TEACH US CONSENT! Uncut with Chanel Contos

Life Uncut podcasts acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples today.

This episode is recorded on Gaddigal Land of the Urora Nation. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany, and we are not recording the start of this episode, which is a good thing because Britt's sitting here in Mahattan.

I have not showered today.

And by not recording, you mean we're not video recording.

Recording this. Yeah, I hit record. We're not video recording the start of the episode. No, and you know what, I love it.

We went, as you guys know, we had a couple of years where we didn't really do the videos because we were chaos at.

Hard time time.

I had like a baby hanging off my boob and that was just we were not in a place to record. It was midnight, it.

Was six am.

Mentally or physically, metaphorically, literally spiritually, we could not video record this. But now we have started this year to finally we're in a place where we can record. So we've started to make ourselves slightly more presentable. But on the off days that we don't, we rejoice because we cannot worry about what we look like again, we can be a little bit crazy. And yes, Laura is laughing at me because I have a hat on inside.

It's cute. It's New Balance.

It's cute I am wearing inside.

Not sponsored by New Balances.

Not sponsored, could be actually might be coming up if you're out there New Balance. I wear a New Balance to death. Probably the Jordan was sponsored by it, so I used to I got on that team. Okay, too soon? Not talking about Jordan.

Oh no, Ip, the man that we never talk about anymore. Did you know?

I was at the dog park yesterday in this hat and someone that I have seen a bit lately. At the dog par like, you learn the same the same people there, so you learn maybe dogs you make friends in the dot dogs names more than you know the owners.

It's just how it works a dog. It's exactly the same with the kids from daycare. I know all the kids from daycare's names.

Not their parents.

Don't know their parents.

And then this guy was sitting there and I looked at him and I recognized him, and I was like hey, and he looked at me. And I had my hair like up in a bun, you couldn't really see it. And I had my new balanced hat on over the top. I had a fanny pack and everything I wear a fanny pack.

Now, who goes all my dark has really spiraled out of control for Brittney over the last couple of weeks.

Most people get a glow up in a break up. I start wearing a fanny pack.

I've seen your first trap, Sabe. Don't worry. You've had a glow up. It's fake. I'm putting my best foot forward on social media. Look at me right now? Why am I like, put your shirt down?

I'm so glad we're not filming this. And this is partly why it took us so long to get cameras and actually do this. Probably britt just out of nowhere, just lifted her entire shirt up above her boobs and then sat there holding her boobs. I know that we're really good friends, but also imagine if we did this, recorded this in like a RN's off and you just sat in a studio holding onto your titties.

But we're in my.

Home and it's comfort. Anyway.

He looked at me, and he looked at me strangely, and I was like, it's me and he's like, oh, I didn't notice you under there.

You look like a soccer mom.

And I was like, I'm so offended.

What do you mean.

He's like, oh, I just haven't seen you quiet looking like this, and I'm like, I don't know, just stop digging your hole, Like what's wrong with what I'm wearing.

He's like, I'm sorry. He's like, nothing's wrong with what you're wearing. But he's like, I just don't feel like you look like your potential.

I feel on behalf of all the moms out there who just like literally get by on life and leave the house. I feel sorry for us, and I feel personally victimized.

I said to him, I said this, I'm living my best life.

This is the most comfortable I've ever been. Do you know how practical a phanic pack in a hat is?

Yes, I do, I absolutely do, And I think that I feel offended.

Anyway, look great, Thank you. What have you been up to guys?

I went to Brisbane over the weekend. I know if any of you following my socials, you would be aware there was a telethon happening which was it was basically Channel ten, that Channel nine and Channel seven, all the major networks came together, put their differences aside and raised money for the floods, raise money for Red Cross.

Love that.

Now.

I don't know if you guys know this, but Channel ten, Channel nine and Channel seven actually hate each other, like they never do anything together. They're always in competition with each other.

Well they are indirect competition, so I don't know if it's hate hate, but it's like we're not going to go for a drink after work, We're not going to buddy up.

Absolutely not.

And also if you're like deemed Channel ten talent, you're like not allowed to go on Channel nine. If your Channel nine talent, you're not allowed to go on Channel seven. This Channel ten talent, I'm not even allowed to ChIL ten were apparently a Channel ten talent, but they never put us on. But basically there's this real like internal rivalry between the networks, and because of the floods and

Like it was a really fun little crew, a lot of reality TV.

It was all.

It was like Brisbane was the reality TV office. And at Sandra Sully was there, Matt got like weirdly nervous around Sandra Sully. He was like, she's amazing. Maybe she's his hall pass. I think she might be cute, and I'm not even mad about it. She's pretty great.

She's a boss. She's a boss.

So yeah, Basically I spent my Saturday night on the phones, like answering phone calls and taking money from incredible people who rang up to donate. There were people who were donating like twenty thousand dollars twenty five thousand dollars pop. I'm sure some of them were businesses.

But what are these people? Even?

I had this one little lady ring up and her name was Susan and she was like, dear, I'd like to donate two hundred dollars and that was all of her pension that she had left over for the week, and.

She's got goosebumps. I'd like stop it.

People were incredibly generous and they raised like twenty five million dollars to go towards the flood victims.

It was an incredible It was incredible.

What was raised was I knew because I was watching. I wasn't invited as any talent, but I was watching from the sidelines.

It's still it's like a little bit dirty that she didn't get to go on to it.

I actually feel like you missed an opportunity. I could have raised so much money for you guys. But I was watching from the sidelines, and I just I knew would make a lot of money. And I say we as a country. I knew Australia has a really really great way of pulling through as a community in these times. We saw it in the bushfires, We've seen it multiple times. I knew it was going to be a lot of money.

It's interesting that you say that, because at the beginning of the night, I was thinking, maybe we'll make ten million dollars, Like maybe we'll raise ten million. I thought that would be just an astronomical achievement. But I think the reason why I wasn't expecting the amount of money to be so high is because I do feel like people have real fatigue at the moment, like almost like charity or empathy fatigue. There's been so many bad things

That is a real thing, this fatigue, and because the world is a shift fire at the moment.

Well, Santa Sally actually she put it so well into words when we were speaking, and she was like, you know, people get empathy fatigue. They become desensitized to the plight and the need of people, purely because we're seeing so much of it and it's unending. But it was just

He done it for free. Home all the time. He wore my.

Beautiful floor dress on National TV. So that was a real moment in the night.

I thought he looked amazing, he looked very pretty.

But yeah, that was it. That was We went.

So we went to Brisbane, and we got to be a part of this incredible fundraiser and Brittany ended up back on Hinge. It's been a successful weekend all round.

Well, I wouldn't say successful for everyone. No, it's definitely. It's definitely been successful for you.

Tell us what getting back on the dating apps is, like, britt I went, I mean.

I'm not back on there yet.

So, uh, Keisha and I were at my house last night quite late after doing some work and we're like, oh, let's just grab some dinner. And she was talking about her dating life and I was like, fuck, should I get back on there? And I was like, why not. I'll just put a profile. See what happens. So I haven't talked to anyone or met anyone, but it was you haven't set the profile live, but you've curated it.

It's like, oh, well live people, you're there. People can screenshot this now daily Mail. Brittany is back on the dating app, but.

People were screenshot it. I was like, is my dating life really that interesting?

But the whole podcast is about it so funny. I was like, fuck you, Hinge.

I was setting up the profile and it's been so long since I've been on a Hinge profile because even before there was a while there, before I even met Jordan, that I wasn't really on a dating side anymore because I had dating fatigue. I was only on rail where I met Jordan, and that profile had been SAP a long time ago, so I forgot what it was like to set a profile up.

I was setting the Hinden profile up.

Oh my god, it asks you so many detailers wanted to know the last time I had a pooh, Like, every single thing about my life I had to put into this thing. And then it's like, put your age in, put your birthday in, so it logged your age. So I put my birthday in, and then it came up with a message that was like, just so you know, you can't change this, and I was.

Like, fuck you, Hinge. I'm thirty four. I know I can't change this.

You don't have to remind me.

Why do you think that your age is such a bad thing. I don't.

I just think it's hilarious that every single piece of your information needs to go on. And I just thought it was more hilarious that it was sending me a message. I reminded being you can't change your age obviously it meant like the data, but I just was having a little hissyf like you can't change your age in life, and I was like, I'm very well aware of that. But I got back on Hinge. It was a little bit I'm not gonna lie. I did about ten minutes of swiping. It was a bit soul crushing. I felt

It's always pretty jarring getting back into the dating world after being like coming out of a breakup, coming out of relationship, and then that first initial swipe where you're like, fuck, oh, I were back.

I can't imagine I'm gonna be on it for very long. I'm hoping it happens organically. I hope, I mean someone organically, or they slide into my dms. Now, I have always told you guys that people don't slide into my dams, and I'm not exaggerating. They just don't. It does not happen. People do not slain too my dams. But last week I did say that there were I think two or three people over a week period. That did the most

But I sort of famous, is what she's trying to say.

I google him, I mean, like I did. I didn't know him, but he was Yeah, So I did my due diligence and I looked it up a little bit.

And can we play like a game of charade? Can you give me a couple of clues and.

We try and guess who this guy is?

This is what happened, right, is a sports person? Yes, Michael Clark, We're not.

No, Clark is a Friend's here we go. He's a nice guy. Clik is great.

So no, so we're.

I was like, you know what, let's engage. Let's engage in conversation. Within two days, we're having a fight. We're having an Instagram DM fight because I don't know if I'm hyper sensitive. He told me that long story, Shorty told me that I wasn't capable of building or if you follow me an Instagram, you guys see that I'm doing a lot of do it yourselves. You know, I live alone. I build stuff alone. That's what happens from now on, I'm going to pay more sort arrives built. I make flat pack.

In your spare type. You're a flat packer.

I am a flat packer. Yeah, not very good one, but I'm doing it. And he made a comment that I'm not capable to do it alone. And I don't know if I'm hyper sensitive right now, because my biggest tick in life is somebody telling me that I'm not capable of doing something, or that I have had excessive help somewhere along the way, like this is what this is what I hate from people in life. And I don't know if I'm like highly emotional, but I just

You think he was doing it in the hopes that you would invite him around to help you make this piece of furniture.

Well, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, right, So I thought that I got a bit defensive, informed him, made sure he knew how capable I was, So I was like, you obviously know nothing about me. So I feeled him in on you know, I was like, well, actually, I'm very capable. I've done this, this and this and this. I've lived in old countries alone, like, trust me, I can build my own furniture. And then so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and I was like,

And the funniest part of this is that Britty end up calling Produce Akisha to come over and help her make the fly pack.

Now this is a second flap pack. This hasn't been built yet, this is my second one. And I was like, look, I just want you to I just want to highlight there's a difference between needing help and wanting it.

I want it and don't need it. But also this comes back to like insecurities.

No, yeah, maybe, but men being casually aggressive smart or like being smart asses or being like nasty and messaging poking funn at and thinking that making a degrading joke is a funny way to connect with someone.

I was like, oh, we twelve, I'll be back at school. When you like someone and you pay them out, you know, when you're child.

But a lot of people do it. I don't think it's just gendered.

I probably shouldn't say just guys, but there are definitely, and I remember from my experiences in dating, there are definitely a lot of men who find it funny to put you down and think that that's the way that they're going to be able to get you to go, oh, hey, actually, let's go on a date together. There's this weird put down culture sometimes when it comes to dating, and it actually sometimes comes from people who do have an interest in you, but maybe they're trying to play it cool

Relationship that way.

Yeah, I haven't responded to a man a couple of days.

He's dead to me.

Okay, well this is We have such a fucking awesome episode for you today, guys, and we are so excited for who we are speaking to today now. Chanelle Contos is somebody that we have spoken about on the podcast before. We spoke about her last October when she made headlines for her incredible work in changing the way that we are viewing and the way that we are educating consent

They didn't exist, really, it didn't exist.

You would have one or two lessons around sex education, but the actual education around what consent looks like? How do we give or take away consent to someone? How do we navigate those conversations and relationships, especially when we're having our first early sexual experiences in school. This is

Yeah, she's really incredible. She's the thing she has done within a really small timeframe as somebody that didn't have a platform to start with. She was just somebody that really believed in something, someone that had experienced things she shouldn't have, her friends had experienced it, and she just had enough. And I take my hat off to her because within a year she's meeting with the Prime Minister, she's meeting with Scott Morrison, and she's getting big money

The thing that I think is really incredible about speaking to Chanel, and so amazing about the way that she talks about consent is that this episode's centers hugely around a conversation about sexual assault. But what Chanelle has managed to pinpoint is that so many of us grew up in a culture that not only was sexual assault prevalent, but it was almost accepting of it. And now I know that that's going to sound really jarring to a

Well, it's because people never and actually I shouldn't say never, not enough people in the past have had platforms big enough to make enough noise that they want to make about we weren't having open conversations now and we speak about this in the episode. Now women have had enough, but not only have they had enough, We've always had enough, But we actually have a means to voice our thoughts and our opinions. We have a means to say no. We have platforms now, we have other people that will

But don't you think it's amazing that Chanelle, she identified like she looked at this and she was like, why have so many of my friends been sexually assaulted? Why have I experienced sexual assault? And why isn't why are more people fucking furious about this? Like this is an

And speaking of being taught something, before we get into the chat with Chanel, I want to add something that Chanel and I spoke about after we recorded the podcast, so I learned she taught me something. In the episode, we speak a little bit about a different level of consent, and this is the idea that women can change their mind when they're already in a situation. They may have consented, then they may change their mind and they don't want to have sex anymore.

Yeah, and consent being this fluid thing that can change it anytime.

So I was telling a story about how I I mean, I've done it before. I've definitely had sex at a time with someone where I'm not saying it was forced. I'm just saying inside my head, I was like, oh, I don't really want to do this. All my friends have been in the same situation. Like I feel like every single person and I know everyone listening is going to be like, oh, I've definitely done that.

Well, I've definitely done it. Yeah, And so we want to.

Talk about the fact that you can change your mind and you don't have to do it now. We did speak briefly about this in the episode, and afterwards Chanelle sent me She's like, look what you were talking about what your friend did recently. She's like, that has a name, but people don't know about it. It's actually the fourth trauma response. So the trauma responses are number one is fight, number two is flight, number three is freeze, and number

The guy, or feeling feelings.

You can change your mind.

I would say that there are probably so many women listening to this who have had sex in their life with somebody who they didn't really want to have sex with.

Sex with him, let's just get it over But I'll.

Just do it anyway. And that's exactly what we're talking about in this. It's like really understanding that you have an agency over your own body, understanding what consent is and why it's so imperative that this is taught to kids from a really, really young age, So it's not after the fact, it's not after they've already started to have sexual experiences that they learned that they can say no in all these different complex environments. It's a fucking

Do you have a confessional or do you have an accidently unfiltered today. Well I had to I think I might just go with the short. So good to see that. I was like, I didn't know which one to do. I might just go with this.

I think I was get like a super short confessional today, all right, because I have a super short accidentally unfiltered. My husband and I own horses and run horse clinics, and what that means is we take people's horses and we train them for them all we care for them while they are away. We had a very lovely but also very proper client of ours leave her horse with

Right, Sorry, your car is not ready. Now, I'm sorry the horse I ain't ready. We have an the service to do on the horse.

He still needs a nails done.

Being the generous woman I am, I wanted to offer her my husband's horse duck to take out for her trail ride. So I sent her a message and didn't think anything of it at all until I received a message back saying that I was being totally inappropriate. Turns out the message I had sent had a tiper win it and it read as follows, Unfortunately your horse won't be ready for this weekend, but Lee has offered you his precious dick to write for the weekend instead.

How does that sound?

I'd send without even looking at the messages, And now I have to face this woman when she comes next week because I'd offered to take my hobby out for a spin, so she offered her husband's dick up to her a very professional client, because her horse had to get a nails done. I just love how innocent it is, but also like, here, please take my husband's dick for a spin.

It's because why does Apple think that everything we want to write is duk Like she wanted to say duck.

She did the one time that it does it backwards and you want to say dick, it ordered corrects to dark.

But also on day that I have never in my life said that I ducking don't want something, but oh right, I ducking hate that or I ducking?

Everyone does everyone? Why do they think that we want to do it?

And the one time this poor lady actually wants to say dark and order a reverse auto correct to dick. But also, why on earth why why would you call your horse duck?

For how no for how smart Apple is, for how you.

Call your horse, for how advanced at Apple technology is. Why would it ever think that the Australian population is so obsessed with saying the word.

Duck or ducking?

Who knows? I think that they're trying to say, Look, we don't encourage the word buck, we don't encourage profanity.

But like we get at Apple, however hear at lafe on cut, we do all right?

What is your confessional?

Okay, here's my confessional. So, my sister has just got out of a very long term relationship. I'm talking ten years, unfortunately nearing the end. The last couple of years it was getting quite emotionally abusive. I'm so glad she got out of it and she's finally happy again. But I have something that I want to confess. My sister and I used to live together and her boyfriend would come and visit us often. He worked into state. So when he visited, it was good for a few days at

Well played. This is just like the perfect crime.

You'll always get away with it, except he'll nobody gets gastro well.

I wonder if he did.

So do you know what it is a perfect crime, because I guess you it's so satisfying to you know that there's like pooh water on his toilet brush, but you'll never you would never look at it. It actually makes me a bit worried. This is why I kind never live with anyone. I don't trust them. He'll never look at that and be like, that's pooh water. There's pop particles on that.

They won't remember. This happened on Maths a couple of years ago. No Share, there was a big toilet toothbrush conspiracy that happened.

Someone did that on national television.

Did they get roasted? Yes, it did not go down.

What anyway, guys, let's get into the chat with Chanelle. As we talked about at the beginning of this episode, we are talking about sexual assault with Chanelle today. Now this comes with a bit of a trigger warning. If this brings up anything in you or you need to speak to someone, please call one eight hundred.

Respect.

Also, it is completely fine that this episode might not be for you, so please feel free to skip it. Maybe you want to come back to an aedilated date, or maybe you don't want to listen.

At all, that is totally okay.

Chanelle is a young activist and the founder of Teachers Consent and she has been successful in lobbying the government to create and provide holistic consent and sexual education in schools. She's been awarded the Australian Human Rights Commission of twenty twenty one Young People's Medal for her exceptional advocacy for had a consent and education and raising the issue of sexual assault within schools to the National Spotlight. Chanelle, Welcome to Life on Cut.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to speak to you both.

Chanell Where are you coming from right now? Because everyone listening we're on a zoom call.

But where are you?

I'm in Sydney at the moment you are, And because you correct me if I'm wrong, do you still live over in England? Do you live in London?

It's a good question.

So I was meant to come to Sydney for just a few weeks and I've ended up staying a few months. But yeah, I've been living in London and was living there the whole time the petition was going on. And I'm hoping to go back in next month or so and then spend like another six months there and then move back to Australia.

So Australia is very much.

Home fair, Chanelle.

We never start an episode of Life on Cut without an accidentally unfiltered when our guests come on, we love nothing more than throwing you under the bus on a national and worldwide level and hearing your embarrassing stories.

So do you have I have a few, but I have one that I'm willing to share, but I'm still not entirely sure I'm willing to share it.

But here goes toy, now go. That's also why we put at the start so people can't back out.

So I had a bit of a crush on this boy, and I spent a bit of time with him, not much time, so it's probably the third time that we're hanging out, and we never like kissed before anything. It was actually almost like it was very.

Friendly, but I was pretty into him.

I went to his house one night to watch a movie after going to dinner with friends, and then I just like feel a little bit sick and I was like, I'm gonna go, and he was like, I'll walk you out. In my mind, I was thinking like, well, please don't walk me out, Like I feel really sick right now, but okay.

I'm gonna let one worry. Please do not come out.

Yeah, anyway, So we're like walking and in the lobby of his apartment block, and context for everyone is that I'm allergic to mushrooms. Huge reaction to when I eat mushrooms, it's.

Still follow them up.

And turns out there was mushroom sauce all over my dinner. So I turned around him, I'm so sorry, but I think I'm about to vomit right now. And before the like automatic doors could even open to the outside of the apartment block and literally like just projectile everywhere.

Please tell me you turned away from him.

I didn't have time to do anything. I was vomiting. And then that's not even the worst part. It gets worse. He happened to have like an extreme like phobia a vomit so he was a sympathetic vomita. So I'm like laughing and vomiting at the same time, and he's like two meters away from me, also like gagging and vomiting, And it was probably the most embarrassing that's ever happened to me.

It was actually just so absurd.

If anything vomiting in synchronicity is something that's gonna bond you together for the rest of your.

Life, well you don't know if it is. You're like, no, we're not dating.

It can confirm it. It didn't. It did not bond us.

So were you inside the glass door?

So are you in like a carpeted area or a child area and just like letting it rain or what's the situation.

Tiled area?

And then I got most of it on the concrete just outside, but there was some on the glass automatic doors. And because obviously he had a phobian vomit. So then once I felt better, I had to go clean it up.

Oh my god, So you had to then go and clean up your vomit and his vomit.

You'd never kiss? Please tell me did you ever kiss this boy?

We've kissed once.

Since and both of you couldn't really get over the whole vomit saga.

Yeah, he texted me after saying Semi wanted to kiss you, and I replied saying, knew that vomit was your kink.

Sorry, just gets better and better, we Allso.

I mean, it's a funny question because we usually ask all of our guests for a little bit about their childhood, like what school did they go to? But asking that question is actually so fundamental and critical to your story.

It is your story, It is part of your story.

Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up, the school that you went to, and what that experience was like for you.

So I grew up in Sin's Isn't Suburbs, which is a very privileged area of Australia, and I went to Kambala, which is a private school. And I feel like, yeah, as you said, it was very fundamental to a lot of the work I do, the kind of culture I experience in that environment, and yeah, I mean I had so much fun at school.

I loved school, Like I.

Actually went back the other day to give a talk of my old school, and I was walking through being like, can ovis this this is just these were the days, And yeah, I had the most amazing group of friends who are still all my best friends today, which I think is really special.

It's because you've got no bills to pay and you don't have all these adult responsibilities.

And you think life is so hard.

At school, you're like, oh, I got a study for this exam real quick. But then and you want to grow up, Like I remember just being like I can't wait to finish school. I can't wait to get out into the world. And now I'm like, take me back, let me put me in your ten yeah, your math class, and just let.

Me get and exactly, you have like a structured routine. You never have to think about what to do. You just like you get to hang out with your friends eight hours a day. I know, I talk a lot of bad things about single sex educational institutions, but being surrounded by just like amazing girls and women twenty four seven was such a privilege.

So you were just so everybody knows you were at a same sex school. You're an all girls school. Yeah, And do you have like a sister so I you're talking to someone that grew up in a public school that was boys and girl so this is not my world. Do you have like a sister school, sister brother school that you sort of join up with for sports carnivals and things like that, like an all boys school. Is that how it works?

Yes, so not for things like sports carnivals, but like random social events like the year six hodown and like your ten Mas.

Dads welved down here. What was that line dance?

It was literally line dancing, because it's like a safeway to like children interact without like dancing and touching each other.

I had line dancing too. We had to wear the skirts and everything.

I think that's so interesting because I feel like, even though I mean, you've been from the Eastern suburbs and going to an all girls school here, I had a very similar experience in that I went to an all girls school called Saint Mary's in Woollongong, and we had a school that we were associated with.

It wasn't by any means.

Like attached to each other. But we would do like our discos and stuff with it, and it was called edmund Rice. And I think that there are some interesting parts of your story and about the conversation we're going to get into that I think are echoed throughout a lot of private schools, not just and I guess that that's where this petition came from. But Janelle, can you talk to us a little bit about when you finished school? Because the petition that you lobbied for and your work

All the things you experienced in school weren't marrying.

Up to So I like, the first time we ever spoke about consent was when we got our concent education. None of us had ever really thought of the concept before, none of us knew us sawing that needed to be attained. It was the same moment that many of me and my friends and me and myself as well, realized that those like bad experiences were actually acts of sexual assault, rape and violence. And yeah, that was a unique experience because none of us had to share stories of out sexual assault.

To each other. We all knew them.

We all knew these things as like almost gossip. But then suddenly it was portrayed and we had the language to be able to explain what happened. And I remember so clearly that lunchtime in the break between that consent education day we had, which by the way, we had far too late, and only because my school was a private school that had the flexibility to work out out of the Australian curriculum, and this is not something that

We were like, how messed up is this that? Like this boy who we all know and.

Socialize with and everyone's friends with and has a great job at an investment bank is like the guy who did this or blah blah blah. And that's when I started collecting my first few testimonies. But I didn't take it to social media. I just like texted my friends individually who I knew had been raped and asked them to kind of like send me in stories. Yeah, when I was studying my masters, so I did masters in

Wherein when we talk about this, like taking you back a little bit in that conversation, so being in school when you did start to learn about consent or when consent came up as part of you know, your school curriculum.

What year was that.

In So it happened I think late year ten, and it was a one day talk, which at the time we thought was the best thing in the world, and in hindsight was like so problematic.

Yeah, And I guess also like the important part of that is is like, how old were you when like the school started interacting with each other when you've already experienced what sexual assault is, and then you have context around what that is because somebody's told you this is what consent is, but you've never been taught at prior. Just so I have a bit of an idea and the listeners have a bit of an idea the experiences that you had had going to this all girls school at what year did that start?

So for me, I was thirteen, so I was in year eight and yeah, that seemed to be like a pretty common age when this sort of stuff started happening.

I honestly like I have been racking my brain trying to think back. And I'm a bit older than you, but I've been racking my brain trying to think back if we had that talk at all in like our pe and sex education, and I genuinely don't remember ever having a conversation about consent. It was only ever, don't get pregnant, this is how you wear a condom, don't have sex. That was pretty much it. And so I feel like we've come a long way with the help

I was talking about that last conversation when I was speaking to them and they were crying, and that experience for them was. Yeah, we were fourteen fifteen or something at a house party and essentially walked into a room because one of my friends came up to me and was like, have you seen you know our friends missing?

I read your story and you were saying when you when you left the party, there was like not really like you just said this understanding of what had just happened, that not understanding that this was constituting sexual assault. And so months go by or years go by. How do you then process when you do discover you become an adult, you understand what sexual assault is, you understand what rape is.

To then look back on.

An experience and go, that happened to my friend and I was witnessed to that, how do you then compartmentalize that?

How do you work through that?

I mean, that's really weird. And the thing is, I think like, over the last year, I've had hundreds of people tell me that they've gone through that experience. You know, I've been told that they I've had fully grown women told me they didn't realize that their experience is counter sexual assault or rape until these kind of intricacyears were drawn out about what consent looks like in a more

It's not as if you have.

The opportunity to, you know, if you did want to report it, go and get a rape kit, or it's not as if you have the opportunity to remember exactly what happened in that night in detail when you find out about this thing, yeah, months, years, decades later.

But it was really strange.

But it was also kind of like I remember in the consent talk, having the hindsight realization that what happened to me when I was thirteen counted as rape was almost empowering in a way because it was a little bit of validating to be like, Okay, I felt really weird about that, and all of society told me I shouldn't have felt weird about that, but no, I'm actually entitled to feel weird about that.

But I don't know.

It's very overwhelming, and it's pretty heartbreaking as well. Again kind of the epitome of the injustice of what our education system has done so far that there's also been lots of people who have had the high sight realization that they've perpetrated sexual assault.

It really does highlight and I feel like it's almost like where do you begin. It really does highlight the fact that there were so many people watching on but this didn't even raise a flag that what was happening was a problem. And then the throwaway comment from another female that you girls are cock blockers because you literally stopped a rape. When was it that your like, did your friend know what had happened? Did you guys ever

I mean I barely remember. It was so insignificant. I think we all had to sleepover that night and the next morning we're probably like, oh my god, you were so drunk last night and this kind of happened, like I don't know, speaking to them about it, I guess they said it was I was. Actually I was speaking to the other friend who stopped this with me the other day actually, and we were saying how horrible we feel that we never addressed it. Yeah, it was just sleef,

So now this was like the huge catalyst for your twenty twenty one petition, And now when you started this, it was it wasn't even a petition at the start. It was just a poll that you put up on Instagram on social media. Can you talk us through a little bit about what the poll was and how you use this.

So a person Instagram poll only enough. I was actually going to tag the boy who did it to my friend and the boy who did it to me. Oh thank god, I didn't on my story, But I.

Mean, why do you say now just out of curiosity, why do you say thank god you didn't. I mean, I know that it's not something you don't want to publicly do, but is there was there a part of you that's like, oh, it's gotten so big now I would have hated for people to have known who did it or what stems from that.

Ah, defamation. I don't know what defamation was before this petition and since have my first share of encounters with defamation, right, Yeah, which is such a shame and such a silencing of the Australian legal system of women and victims in general.

Well, just showing that the victim is a person that's been silenced here, Like the problem is you're trying to say, hey, you're trying to add a rapist and the person that's getting into trouble is yourself the victim.

Yeah, because I can imagine trying to prove that eight ten years after the fact, Like it's kind of laughable to think ever even bothering to try and go through the criminal system for any sort of justice or accountability

And I think as well, on top of that, like these are children doing it to each other, and children who haven't necessarily as much as we say as women, we weren't educated on what consent is. I think there's a huge lacking for boys and for men to have been educated. So in a lot of ways, the system has failed them just as much as it has failed

One hundred percent.

And can guarantee that is the case because of dozens of conversations I've had and many many messages I've received saying that exact same thing.

So what were the results of the poll? You've popped this poll up? You didn't tag the men of the boys. But what happened from then?

So I ended up asking instead of calling out two people, I ended up asking, have you or has anyone close to you ever been sexually assaulted by someone who went to a single sex school in Sydney? And it was I think seventy three or seventy four percent yes. And this was just to my immediate Instagram following at the time, which was not at all large, and I think that was like two hundred and three people saying yes, something

I couldn't even read them and post them.

Well, you now have six seven hundred and fifty six testimonies on your website from women who have been sexually assaulted, and you have forty four thousand, seven hundred and ninety

What was the original goal?

So my original flight again, like I just posed this to manage the Instagram following. I never thought about the fact that people beyond that would kind of see it. And my plan was to get all these old schools in this kind of ecosystem of Synese and some of the schools that all interact with each other or friends with each other.

Blah blah blah.

I basically one of my old school and the nearby schools to teach concenter education earlier and better. And I mean literally, if I had could have gotten my school and the kind of two brotherish schools nearby to start

Now, can you you touched on it?

We've spoken about a little bit, but I think it's so important to define what it is. Can you explain to the listeners what is rape culture?

So rape culture is a setting where our attitudes to gender and sexuality and our expectations of them lead to a situation where sexual violence and rape become normalized. When I say that, some people find that quite extreme and dramatic and think like, oh, we don't normalize rape.

No one, no one approves a rapist.

But when you actually break down and start thinking about it, you know, instead of things like a cat calling is a pretty common experience for people in Australia, especially women. That's a form of sexual harassment that I don't think has that again language equipped to it in the public eye. You know, all these kind of little things. Rape jokes

It was just all the boys of me.

And I remember saying to them, like, it's socially acceptable to rape someone. And they're all like, that's absolutely ridiculous. It's like they're all disagreeing and meah blah blah blah. And I was literally like to them, I can name you ten people right now of your friends who you socialize with, whoever raped someone. And I can't name a single person who's ever gone to jail for this that we know.

And then I did.

I name ten boys that were the year above them, year below them, mutual friends at nearby schools, and they were all just like sitting there, stunted, and I was like, can you name me a single person who's ever gone to jail for rape and you all hang out with these people, you all say hello to them. They've never been excluded from any sort of social event. It is completely socially acceptable to be a rapist in our society, and that's the epitome of rape culture.

Was the response from the boys around this fire that you're that you're saying, okay, look all these are your friends that are associates that have raped someone? Was their response?

Shock?

Disbelief? Did they say you were lying? There's no way. Do you think that they knew at a certain level? Like, what was the response in that moment?

They didn't say you were lying? I mean, yeah, these are my close friends, so they obviously like trusted me and believed me and I had there was no agenda. There's no point of me to just randomly make up ten names. They would have known many of the stories I were I was talking about. I think it was probably mainly shocked, but more perspective, I think I think it would have been like a oh, but I mean,

Yeah, that's very culture.

I just speak from like my experiences, for not when I was a teenager and I started going to parties. I mean I remember being at a party and there was a girl passed out in a bathroom or way too drunk to be able to be having sex with the guy.

I don't know whether she was past that or not, but there was like, oh, but.

They were hooking up earlier in the night, so like obviously it was like consensual. Now understanding as an adult and really understanding what consent is that that's not fucking consensual. But at the time, because they had been hooking up earlier in the night, there was to everybody there that that was kind of just what was going to happen. It was a bit, yeah, they're together tonight, Yeah, that's their thing.

Yeah.

And it's only with the lens of retrospect that I look at that experience when I think I would have been fifteen or sixteen, and I go, wow, that's that was fucked, absolutely fucked. Like I haven't seen the girl in almost twenty years, do you know what I mean? Like, that's how long ago that experience is for me.

But I even have friends now, in conversation still as grown, intelligent, mature women that will say that they're in a situation. I actually had this conversation four nights ago with a friend and she's like, she ran into the guy and she got a little bit triggered, and I was like, are you okay. She's like, yeah, long story short. She's like, I had sex with him, but I didn't want to. I was like, what why. She's like, Oh, it was just there.

It was in the moment.

It was easier to just do it than not. And she's like it was almost like she didn't want to cause a scene. And I just had this feeling, and of course I knew we were speaking to you, and I just had this feeling of how many women out there don't realize that just because you've gotten to the point that you're in the bedroom, like and we've said it before on the podcast, you could have his penis inside you and change your mind. And that is a

There's some really interesting studies on when they were trying to like stop like when they were measuring sexual assault and rape and China site to encount sexual coercion and all this sort of and sticks they started changing language and surveys to pressurize sex or for sex instead of rape, and like race skyrocketed because people felt much more comfortable associating with that description than they would the word rape.

Well, and I think sometimes because rape, we think that it has to have violence attached to it. It has to be like like you're walking down a dark alley and a guy drags you into a corner. You were completely sober and you screened no. Like we have grown up with a very fixed version of what that is.

So how did it go from your Instagram with a couple hundred people poll to just your school to you literally now changing the curriculum around Australia, around the country, because congratulations, that is huge. I remember when the petition came out. I signed it, I find it, I shared it, and I always thought about it.

On the way.

We were like this girl, I mean like, we're like, how incredible is this? This young girl is making these huge waves and we took our hat off to you. But how did you get from just this girl in a room being like, fuck you, I'm putting you on my gram to changing the way schools teach?

Because it's huge.

I think it just happened because of how many people started supporting it. And getting behind it and sharing it on social media and signing the petition and having conversations with principals and friends and family and parents and everyone.

You were like, oly, shit, I don't have a choice. Now, You're like, this is my this is is what I'm doing.

Gotta do this, Yeah, and it jumped really quickly. It's my Instagram pot was like sitting a single sex education whatever. And then as soon as I realized that testimonies were coming in from everywhere, and I thought like, oh, maybe this could be something more. The launch of the website was for Australia wide, so the petition of the website was all schools in Australia, So it was a very quick like oh, we've got people on this, let's do it.

I also feel like twenty twenty one has been it was like a real year for shift in perception. It was like a year of reckoning when it comes to sexual assault survivors and the sexual assault conversation. You know, we had Britney Higgins, We've had Grace Tame being Australian of the Year, and then we've had your incredible changes

I think that I mean, obviously we've been this has built off decades and decades of work in this space, like centuries, you know, a lot of it spearheaded by intersexually marginalized communities like women of color.

I think there was just like a good.

Interaction between Grace and Brittany and teacher's consent showing you know, this is a problem that stands all the way from school kids, all the way to Parliament, all the intrincies in between. It's an abuse of power that crosses generations. It's abuse of power that's peer on peer. It's a beuti and power that's in the workplace. And I think that just kind of like kept it at the forefront.

Well, you're right that this has been a fight that's been going on for decades and centuries. That's absolutely right, and I don't think anything has changed in that sense. There's always been women finding for these rights, but now to have oam well now and as much as we can be against social media, things like social media help this situation.

So what does consent look like?

What does the new curriculum thing to you look like?

So it's not a public document yet, but it basically starts teaching consent and young as kindergarten in a non sexual way, asking for permission, denying permission, help seeking strategies, and then slowly builds all this information and so finally sexual consent is explicitly addressed in the early years of high school rather than well, actually before it wasn't in

How do you attack the conversations around virginity in schools in terms of, like, my, not even consent conversations, but sex conversations at school it was.

All around virginity.

How is that then factored into this conversation of consent?

Virgin is an interesting one because virgion is also a core concept that plays into rape culture because it puts a lot of value on a first sexual experience and what that of physically has, because virginity is a social construct. But we like imagine it as like, oh, it's when your cherry pops, you know, when you're hoymemen breaks, But really that happens, you know, that can happen doing anything.

That can happen.

Exercising it can happen, horse riding, it can happen, using a tampon. It can happen getting fingered whatever, but we associate that with virginity. But ironically there is then no way of testing virginity in males, so virginity is actually quite a hefty policing tool on female bodies to like

Sex.

It was always about like abstinence preventative. Yes, it's a really weird thing because it's also just kind of like it's not a defining moment of someone's being to have something inserted in you, So like why are we putting so much social pressure on that? And why is there so much pressure to pick when that happens or how it's done.

No, And I agree, And I just think back to like the conversations that we had in school around sex education, which was done in PA.

From memory, it was one class.

And it had a banana.

We didn't even have that.

It was just it was one class in PA, and it was around not getting pregnant. It was around all the STIs thought that you could catch. There was nothing positive about the conversation of sexual experiences. And there was nothing around taking agency of your own body. It was all around preventing it from happening for as long as possible.

But this is this brings us to another part of the conversation. And but hats off to my mom my mum, I remember her. It was never negative. Obviously, it was like a you know, sex can leave to pregnancy, You're not going to really want that as a teenager or when you have sex. But I remember her just saying sitting me down and saying, I know what she's like, I was a teenager once I had a boyfriend. She's like, I know that there is nothing that I can do or say that's going to stop you from having sex

It, or I guess the other part of that that I would like to know as well is why is the onus for this to be taught in school so important rather than it to be taught at home.

I don't know if I would call it pushback because most people who like, for example, feedback saying the school system is stressed enough, especially public school teachers, this is a whole other thing for them to do, blah blah blah blah. I still don't think anyone thought it was

Of like no more excuses of I didn't know.

I have two little girls, And it fills me with so much like pride and hope and just gratitude that there has been changes in this because I think that even though so many of us recognize that this is thing that was lacking, I feel like all of us failed to put our finger on what that was, and all of us kind of failed prior to you, failed to really sit down and assess, well, why does this keep happening? Why has this been okay for so long?

Else onlooking go.

You've found the words for the things that we've all experienced in our upbringings as well. Thank you.

That's right. I kind of feel like that's yeah.

I mean, I think concern education is something that women's organizations have been asking for for so long. But yeah, I think exposing exposing that culture and it's hard to question the norm, and that's the reality.

Sexual violence was the norm for us.

Chanelle. You did just recently a few weeks ago to meet with the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. What was that meaning for about and how did it go?

So I try Minister Scott Morrison. Following the announcement that consent education would be moundated in Australia, which is something that he endorsed prior to that, which was great, I met with him to request funding for a national school survey.

For most of the.

Meeting, actually, I used it to kind of educate him about rape culture. So I spoke to Scott Morrisen about what rape culture was and what it looked like and some kind of key factors in it that contributed to that.

Janelle, I have a question that's just going back a little bit, but in terms of the testimonies that you've collected, and we did say that you now have over six thousand testimonies from women who have experienced sexual assault, who have experienced rape in many cases, what do you do with those testimonies or how do you I mean, it must be such a huge tole reading through the things that other women have written sharing in their experiences.

Like how do you process that?

And what is the end goal with bringing and taking and collecting all of these testimonies.

Well, I guess the goal was to emphasize the need for this education and amplify the petition. But yeah, I feel like I've definitely taken.

On a lot of that.

There's definitely lots of like vicarious traum I've experienced over the last year, especially last year when I actually stopped for a second, it like kind of all hit me because I think I can be like I'm fine and fade and keep reading them and can keep doing it that blah blah blah, and then when things slow down, I was like, oh, this is really fucked up. But I mean, yeah, I guess just channeling it into like

It's a huge toll that I think it's a fact that a lot of people probably don't think about that you've taken on over the last couple of years. And I do hope that you are looking after yourself as well, because you can't just look after everyone else all the time. And you know, it's a true saying, you need to take the oxygen mask for yourself first so you can help someone else. What are we going to see next for you? Have you got plans to continue taking over the world or what is it?

Yeah?

So I mean the survey, I hope that. I hope we have the results of that as soon as possible before consider education is meant to stop being implemented in Australia, which I think will be. I think we're going to

We are one hundred percent going to have to get you back on. There are so many more things we can talk about, but Chanelle Kontoss, you have done absolutely inspirational and incredible things and I just feel like on behalf of every single woman in Australia, we want to thank you for what you have done. And I hope you realize the impact that you have had because it's probably easy for you to sit back and think it's

Thank you so so so much. That's really really great.

Well, it is that time.

You know, we don't finish an episode without sucking sweet our highlight and our.

Low light of the weak law.

Burn kick it off. What is your suck woman.

My suck? Now?

I had something it is Actually I'm very sad about this still.

So.

My mum made Lola an incredible crocheted blanket when she was born, Like it is beautiful. It is this big hair knitted Mandala blanket, and there's something so sentimental about getting a real hair knitted blanket for your baby. It's the one thing that I have had for Lola's whole life that I desperately wanted to give her when she was older that I was like, this is gonna be like an heirloom blanket.

She did.

I know.

I've spoken about Gastro so much on this podcast for the last couple of weeks. Last week she had a blowout. She had a blowout pooh which got all over it and so I had to put it into the washing machine and I put it on a wool wash. I followed all the instructions that my mom told me to follow, and it came out and it was completely fucking ruined,

Was like, I've ruined the blanket. I just did.

I so desperately wanted to have something from the time that she was born.

But there's also nothing you.

Can do about that because a hand wash would not have helped that Pooh situation, Like it had to go in the machine.

It was, yes, it was. I was between a rock and a hard place. But anyway, I just I don't know. It's like there's always going to be something in life that you and it's surely it's an inanimate object, but like you just have there were so many memories loaded into it. It was the one thing that she's had since the day she was born. We brought her home from the hospital in it, like it meant so much to me and I still, like, even just thinking about it, I'm so sad that it's not ana, And you know,

Can you just suck? Can you not just keep it?

Even though it's not perfect?

It looks like shit. It's literally like a board.

It turned that all of the wool feltered together and it's just become this thick, hard piece of blanket, which I can keep it, but it's not cute.

Keep it and telling the stories even more sentimental.

Shipoop blanket anyway, Most sweet for the week, guys. It's a sweet and it's a recommendation. I am so proud of Matthew Johnson. Matthew Johnson's wearing an address Mattie jay No. He has been working so hard on his own podcast over the last couple of like literally six months he's been working. It's called The Penny Drops. It has dropped today.

It is that money. It is a finance podcast.

It is for anybody who wants to go out there and get financially literate, sort out their finances. Maybe you're saving to buy a house. Maybe you want to learn about investments or shares or compounding interests or superannuation.

It is all of that stuff.

And I just know how much work and love and energy he's put into this podcast. So it is my recommendation, and it is also my sweet for the week. Cue Penny drops. Okay, I'll have to go and have a listen. Yeah, you already have what you're talking about. Yes, all right, what is your suck?

Brittany Hockley, do you know what you're gonna hate me? I just don't really have a suck this week. I love that. Oh great, you always tell me I have that one. No, I, you have had it such a great week and that you're happy. Oh no, it wasn't great.

Like there was some low points, but like, I just don't think there are anything to like. No, I did okay, transparency and a fucking hard day. I had a really low day. I didn't get out of bed. It was the first sunny day we had and I was full, I was low, I was crying. I was really upset. I had really I'm gonna cry thinking about this. Actually, I don't know why that happened.

Okay, I'm an emotional Oh my brit I like that you were like, I haven't had any sock this week, and you're like, I spent an entire day in bed crying because I like to pretend.

No, I had a really hard day.

But that's life, my sweet.

I think it's like it's so life hard for everyone at the moment, but it's also so fucking understandable. Like if you were like, yeah, my week has been awesome. I haven't had one second of being sad, no one would believe that. Like you've you've gone through really big stuff in the past couple of weeks, like you know, and also like going through that huge transition and going through a breakup. It doesn't just happen and then it's over and I'm crying on you.

You know, you think you're fine, fine, fine, fine, fine for fine not mine? Yeah fine, fine, fline, so fine, they're fucked.

They're so fine, and that's just what happens, you know, And so like, yeah, I mean, I'm glad that you don't have one significant bad thing that's happened this week. But I think it's really healthy, that you can acknowledge that you're still riding those waves and that that's totally okay.

One hundredcent still running the waves. So that was it.

It was a tumultuous ride wave this week. My suite was that the sun finally came out and that felt good. I've got some d I went out, got laid at the park. I just felt good, like to do nothing and get outside again, because I just feel like I feel bad complaining about the rain, but I just feel like it's the world has been so dark and gloomy, and for me to go and get an hour of sun, I appreciated it so much more. And I guess because of everything happening in the world. I really just lay

I think you're so right, though, Like you know, just having it sounds like the simplest thing but having good weather, being able to be outside in the sun really is such a shift, like a mood shifter and such a game changer for like being able to just feel appreciative when it's dark outside you're stuck inside and you're just kind of everything is ruminating.

It adds to that feeling absolu very much.

Anyway.

Then, anyway, guys, that is it from us another episode. We will be back on Thursday without Ask Gun Cut. If you have any questions for Ask Gun Cut, please slide into the DMS at Life on Cut podcast. You can also join the Facebook group which is Life on Cut Discussion Group. And if you've loved the episode, we would add solutely love it if you would jump onto Apple and leave.

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