Have you or has anyone close to you experienced sexual assault from someone who went to an all-boys school?” That’s the question then-Masters student Chanel Contos posed in an Instagram poll in February 2021 – a question that reverberated around the country.
Within 24 hours of the poll, more than 300 people had responded, with 72 per cent of them answering “yes”. Within three weeks, Contos amassed testimonies from 6000 people detailing their experience with behaviour constituting rape and sexual assault. Almost all of these instances were committed by people known to the survivors, yet virtually none were reported. Within a month of starting a petition demanding consent classes in schools, Contos had 45,000 signatures. Within a year, the nine education ministers in Australia agreed to mandate consent education.
And now, just over two years on from her viral question, 25-year-old Contos has written Consent Laid Bare, a blistering, unflinching – and therefore sometimes uncomfortable – look at Australia’s rape culture.
“The number one thing I want people to get out of my book is I want them to feel as though they have increased their capabilities to be able to engage in consent,” the recipient of the 2021 Australian Human Rights Commission Young. “I want people to think critically about their own sexual relations and make sure that it increases their ability to have those in a way they actually want, and to help people figure out what they actually want. I think a lot of sex happens that is consensual, but it’s not necessarily desired. I particularly want young people and young women to feel as though they know themselves and their wants a bit better.”
