Chanel Contos’ Consent Laid Bare: How would you react if your sister was sexually assaulted?
When Chanel Contos shared her story, her brothers soon realised that violence wouldn’t change a thing. Instead, they pitched in to help her change the world.
Imagine you are a big brother and your little sister has just told you she has been sexually assaulted by a schoolboy. How would you react? Well, yes, but you’re not allowed to do that, so what else can you do? For James and Jason Contos, the decision was easy: they would stand beside their sister as she tried to change the world, after going viral with a message about the prevalence of sexual assault in Australian high schools.
Chanel Contos is a former student of one of Sydney’s all-girl private schools. She decided, at the peak of #MeToo, to pose a question on Instagram: did anyone else get sexually assaulted while they were still a student? The answer? Yes.
In time a staggering 6600 people would contact Chanel Contos to share their experience. Most were girls who had been coerced into performing sex acts on boys who later slut-shamed them. Many of the girls didn’t know that what had happened was assault because cajoling girls into having sex is just what some boys do, isn’t it?
Overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, Chanel Contos decided to share publicly her own account of being assaulted at the age of 13 – a story that landed like a hammer in the hearts of her brothers. Why? Because their little sister had been abused and – despite being a student at a so-called good school and being from a secure and loving home – she thought she couldn’t tell anyone.
That was their first concern. But also, there can’t be rampant sexual assault of schoolgirls without schoolboys on hand to do the assaulting – meaning many of their peers and their friends from Sydney’s all-boy schools had to be complicit.
“I think I was the first person in our family that Chanel told, and it took me some time to process what she said (because) she didn’t go into details,” James Contos says.
“And because of that, and because I wasn’t properly educated on these issues, it didn’t fully sink in and I didn’t process it properly until she was going viral. I was very upset and very angry, and I think she’s talked about what I wanted to do, (but) fighting against a single perpetrator is going to do absolutely nothing.”
Jason Contos says he didn’t find out “until she was suddenly on the front page of newspapers, and I was reading it, and she’s saying she’s been assaulted, and I’m like, that’s got to be a mistake. Basically, there’s been a misunderstanding. And I can’t really remember when I got corrected, but she quickly began gathering other stories from other girls, and the stories were all the same … She was collecting the sorts of stories that any of us (boys) could have told.
“Any teenager that went to teenage parties knows people who have done the wrong thing … but I didn’t think it was sexual assault. I thought, OK, don’t hook up with drunk chicks, that’s not fair, but I didn’t really think my friends or the guys at parties were committing crime. I just thought it was morally wrong … I didn’t realise it was actually an assault.”
Chanel Contos was keen for her brothers to talk about these issues ahead of the launch of her book, in part because their story underlines a great truth about sexual assault: it can happen to anyone, and often does, and you may not ever know because the girl (or woman) will feel such intense shame that she will try to hide it. That is changing, but here’s something that won’t change without input from men and boys: the prevalence of sexual assault that, logically in this context, starts and ends with them.
James Contos says he was profoundly affected by the tsunami of stories from girls who contacted his sister to say they had been assaulted and, in some cases, had their lives destroyed by the slut-shaming that followed.
He was dismayed by some of the commentary, which suggested girls might bear some responsibility for what happened to them at parties attended by high school boys.
“Almost everyone’s heard the argument: oh, if girls go out and get drunk there’s a high chance somebody will try something,” he says. “Do they bear responsibility if something happens? No, it’s a one million per cent no. It’s the perpetrator’s fault.”
Jason Contos agrees, saying: “It’s completely ridiculous to blame the victim (but) it’s deeply baked into our culture. Why were you wearing that? Why were you drinking? Why were you there? Women should feel safe and they’re probably not completely safe. And that’s what Chanel is trying to change.”
Chanel Contos’s efforts have included formation of TeachUsConsent.com, an organisation that aims to bring consent education into schools. Her new book, Consent Laid Bare (Macmillan Australia), lays her ideas out more fully.
“One of my first conversations (after Chanel’s movement began) was with a guy who said things along the lines of: but how is a guy meant to go on a date?” James Contos says. “Or, you know, we can’t have drinks with girls any more. Or else it’s the whole false accusation thing: we will be accused of doing something illegal and nobody will believe us if we say we didn’t do it.
“I can understand why some boys and men would feel a little bit overwhelmed or confused by the different messaging they receive … but I think it goes back to Chanel’s primary purpose, the need for well-constructed, clear and easy messages that serve the interests of young people in protecting the girls and the boys.”
Jason Contos says: “I’ve heard (guys) say things like: you can’t even go and chat with the chick any more, you can’t walk up to a chick in the gym, or get a girl’s number or whatever, (but) the ones I’ve heard say that, they’re either defending their behaviour or those guys are not the guys you want taking you out for a date. There’s a certain personality type that is offended by the thought that women should be treated as humans.
“And (consent) needs to be taught from a younger age – as Chanel says, it’s got to start before sexual activity or dating. It’s got to start earlier than anyone realises. And then there’s what she’s also done, in terms of helping men see the role they can play is, actually call it out.
“Because you only need one guy to say to other guys in the group, ‘This is not cool’, or even one guy that can talk to the girls and say ‘Hey, girls, do you realise this is not cool, and you don’t have to put up with this.’ ”
Jason Contos says he found himself doing precisely that just recently.
“We were playing poker, and the girl was dealing cards, and he said something about what she might like in bed, and I said, well, you know what, she definitely doesn’t like being sexually harassed at work. And that shut him up. And I never would have done that (before) and I would not have known that what he was saying was sexual harassment,” he says. “I would not have the words or the understanding or the knowledge, and now I do, and that’s an important part of what Chanel has achieved.”
Consent Laid Bare (Macmillan Australia) by Chanel Contos is out now.
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