Hey everybody, comment down below what program you're in...
love to hear from everyone.
- Hi! - Awesome perfect.
So just give a little bit of introduction about myself, I'm Elliot from the life humber team
this is our we got you live series where we're going to be talking about your big questions.
So today's guest is a third year Justice Study student who loves tacos,
and loves to dance so much she'll break
into a dance without even a tune playing...
so let's all introduce Lead Consent Peer Educator, Alex Martin.
- Hi how are... how are you?
Doing good, how about you? - I'm pretty good classes all starting
this week and last week so getting that started...
and how was classes...
Yeah, classes going good for you too?
- Yeah classes are going good. Well thank you so much for joining us today,
let's get right started.
So what is Consent Peer Education Program or CPEP?
So CPEP is essentially the program at Humber and also with Guelph Humber
and we like to say that consent is the norm so whenever
um there is sexual violence, we do not allow that to occur,
we don't want it to occur
and we hope to achieve it through peer-to-peer education,
so always talking to the folks at Guelph Humber and Humber
and educating them about what consent is and how it should be you know spoken
about or talked about and then we always focus on
the consent part of it and the sexual education
um about the sexual violence piece of it,
as well as like our events and
initiatives and also the online engagement that we have
always keeps the conversation going.
That sounds amazing, it's a very important part of program part of Humber.
But when you're talking about consent there, what is consent for people who do not know?
So to like to essentially talk about it
consent is something that is giving
permission for somebody to do something essentially so
with that consent always needs to be vocalized.
It needs to be continual and fun,
so it's not something that needs to be
just like really...
you know people shouldn't be scared about asking the question right.
So it allows us to have that sort of fun
aspect and bringing it into our experiences,
making it fun and comfortable for the folks that are involved in the experience.
And then when consent is actually
being given or asked, it needs to be sober and must be sober.
and also like not...
none of the parties should be influenced by drugs or alcohol
or anything that makes the individual incapable of giving consent, right.
So they must be conscious they must be awake and present in the
moment in order for that consent to be given,
and then consent cannot be through...
through power or through any authority.
Like if let's say your boss was to come to you and say, you know
"if you don't have sex with me I will fire you"
so it can't be given or used in the power of authority.
Um so that's really important when talking
about consent and it's putting them in a position
where there's no other option for them to say yes because it's their job,
so that shouldn't be happening.
And it should not be assumed or implied,
it needs to be clear with the individuals that are involved.
And i would also say it must be present in a relationship as well.
So never think that if you're in a relationship that...
that it's assumed that because you've been together with this person
for five years that...
you know you can automatically have sex with your partner.
Right, so it needs to be always asked for,
needs to be given freely in a situation.
And you know it shouldn't always be something that people should be scared to...
to do that's something that should be
always in a sexual experience.
In general as well, like there needs to
be consent in our normal lives.
So yeah that's essentially like
the gist of consent but if anybody has any questions like feel free to comment.
- Yeah no for sure, drop your questions down below and we can come back to them at the end.
Thank you for sharing those points, it's definitely an important uh topic and it
needs to be continual conversation. - Exactly.
So how has consent changed during COVID-19, if at any?
Well like consent during a
global pandemic is something that
you know a pandemic is something that we've never experienced before right so...
and um consent is also something that people don't normally want to talk about,
so that conversation is also hard with this global pandemic going on.
So with that it needs to be
um you know clear and vocal and it needs to be from
our partners that we're agreeing to the sexual activity
it shouldn't be assumed that you know...
that it's like which shouldn't be taken away or evoked
like it should always be asked for no matter what
and um that consent can be taken back at any moment
like it shouldn't be something that you feel like you can't
speak about if you don't want to continue
or if you uh feel uncomfortable in the situation,
it should always be able to be continual and fun and
it shouldn't be something that you know should not be able to
feel comfortable with other people when you're in that experience.
So um everyone should be involved in this um
and the experience like I said with consent,
it needs to be sober and conscious so with COVID-19, we understand that like
there are risks for a lot of us and some of us are...
you know asymptomatic,
so we don't know what's going to happen
we don't know um what other people are able to be essentially.
so we want to make sure that...
it stays the same during COVID-19.
All the points that I mentioned about consent it
needs to stay the same and not feel like it needs to change in any way.
COVID-19 is something that we've never experienced before like I said so...
consent is something that should always stay the same.
- No for sure definitely.
That sort of leads into my next point that you were talking about,
so when meeting up with somebody,
is it important to be honest with your level of risk
and if the other person has been uh following COVID-19 guidelines?
- Oh a hundred percent!
Yeah you should be honest with the partner
um or a person that you are engaging with
for with sexual activity.
You know we... we have the rule of you know
maintaining your bubble and also it needs to be um less than 10 people
and we need to abide by those rules in order to make sure that
we are you know staying safe essentially.
So when you're meeting up with someone,
you can talk about with the person that you're meeting up with do you...
"should we be wearing masks?"
we haven't you know
been seeing any other people, we've been staying in our homes.
It's important to stay safe but you know there are risks
when meeting up with someone and also
um there needs to be honesty within that.
You know you can't just make it seem like
it's fine or that the COVID-19 doesn't exist in those kinds of situations
and needs to be known and present and be honest in
the conversation of what are the risks and how do we go
about um continuing this sexual activity or going to this experience
while COVID-19 is here right.
Yeah no you definitely need to have that communication up front
to know your level of risk with uh your partner.
- Right.
So then jumping into that, what are things to consider in order
to have safe sex during COVID-19?
Um right so um with...
with staying safe during COVID-19,
we want to talk about um when you're participating in it that you know
you want to be honest about if you
um if someone has an STI or not or if
something like that is mentioned,
you want to make sure that you're honest with the person
that you're engaging in sexual activity with.
And also always staying safe with what you're comfortable with.
So if you end up going to this um
this person's house or the person that you're engaging in sexual activity with,
you want to make sure that
you are able to leave the situation at any time.
You know you can say no at any time,
it can always be said and mentioned that
you don't feel comfortable in the situation anymore.
And then you want to also...
have the conversation with the person that you're engaging with
if there's any sort of barrier that you want to have with the person
like set your boundaries of what you want to experience
and what you don't want to experience.
Right, so you have to be honest with that other person.
- Yeah no that's definitely another one of take-aways from this
is also being honest and you have the right to say no.
You... if you're feeling uncomfortable you
you can definitely step away from the situation.
- Yeah.
But jumping on the other side of that,
are there any considerations for folks who are not meeting up in person
and are choosing to engage virtually?
Yes, so consent still stays the same
whenever it's uh virtual as well so you know
that's engaging in behaviours like video calls or
sending new photos for someone or videos.
So the principles of consent still apply to that.
You know unsolicited nudes is not
something that people enjoy,
so it's something that we want to make sure that
you know "is it okay if i send you a nude photo"
"would you like me to send you a nude photo"
if you're asking from your perspective of wanting to
and you're okay with it and you're asking the person
if they're okay with it as well right.
So you're not wanting to assume that
they're okay with it automatically because it's virtual,
I feel like a lot of people tend to think that
because we're in this virtual environment that...
you know it's easy to say a lot of things right,
because you're behind the screen.
So it's important to not assume as well that the other person wants
things like nude photos or anything like that so
I definitely think flirting over messaging and stuff like that can definitely
help you know if the other person is engaged with that or not
because it's kind of hard to see like if you...
if you can tell the person wants to do that with you
because you can't see them face to face right,
it's all virtual, it's all messaging or video calls
so it's hard to gauge.
So I would definitely say like "is it okay or how about I show you these nude photos?"
and "is it okay if I show you these nude photos?"
so you you want to make sure that consent is still present when it's online.
- Yeah thank you for sharing that.
Yeah definitely, you still want the communication,
you still want to have the consent,
that's things that are mandatory with...
participating. - Exactly
Awesome so is there any...
or is there a way people can find
information on CPEP like where can people follow up with this?
- Yeah so a lot of um the stuff that we do is posted on our Instagram,
so it's the one that i'm using at the moment,
so it's @CPEPTeam
so if anybody wants more information feel free to direct message us
with any of your questions, as well as we also have a page on Humber,
so if you want to see what our... my job is like
or what our objectives are as a team,
then definitely go look on the Humber website.
And also we're... we're always posted throughout all the socials
with the um the folks who participate in social media for Humber
so Life at Humber posts our stuff as well so
I definitely think you'll be able to see us on Ignite or different socials like that,
but definitely our main one is probably our Instagram
where you can find the best information.
- Yeah perfect, you can go check them out there below the link their...
tags should be right there and yeah...
and for people who are joining a little bit late,
CPEP also stands for Consent Peer Education Program.
Yeah but thank you so much for going live today and if any of the viewers have
any questions we can go through some of them now.
I believe it's been pretty good so far.
Thank you guys for all joining, thank you all folks.
Child Youth Care, good to hear what programs you guys are in.
Nice but yeah well is there any other additional comments you like to add Alex?
- I would definitely say don't be afraid to ask you know
don't feel like that's an awkward question um
and I always say there's always different ways to ask
you know there's there's... this program that we do at residence sometimes
or not really this year but in the past
it was called "Can I Kiss You?" and the main speaker always
mentioned how he would ask his wife for consent so essentially
"what would you like me to do to you tonight" so that's definitely a great way to ask
and there's always
different perspectives of the way that you can ask the question don't always
don't always think it's like "can I have sex with you"
I feel like a lot of people get
really scared of that question because
it's very broad and basic so they get kind of
awkward therefore it's going to ruin the mood.
So I would definitely say there's tons of different ways to ask someone
and you always want to make sure that
they are okay with it and realize that it's continual so
always keep that in mind.
- Yeah thank you so much for sharing that information, we hope that
gave everybody a little bit more value and stuff but...
if you have any other questions about
Life At Humber or things that are happening this Fall,
send us a message and your question could actually be next.
Um but yeah thank you so much for coming on live with us today.
- No problem thank you for having me.
No worries, so stay safe out there everybody
and we'll... I'll see you in the next one.
- All right. bye bye, bye folks.
- Bye