Arran Knight, graduate of the Trust and counsellor at a university, shares his newly published article from BACP’s University & College Counselling magazine, discussing the challenges faced by institutions in trying to promote sexual consent.
Promoting sexual consent
Believing that issues around sexual consent are cultural and systemic, Arran posits the idea of introducing different sexual consent education for people of different genders, addressing developmental psychology alongside of the guidance that institutions are trying to introduce. He argues that the issue might be less with people’s understanding of what consent means, and more with the gendered culture in which people in Britain are raised and might not be aware of.
Arran explores the value of father-son relationships in battling societal lessons that boys and young men learn around sex – particularly in relation to sexual relations with women – and calls for a “mature masculinity”.
He says: “University leadership teams naturally try following current guidance, which lays out rules around what consent is. While rules are important, and certainly need to be part of the solution, they are also reactive and tend to focus on the symptoms. This is undoubtedly coming from a place of caring and consideration, but I believe that a two-pronged approach is what is needed, which also focuses on the causes.
“The current protocols certainly need to be included as part of the solution, but therapeutic interventions training young men in self-knowledge, emotional intelligence and relational skills, need to be part of the solution as well.”
Arran Knight is a psychosynthesis-trained psychotherapist and a men’s group facilitator with Nick Duffell and the Centre for Gender Psychology. Explore more from Arran at his website: www.arranknightcounselling.com
This article first appeared in the September 2022 issue of University & College Counselling, published by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. (https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/university-and-college-counselling/) ©BACP 2022.