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testimonies

My ‘best’ guy friend from school and I were sleeping in the same bed a schoolies and I woke up to him pushing his penis into me and trying to kiss me. I had no idea what was happening and didn’t know what to do or say so I went a lot with it. To justify this I tried to date him for 3 months after and would consensually kiss him (but only in secret). He brought girls around in front of me to try and gaslight me. Finally when I said I can’t be friends with him anymore he spread horrible rumours about me and as a result I lost all my school friends. I never even told anyone what he did. It’s taken 10 years for me to realise the trauma this caused me. I often have paralyzing fear that I’ve given men the wrong idea and they will try to touch me without my consent. When men I’m dating touch me I sometimes have panic attacks. I wish I was taught that what happened wasn’t consensual in school so I could have processed this trauma earlier rather than in my late 20s. I only told a friend what happened 3 months ago, I had always kept it to myself because I was ashamed.

Barker boy. I was in year 7, he was in year 9. we had gone to primary school together, so I trusted him and thought of him as my friend. We lived near each other and used to walk home from the train station together. One day, I forgot my house keys, and he offered to let me come over to his house until one of my parents got home. I was a complete runt (hadnt had my growth spurt yet, most people thought i was 9), and he was quite tall. He overpowered me very quickly. Even when I told him to stop, he kept going. Eventually I just gave up and silently cried until he was finished. I did my best to avoid him after that, even though it meant I had to walk home from a train station that was further away. It was better than seeing him. Last I heard, he's at uni studying medicine.

I was drunk at a party and a guy I trusted took advantage of the situation and ignored me when I said no. I said no so many times. He didn’t listen and didn’t stop. The next time I saw him was at a sexual assault protest less than a month after he assaulted me. I still feel his hands on my body and am now in therapy with ptsd.

I have been sexually assaulted by a number of people across my life. the far most damaging assault to me was my ex boyfriend. we were together for about 14-15 months and it was the most toxic relationship full of abuse, manipulation and overall sexual assault. he knew i had a history of these problems but didn’t seem to care. he would control me and wouldn’t let me go out without him. we were only 16 & 17. he would use sexual coercion like there was no tomorrow. he didn’t care he pretended he did and would make me feel as if i wasn’t happy. he would call me saying he was drunk driving at 2 in the morning because i didn’t answer his messages cus i was sleeping. he goes to one of the most expensive and top notch private boys school. knox. the abuse went on for the entirety of the relationship and he thinks he did nothing wrong because he has depression. i have depression doesn’t give me the right to violate someone’s body and privacy. he would late on after we broke up stalk and harass me and would non stop call me and all my friends and family saying he did nothing wrong and it’s all my fault. i recently learned i am the 3rd out of 4 girls he has done this to and he is just getting away with it. i am utterly disgusted by the school system for not doing anything, the police who dropped my case because i was of age and that i didn’t even get taught that it wasn’t okay what he was doing until i learnt about it on social media. i thought that was normal. it wasn’t and it never will be.

I lost my virginity in a public park age 14 in the company of a group of friends. I didn't have the skills to say no. I want my daughter to be raised with the education I lacked. I want my son to learn how important mutual consent is! New Zealand culture needs to remove the shame and stigma around this and start having open conversations with our tamariki.

I ended up going back to the house of a boy from my year after a night out. I was so drunk I don’t remember going to his place, but I remember him insisting on taking my virginity and that he kept going, even though I didn’t want to. Afterwards he and his friends started making comments about me being a slut to the point I stopped going out altogether.

I was 16 at the time. A Trinity boy, who was a close friend, sexually assaulted me in my sleep. I found out after he confessed this to me the next day. I didn’t know how to handle the trauma at that young age, so I kept it buried for 5 years and didn’t speak a word of the assault (excluding the close friend who had sexually assaulted me) until I was well into university. During those 5 years I felt averse to engaging in anything sexual. This had me being called a frigid prude, by both my girl friends and guy friends at the time, which felt so incredibly unfair and unwarranted.

What’s worse is that after this incident, when I was a university, I was sexually assaulted and raped by my then boyfriend (a graduate of a public school I won’t name) on 2 different occasions where I was under the influence. At this point, I was unsurprised by this behaviour – expected it even, so I stayed in the relationship. In hindsight, this was completely illogical. However, I myself at the time didn’t even understand the gravity of sexual assault until I felt the implications much later on, namely through my deteriorating mental health. I even had this distorted idea that since I had gone through a similar experience before, I would be able to more easily look past my then boyfriend’s violation of me. I was naive, and thought that all men were just unable to control themselves and that I had to love my then boyfriend in spite of what I thought was simply just an inevitability.

Sexual assault very much felt like a taboo topic to talk about, so I didn’t get proper help until recently. Had sex-ed been implemented earlier, with sufficient inclusion of consent, I wonder if these experiences could have been avoided. Or if it couldn’t have been avoided on the boys’ part, perhaps I would’ve better understood that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable and criminal had I been properly educated about sexual abuse. The residual trauma has had, and still to this day causes intense mental and emotional turmoil, despite significant time having passed. Since all these incidents occurred while I was asleep or under the influence, I have no proper recollection of what actually happened. My imagination of what did happen haunts me even now.

I met a seemingly sweet guy from Bally Boys on a night out in Manly. I was quite drunk at the time and we ended up hooking up. I insisted that we use a condom and he grudgingly went and bought some. Despite this, he took it off during sex without my consent and tried to hold me down to keep going after I realised what he’d done.

I was assaulted many times during high school. The first was when the boy I was dating (I was 12) was going around calling me frigid for not “getting with him” so he and his friends made a plan to push me into him on the stair well so I would kiss him. It felt disgusting. The next was when I was a little older with my first proper boyfriend (aged 14) and I was in a position where I was fingered without my consent. I froze. I didn’t know what to do, I thought it was my role as a young girl to let boys do what they want. People were talking about me for weeks after for what I had done (there was no mention of him). My boyfriend would complain to me if I didn’t have sex with him so there were many times he would have sex with me while I was lying underneath him, feeling helpless. I loved getting my period because it meant it wouldn’t happen. If I had of been exposed to consent education my whole life would have been different. The world needs this.

When I was about 15 years old I got drunk at a party on New Year’s Eve, I ended up leaving the party to stay at a friends house but after having an argument with another girl there I decided to go back to the house the party was at and stay there for the night. When I got back there one of my male friends was still there also. They grabbed me a single mattress and put it in the lounge room next to the lounge that my friend was sleeping on. He started to reach down from the couch and tried to touch me, I kept saying no, quite a few time. I was so extremely tired at this point that I ended up falling asleep. I am not sure 100% what had happened but I am pretty certain he continued to finger me after I had passed out on the mattress. I never told anyone as I thought it was probably my fault and they would call me a slut. I had never been touched before, he was the first person I had done anything sexual with and it was not consensual.

When I was in year 8 I was having a sleepover with one of my girlfriends and we were skyping some of our friends who went to Knox. They insisted we play truth or dare and progressively the questions made me more and more uncomfortable until I was asked to send them a photo of my boobs. I told my friend that I really didn't want to, but she told me it wasn't a big deal. When I seemed hesitant the boys started teasing me and mocking me. My friend convinced me to at least send them a photo of me in a bra and I felt like I had no other option so I did. I was only 13 at the time. Now I'm 21 and totally horrified that our friends started sexualising us from such a young age.

I was sexually assaulted when I was 13 years old by someone with a very high profession, in which both my parents and I trusted him. Last year’s social dance practise was horrible and another trigger for me, as one of the boys touched me inappropriately and I was scared to tell the school about it because I have this feeling that they won’t do anything. Apart from giving the boys an “respect the girls” talk, in which it didn’t help much at all. Some still make inappropriate comments about sexual assault and for me and many other survivors and the community, it is horric and disgusting to hear. This lead to me struggling to many mental health problems until now and is still a massive troubling trauma in the back of my mind. I tried to get the school to put forward their concerns about that consent education must be made mandatory in the curriculum, with the help from my mentor, but they had a meeting about it and they said “it’s going to start soon”. When is soon for you? 2025? It needs to change now.

I was raped earlier this year. Everything about the experience and the aftermath was and still is harrowing. The police process, the therapy, the previous trauma the event exacerbated. I could obviously go on. I wonder now though, if the perpetrator had been taught consent at school, or by his parents, or by his friends - by anyone, would it have happened? If investigators at Victoria Police were educated about consent and rape culture, would they have asked questions that made me feel like it was my fault? If my Mum had proper and judgement free consent education, would she have told me I put myself a position to be raped? The answer to all of the above is an unequivocal, no.

I was groomed by a teacher. I was 15 when he told me I looked 'so beautiful yesterday' referring to the day prior which was a casual-clothes day.
FIFTEEN.
Over the following years, other notable instances include when:
- He said he would buy me necklaces, give me trinkets (he never would lmao, wonder why)
- He looked at me for extended periods during class and during social events he would chaperone (often)
- He generally inferred through his body language that he was inappropriately attracted to me...

I have carried the shame of coming to enjoy his attention, and of not intervening for the sake of future girls' safety and wellbeing, for years.
Despite never touching me or initiating any extra-curricular communication or plans, I find that the psychological distress of becoming an otherwise passionate and forthright young woman while being unable to stand up for myself in this area stays with me.
It also pains me to know that the reason why I haven't brought this up to school leadership is the risk of triggering legal proceedings or serious meetings for which I would have no tangible evidence of any of his behaviour except my word.
Add to this the abominable lack of consent education at the Academy, and its almost total refusal to acknowledge that not everyone in their community relates to the principal's lived experience of intersectionality and you get a school full of queer youth, victim-survivors of sexual crime, and other minority groups who all wish that sexuality was explored for them, by them in the classroom.
I remember being shown an episode of SBS' 'Insight' around Year 8 which featured a young girl who was pregnant having a verbal sparring match with a pastor... Needless to say the values I pride myself on as a young woman were not borne from my private Catholic education, as much as the Catholic Education Office would like this to be the case.

Congratulations Chanel and everyone at TUC on securing mandatory consent ed for future kids <3

I was away with a bunch of friends and got extremely intoxicated to the point I have absolutely no memory. I woke up the next morning to be told by my friends that I had slept with a boy. I was extremely in denial it had even happened as I don’t recall any of it still to this day. The same male told my friend that I was clearly in pain during but bragged he did not stop. A few months later he took advantage of me again whilst drinking, this time I remember it clearly and I told him to stop but it took at least 5 minutes for him to physically get off me after I told him to stop. Even if someone says yes extremely intoxicated where they cannot control their actions it doesn’t always mean yes, asking someone to stop means to stop.

It was after our year 10 formal in 2020, where there was a massive afters party at one of the girl's houses. I was drunk and a guy from Cranbrook (who was a friend at the time), led me up to one of the rooms for me to rest in. I woke up the next morning with my panties and bra off.

I was sexually assaulted in 2012 when I was 16 years old. A girl at school I had recently become friends with invited me to her birthday party at her house which I went to with a few friends. She invited a group of older guys to the party. Later into the night while a group of us were watching a movie one of the older guys held me down by my wrists and raped me. I distinctly remember saying please stop and no I don’t want to but once I realised he wasn’t going to stop I detached from my body. When I went back to school a week later the girl who held the party blamed me for what happened and I was bullied to the point that I dropped out of school. It took me a long time to get help because I didn’t realised that what happened to me was not my fault. I’ve been in therapy for three years now and I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD and a dissociative disorder. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t still experience the impacts of the assault and bullying that happened to me in high school.

Whatever I was taught about consent at MAGS was minimal and unmemorable. My lasting memory was "no means no" and that's about it. I do, however, remember that a number of students missed out on health classes entirely (and consequently any consent lessons) because their sports academy classes clashed. A friend of mine did not get a single health lesson over the course of their time at MAGS because their Football Academy classes were scheduled at the same time.

I went to a party with friends and while I was dancing a guy kept groping my ass. I kept pushing his hand away telling him to stop and he wouldn’t. It took me moving to the other side of the room for it to stop. He just looked at me and laughed it off with mates. The worst part is all his female friends shrugged it off and didn’t call him out on his behaviour.

I was at a friends dads 50th birthday and her brothers friend kept hitting on me. I was very clear I wasn’t interested - he took my rudeness towards him as “playing hard to get”. I genuinely wasn’t interested in him and being polite to him wasn’t working so I decided to be rude so that he would leave me alone. I went to sleep on the couch that night. He followed me in there shortly after and started taking my clothes off without my consent. I told him repeatedly to stop, gave him all the reasons under the sun as to why I didn’t want it. He didn’t care or listen. I ended up just freezing I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. He raped me. I cried the whole time. I did not give consent.

I was invited to a semi-formal at another all boys catholic school in Brisbane by a friend of mine. I had comments made about me from other boys at the school about my body and it made me feel super uncomfortable. After the semi when i was leaving my date followed me to my uber and started to demand that i kiss him and give him head saying, I "had to because he paid for my ticket to formal". when I refused, he grabbed my boobs and squeezed them and then left the car. I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable and cried the whole uber back home.

I was 14, under the duty of care of my teachers on a school trip. my best friend leant over me to copy my answers and touched me under the table. i froze completely. i could not physically move or speak. he took my silence as consent, and did it again a few minutes later. then as the day went on he kept touching me; wrapping his arms around me and grabbing my ass. after that, i had panic attacks every day being in classes with him, experienced total disassociation, nightmares, self-blame and suicidal thoughts. i went to the school at my lowest point and they did nothing. i was forced to stay in classes with him, and the only bit of counselling the school psychologist did was put me in a room with him and have me explain why what he had done was wrong. she made him apologise and he was free to go. i eventually moved schools before grade 11 because they told me i would have to change my classes if i wanted to be away from him because i was the one who had the problem being around him.

In primary school, the boys in my year level would grope and kiss girls without their consent. We thought it was normal and just laughed about it, but I realise now how messed up it was. They told us not to worry about it, that it was just them being silly. I remember one girl being constantly harassed by this other boy, it continued well into high school, and to this day I’m terrified that without proper education these guys will continue without reprimand.

It took me 8 years after being raped to find the courage to tell someone what happened to me. He was my “friend” and asked me over his house to talk after a funeral. He said he didn’t want to be alone. I was completely shocked when he pushed me onto the bed. I was frozen in fear. I cried the whole time and he didn’t stop. There was nothing loving or tender about it. No grey area. Just very clear assault. I put myself through years of guilt, shame and eating disorders. I am sure he doesn’t even think of me at all. Proper consent education could have prevented this trauma.