"In my day of casual sex we didn't ever use that word, there were signals to read and hints and words that gave consent without using the words, 'I give consent to this shag'," she wrote.
"However, in my day of having casual sex a lot of misconduct/rape was overlooked. I remember waking up to a man having sex with me, too ashamed over how much I had drank and not being able to remember how we ended up in bed, I didn't tell anyone. Gathered my things, even thanked him for a fun night and ran. I felt that my reputation as a party girl cancelled [out] my ability to be a victim. How stupid is that?"
She continued by pointing out that the spotlight on consent is "much needed," and highlighting the importance of how we raise the young men of our future.
"I've read a lot lately about what we teach our kids, has it gotten down to "if she's too drunk to drive she's too drunk to consent to casual sex?" Or "you can only have intoxicated sex with a consensual partner or an app that's requests consent?"
Hall recalled a doctor who was also a father and his opinion on the topic of consent: "A lot of this comes down to respect."
"We need to teach our children to only embark on a sexual encounter with someone they respect. Respect their body, their wishes, respect them," she wrote.
"I come from an area where the 'cool guys' would sleep with anyone, I remember two of them had a threesome with a girl they had no respect for who thought doing what they asked would give her a little bit of the 'special' that these boys appeared to ooze, or put her in that circle of golden boys who seemed to be at the centre of everything. I understood that, I had fallen for it too at times.
"But it didn't, they told everyone every detail and never spoke to her again."
As Hall pointed out, consent was involved, but respect certainly wasn't.
"Consent is a huge topic that can't nearly be summed up in one Facebook post," said Hall, "but I know that the first thing I'll teach my children about it when the time comes will be respect."
Constance Hall is a mother of six children; she has two step sons plus her own four, and a baby on the way with blogger Denim Cooke who she recently married in a civil ceremony.
- Kidspot
