Consent Can’t Wait in these news spots from BMF

The Department of Social Services has launched a national campaign, Consent Can’t Wait, encouraging influencers of young people to take the first step in educating young Australians on sexual consent, by checking their understanding and speaking to their peers about it. Because learning, understanding, and talking about consent can’t wait.

Created by BMF, the campaign highlights the importance of updating our understanding of sexual consent by showing how the questions we have need to be talked about, and answered, before moments of intimacy. Consent Can’t Wait emphasises the need for people to get on the same page, so we can pass that understanding on to our kids. 

The national behaviour change campaign aims to remove the fear and judgement surrounding conversations about sexual consent, and bring Australians into the conversation by turning the perceived complexity and inexperience surrounding the topic into an opportunity to learn about consent. Both for ourselves and for our kids. 

Consent Can’t Wait features a diverse range of real Australian couples, as they highlight the various internal thoughts and questions many Australians silently hold about consent, questions the next generation need to know the answers to.

Christina Aventi, Chief Strategy Officer, BMF said: “Consent is a culturally loaded word, fraught with connotations, systemic inconsistencies, and media rhetoric. It’s also a personal and private topic, so people don’t talk about it unless they “need” to. But all across Australia, people are engaging in consent-relevant moments. Studies show that one in two of them are confused about consent and harbour questions about the topic that they keep to themselves. And, as long as we continue to hold our questions about consent silent, as long as we don’t know the answers, the next generation will too. 

“We know consent is hard to define, but kids are learning more than we think, and we can’t leave it to chance and hope for the best. So, the first step is to educate ourselves and get to a shared understanding. Because before we can teach young people what’s right and wrong about consent, we need to get clearer ourselves.”