Way to turn sexual consent into a driving exam, university course!

A UNIVERSITY’S try-hard quiz to determining whether someone consents to sex is confusing if not downright libido-strangling, student Yoni Bashan finds.

“Is this okay?” “Um … yes” “Sure?” “Er … should we write essays about it first?”

My sex life has always been a tormented work-in-progress. I liken it to being pushed on a swing set: someone is always left wanting more and it’s rarely exhilarating for both parties.

In fact, the whole process of bedding people has always been — if you’re me — bedevilled with problems. Asking a woman out is nothing less than terrifying, and even with a ‘yes’ there’s always a web of laser-beam deal-breakers waiting to be tripped over expensive cocktails.

I’ve triggered those alarms numerous times, usually with my politics and my absolute disdain for exercise and anything outdoorsy.

Looks like a combination of “words and body language” going on here … possibly without the words.

Curiously, though, the consent-side of the equation has never been a problem. Borne of my pathological fear of rejection and offending people, my approach to consent has always been simple: let my partner make the first move, then the second move, then the third move and fourth move. Essentially, play dead and get dragged to home base.

A Don Juan I am clearly not, but as university students across the country undertake mandatory “consent training” courses this month, I believe this approach would make a reasonable case study.

Except even I’ve failed the test.

Not a lot of consent going on here — although who can be sure? (Writer not pictured).

This bloated series of “modules” and “101s” and condescending quizzes, all styled like an RTA driving exam, are so horrible and irritating that I suspect the purpose is to actually cock-block participants from ever having sex with each other.

I know all this because I signed up to university last year and now have to quest through endless flow charts and stock images and slippery legal dross just to get my assignment results.

That’s right. I’m banned from receiving my marks this semester until I pass a training course teaching me how to have sex with people. And, as it turns out, I probably won’t pass the course, because it’s stupid and I won’t finish it out of protest.

(Writer pictured.)

I’m not against these courses in principle; anything that encourages guys to err on the side of self-consciousness in their dealings with women is a good thing.

But here’s a sample question. Asked about the best way to seek sexual consent from a person, I dipped into native good judgment and, from the four options available, ditched the one that said “Suggest it physically” and “Ask them directly” because both are patently ridiculous. Instead I went with, “Ask them by using a combination of words and body language”.

Realistic, sensible, happens about a thousand times a day in bedrooms and office stairwells across the country, right?

Wrong. The correct answer was the impotence-inducing second option: ask them directly, which is just ludicrous and brings to mind that scene from Demolition Man with the three sea shells.

(If you don’t remember it, Sandra Bullock’s character — in a play seemingly taken from a university consent-training module — asks her male counterpart if he would “like to have sex”, the whole scene ending with tremendous anguish and confusion and absolutely no sex for anyone.)

Moving onto the next question, I was asked how to determine if someone has consented to sex. Having already been whacked with the discipline stick, I went with the totally sterile response the university undoubtedly wanted: “They tell you directly and say ‘Yes, I want this’ … and if they don’t it’s not consent.”

Safe. Predictable. Super direct, as per the course’s teachings. Right?

Again, I was wrong. “Not everyone feels comfortable being this direct, assertive or explicit,” was the wisdom provided.

Lesson learned: be direct, but also don’t be direct.

Consider me enlightened.