- Hey, y'all, welcome back.
I'm Mama Dr. Jones,
a board-certified OB/GYN, a mom to four.
(breaths heavily)
And today we're talking about a very heavy topic.
This is a topic that I probably should
have covered a long time ago,
and I'm personally a little bit sad
that it took what's going on currently
for me to cover this, but it is important.
Clearly there are many people who do not understand it.
So today we are talking about consent.
I want to be clear,
I'm not turning into a YouTube drama channel.
I don't think that the David Dobrik, Vlog Squad,
Dom allegations are drama,
these are very serious accusations,
and they are important to discuss from a humanistic level,
not as YouTube drama.
If you are not familiar with the current accusations
towards David Dobrik, the Vlog Squad, Dom, Jason Nash
other people associated with this group,
I think Philip DeFranco did a really good job
of kind of breaking down the timeline
in one of his recent videos,
and I will link that down below.
That's not why I'm here, I wanna go
over the more consent-oriented education aspect of this.
To kind of give a basic overview
so that it is understood what we are talking about,
basically, David Dobrik, has a group of people
that are called the Vlog Squad,
they create vlog content for YouTube together.
And he is essentially the producer,
the creator of this vlog.
So the accusations against, David Dobrik
in particular right now,
are that he maybe he is creating a toxic work environment
or fringe of environment,
where people are exposed to things
or agree to things or coerced into things
that they would not otherwise agree to,
If not for a very distinct power imbalance that is happening
within that group with David being the leader.
And a little bit deeper level than that,
Seth a former member of the Vlog Squad
has accused Jason Nash of assaulting him,
and that was coordinated
or put together as a prank by David Dobrik.
He is saying that he did not give his consent
for this prank.
I'm not going to go into detail about what it is,
because again, that is not why I'm here,
but I just think that we need a basic overview
of what is happening,
for people who don't know, so that we can talk about this.
And then on an even more deep level,
there are accusations against a person named Dom,
who is also a former member of the Vlog Squad
that he actually raped a young woman,
who essentially was coerced using alcohol and power dynamics
to be in a situation that she could not consent to.
I think the first thing we need to jump into
because I've been reading these comments
just because I wanted to kind of get a feel
the takeaway that I'm seeing in a lot of places,
although overwhelmingly people are standing
with the victims.
There's a lot of chatter about why is David included,
he didn't perform these acts that are being,
you know, accused upon these people.
I think it's really important to note here
that if someone is an organizer of an event
that would not otherwise
have presented the opportunity for this to happen
they may, in some situations have liability
for what happened.
So for instance, he's creating this vlog,
he needs content for this vlog
and these people are working with him,
they are gaining something from being around him.
You would be, really shortsighted
to say that none of these people
are gaining something from being around David.
It's not just a friendship set up,
I mean, this is clearly...
maybe not like written contractual agreement,
but there is certainly an exchange
of services and benefit,
whether it be clout or gaining followers on the internet,
or what have you.
So this is a work environment that he has created.
That means he is in charge
and is in a position of power over these people.
When he coordinates these things
and encourages them to happen
he is by default involved in the situation.
He certainly should be held accountable
for creating the environment in which those crimes
were basically encouraged to take place.
Consent as a basic definition is agreement to do something
or permission for something to happen.
In day-to-day life, it should be very easy
to tell if the person sitting in front of you
has consented to what is happening,
it's not a gray line, it is very defined,
and if there's any question
of this consent has been obtained, it hasn't,
it's as simple as that.
But if you wanna dive deeper
into really what is consent made up of
I really liked this mnemonic
that Planned Parenthood puts out called FRIES.
And to break it down into what each of these means,
the F is for freely given.
This means consent doesn't involve any type of manipulation
force both partners,
or all partners have the ability
to say yes or no at any time,
and specifically no significant power imbalance.
This is why it is socially and ethically unacceptable
for me as a physician to seduce one of my patients.
This is why you can't, you know, I don't know,
have sex with your boss
because there's a power dynamic there that is inappropriate.
And this applies to what we're seeing
with the David Dobrik situation.
He's created environment with power dynamics,
both of him, to the people who work with him,
his friends, the Vlog Squad,
and with the Vlog Squad,
to the people who want to be around them or their fans.
And so this is inherently problematic
to begin with the type of content
that's being created there.
The R is for reversible.
This means consent can be withdrawn at any time,
even in the middle of a sex act,
someone can change their mind.
This is incredibly important as well.
People are often coerced or guilted
into finishing when they suddenly become uncomfortable,
and that is not consent,
that is coercion.
It needs to be informed,
this means both partners need to be aware
of what is happening.
I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory
but you can't consent to something,
if you don't know what it is.
Enthusiastic, consent must be enthusiastic.
Both partners must be fully on board with what is happening
and any time that someone becomes uncomfortable
or not excited about what is happening, you stop.
That means consent has been withdrawn.
And that can be with words that can be with body language
that can be with actions, it doesn't matter.
If someone has become uncomfortable with the situation,
that means consent has been removed.
It doesn't have to be a situation
where you say, "I don't consent anymore."
You can just be uncomfortable in removing yourself.
And as a partner,
it is expected that you will recognize that.
Of course, it would be better if everybody could just say,
"I don't consent to this anymore."
But that's not always possible,
people don't always feel capable of doing that,
especially in situations like we're discussing here,
where there's a significant power imbalance
and a dynamic that is complex,
and probably unethical to begin with.
And then finally, consent must be specific.
You can't give consent for oral sex
and then assume that that means consent
for vaginal intercourse.
You can't give consent for a kiss,
and assume that that means consent for groping.
All of these things are super important
and specifically different events,
and they must all be specifically consented for.
All of these points,
when you go through them point by point
are brought up in all of these accusations,
and I think when looking at this
under the guise of what the aspects of consent are
it's a lot easier to understand
why these two people, making these accusations are saying,
"I did not consent."
Of course you have members of the Vlog Squad
who are saying that that's not what happened
or that there was consent,
but I think it's important to know
that the rates of false accusations
for sexual assault and rape are very low.
They're estimated to be two to 10% at the highest,
and the incidents of sexual assault
and rape is extremely high.
One in six women, according to rainn.org
will be sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime.
And 400,000 people per year are affected
by sexual assault or rape.
And that is likely highly, highly under-reported,
and thus underrepresented.
So this is super common
and it's very uncommon to have false allegations.
I'm not saying that any of these people are guilty
and that's not what I'm here for,
but I did notice,
in all the comments sections of these videos
that people didn't understand what consent was.
You can't give consent,
if you are under the influence of alcohol.
If you can't drive or make decisions, rational decisions
then you can't consent.
If you can't be in the headspace
to understand potential ramifications
of whatever is happening,
then you are not able to consent.
If consent initially was not given,
and then potentially somebody was given alcohol,
even if they consented after that,
that's not consent, that is coercion.
This person was coerced into consenting.
You don't have someone say, "No, I don't wanna have sex."
And then they loosen up with alcohol and consent,
that is coercion and it is not consent.
Both parties need to feel safe.
There should never be a situation
where someone is not consenting
to something that you would like to happen,
and you convince them to do that.
That is just simply not okay,
and that is a crime.
So please, please, please take these to heart
and really understand them.
I think a very good example,
there's obviously the great Tea Video
that was made and I can link that in the video
or in the description box below as well.
But another way to think about this
is getting your hair cut.
You don't get coerced into getting your hair cut,
nobody goes out on the street and drags you into a salon
and encourages you to come get your hair cut that day.
You decide I'm gonna get my hair cut,
and you go in and you ask for a haircut,
and then the person says yes or no, I can cut your hair.
And then if you get there
and you're sitting in the chair and you decide,
"Oh my gosh, no, I don't want to cut my hair anymore."
Even if they've already started,
you can get up at any time and leave
on your own will, that is consent.
Consent, as far as getting your haircut is informed.
You are told, what they are going to do,
while you were there.
They don't just start chopping away,
you are a part of the decision making process.
The consent required is also very specific,
you don't go in and ask for a trim and leave
with a blue spike cut, that's super short.
That would not be okay, you didn't consent to that.
Of course, if you change your mind in the middle
and decide that's what you want,
and you tell the person cutting your hair,
that's what you want, and that would be consent.
But it's not consent if they just do that,
and they didn't make sure that that's okay with you first.
I don't understand why,
it's so difficult for people to understand this
in regards to sex and relationships
but it's so easy for people to understand this
in regards to haircuts and serving people food.
It's important that we start recognizing that,
one, it is very uncommon for people to be falsely accused
of sexual assault and rape.
And two, that consent is not a gray zone,
if there's any question about if consent was obtained,
it wasn't.
And then also I think
this brings up a really important discussion.
Basically the MeToo of YouTube,
and power dynamics in this world.
If you are a famous YouTuber
or even if you're not a famous YouTuber,
and you just have somewhat of a following,
it is unethical for you to have a relationship with a fan.
That's a power imbalance,
that person is going to be naturally less able
to make decisions on their own will
because they are in a situation of imbalanced power.
This is really, really important.
Again, I wasn't sure how to do this
because I wanted to talk about consent
and I wanted to circle it back to the events
that are going on right now,
because that was really kind of what sparked me
into wanting to make this right now.
I hope that these victims get justice
and consent is a really important part
of sexual relationships.
If you're not mature enough
to figure out how to appropriately achieve consent
from your partner
without coercion or power imbalances, et cetera
then you are not mature enough to be having sex,
this is very, very important.
So thank you for listening today,
I'm sorry this is a little bit of a different video
and probably going out on a different day,
but I just wanted to talk about it
because I thought it was important, So.
Stand with victims, listen to victims.
Thank you for being here,
I'll see you on Monday.