow up to be, let’s say, like, a person harming others, and I think, "When did it start for him? Who taught him what he knew about sex?" Or any of these guys that are serial perpetrators—it has to start in high school, start in their formative years. Could we have caught it? And averted it. Do you think of a time you’ve seen 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 is it that the die is cast, or they're 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 psychological development will agree that there’s actually a variety of things who come together to 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 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 that there is a generational aspect 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, our schools, all these social institutions that socialize us to understand what sexuality actually is. So there are spiritual communities and religion, there’s government institution, there are friends, there are the 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 of 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, 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 and 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 is required for people to be empathetic and to connect. I think there’s a lot that comes together to create that kind of situation. If you are 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 how to long for authentic connection. The problem is they are hitting against all these obstacles and a 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 place. Beautifully in her book, ‘Power and Sex and Poison Sex’, she talks about how girls are 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 and 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 in 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 hitting 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 a crop top or something and I’ll think, "By no means am I going to 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 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 is?
Shafia Zaloom: There's 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 focused and organized by gender. Even these issues manifest their treatment based on that. Is that neurologically we are programmed to seek the approval, the attention and approval of peers and the wider 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 feed 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 get from our peers or the attention that we get from them. And I want to acknowledge too that this is very sort of a 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 seeing it. I have this teenager say this to me when I was writing my book, referring to teen culture, because 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 who had a review proof for my book, who was 18 or young 20’s or something, to review everything in the book to make sure it 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 at adult culture and interpreting that and emulating that for ourselves. We are trying that on so many ways. We are just holding mirrors up to it." 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 a 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 they are looking to connect to, identify with, try on. When you look into popular culture, that’s what they see. And I think a lot of kids have a misunderstanding, girls in particular, of what empowerment truly is. Boys too, for 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 our outside selves are and our behavior with our inside selves are and our truth. And with that, when we and we are in control or that narrative, right? Because we want to encourage sexual autonomy. When we embrace it, 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, our 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 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 the 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 through trial and error. And also don’t realize they actually lose control of 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 it's caring adults that 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, where those things exist. And so we have to help girls navigate when it is okay for them to do that in a way that is 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? Do you 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 that sex education be a part of public high school education. Only 13 of the states require that it is 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, abstinence-only education has been proven, by Congressional research, actually to be to the detriment of young people's well-being. Now, it's not to say abstinence is not valued, 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 a lot of amazing medically accurate resources for young people and adults online. I don’t think a lot of young people are drawn in that direction. They are looking to things like pornography, which has become 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 of care and dignity for each other. Those are safe and that feels good. That is the whole point. It is okay 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 an individual sense of readiness, that it be paced, that it is a meaningful thing for two people. All those things that are inherent 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's 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 are 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 grounded in fear and shame, and it really is about so much more. And we need to be talking about to 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 going to share ourselves with.
Katherine Kendall: Yeah, absolutely. 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 that we can give it to, I hope we can give something that’s quality and that they will be able to embrace.
Katherine Kendall: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.