Culture

The Government Tried Teaching Students About Consent With A Milkshake Video And It’s Baffling

I simply can't explain just how badly the government missed the mark with this one.

by Michelle Rennex  19 April 2021
Consent education government milkshake

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In the most baffling move imaginable, the government has decided to teach school kids about consent with a confusing series of videos featuring milkshakes and tacos.

As part of the Australian Government’s Respect Matters education program, ‘The Good Society’ has been created as an online resource to help teach “respectful relationships education” in schools. The educational resource has been designed for students in primary, middle and high school, their teachers, and parents.

But despite good intentions, the videos suck. They entirely miss the mark, and barely teach anything about rape, sexual assault and consent. Plus, the metaphors and innuendos that are used are just far too confusing to understand.

For example, as part of this education hub The Good Society released the ‘Moving The Line’ video aimed at students in Year 10 to 12. But instead of including any helpful information for these 16 to 18-year-olds, the government decided to instead tell a baffling tale of the “action zone”… as a woman smears a milkshake all over her boyfriend’s face with no mention of consent or sex at all.

I guess the milkshake is supposed to represent a woman forcing her boyfriend to have sex with her?? I think??? Genuinely how can anyone, let alone children, even tell at this point???

Strangely beyond barely linking to consent at all and not even mentioning sex, the full ‘Moving The Line’ video also focuses on the importance on maintaining relationships even when someone feels disrespected, as the boyfriend was in the video.

“In a respectful relationship, if someone moves the line, you might be upset but ultimately want to repair the situation,” the video says. “If a relationship is fundamentally disrespectful, you have even more difficult choices. Should you still try to repair the relationship, get help, or just walk away?”

Giving the vibe that sometimes it’s worth trying to “repair the relationship” with your abuser, the milkshake video somehow gets even worse when the perpetrator is the only person offered support through a 1800 RESPECT card while her boyfriend gets no support network.

Another one of these non-sensical videos feature a spear gun-wielding man convincing a woman to swim at the beach even though she’s fearful of sharks, while another focuses on a boy eating a taco that doesn’t give consent.

The issue is that not only do these videos make light of how important consent is, it doesn’t give children any useful information to help navigate the serious and real-world issue of sexual violence. Children above the age of 16 are not clueless. Sex education is already taught in schools, so hiding important messages about consent and sexual assault behind quirky tales isn’t helpful for anyone.

Perhaps using shark analogies and innuendos about milkshakes is more appropriate for younger audiences, but covering the main message for older teens who are able to consent to sex is a waste of time, funding and resources. Instead children entering adulthood should be taught “respectful relationships education” with realistic examples in the hopes of actually providing relevant information on how to deal with these sadly, common, situations.

According to Sharna Bremner, the Founder and Director of End Rape on Campus Australia, the consent information on The Good Society society “completely fails to meet the national standards for the prevention of sexual assaults through education”.

“The fact that the federal government is releasing resources that don’t meet national standards is concerning,” Bremner told 7News. “It’s not just the matter of them releasing these wacky videos that use strange, cutesy metaphors for sex. They’re providing harmful and incorrect information to students.”

As a result of these The Good Society videos just sucking so incredibly much, people on the internet couldn’t help but poke fun at the entire thing — especially the bizarre milkshake video.

But in all seriousness, Scott Morrison needs to do way better than this piss-poor attempt at consent education and sexual assault awareness. STAT.