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<\/p>\nIn a confronting new documentary, sex therapist Jo Robertson examines the radically changed sexual behaviour of New Zealanders, the role of the internet, and how dangerous practices like choking, as well as hitting and verbal abuse, are being normalised, culminating in what one clinician calls a \u201clooming public health crisis\u201d. Jo Robertson talked to Julie Hill. <\/p>\n
In the documentary you interview young people who’ve had very dark, violent sexual experiences. What do you think it was like for those people to tell their stories? <\/p>\n
For some it was for some really liberating and cathartic. For others there was shock, mortification, shame. One of the girls felt so ashamed that she\u2019d verbally encouraged some behaviours from her boyfriend, then upon reflection was like, \u2018How could I let this happen?\u2019 There was almost a sense that she\u2019d violated her own values. <\/p>\n
The doco explains how ‘choking’ as a sexual act can be fatal, or have extreme long-term health dangers. How did something like choking go mainstream?<\/p>\n
In my adolescent years, choking was not a thing. Cosmo was not talking about it. We are products of our culture and what we consume has an impact on who we are. What a lot of parents don\u2019t understand is that you don\u2019t have to be a direct consumer of content like porn or Dark Romance in order to be impacted.<\/p>\n
Most of this sexual violence involves boys hurting girls. Do they think girls enjoy it?<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t expecting the boys to say so frequently that they\u2019d been asked to do these things. The message is that female sexual pleasure is important, therefore they should do what\u2019s asked. Whereas the girls said that if they asked to be strangled or hit or called names, it was often because they thought that\u2019s what the boys wanted to do. So it was like this dance of two people thinking they\u2019re doing what the other person wants \u2013 and neither party really thinking about what they want to do. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jo Robertson with Dr Kate Taylor who runs sexual assault clinics across the Waikato. Taylor warns of the serious risk of brain damage from choking. <\/p>\n
Sometimes people will agree on a ‘safe word’ or ‘safe action’ that they can use during sex if they don’t like what’s happening. Does that work?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one of the most painful misconceptions. The young people I interviewed said, \u2018We had a plan for if I wasn\u2019t enjoying it.\u2019 But if you lose control of your limbs and you can\u2019t speak, that plan is not going to work. <\/p>\n
Are parents talking to their kids about this? <\/p>\n
Many parents say they\u2019re taking about it \u2013 but they think that doing it once is enough. They hand a book over or send a text or share a website and think that\u2019s going to meet their kids’ needs, but it doesn\u2019t. Our kids forget about 90% of any conversation we have with them. So if we want to clearly communicate a message, we need to say the same thing at least 10 times. <\/p>\n
You have three boys. What kind of chats have you had?<\/p>\n
My oldest is 12 and we recently talked about dating. I said if you\u2019re going to spend time with a girl one-on-one, you need to meet her family and let them get to know you. He was mortified and said, \u2018Why would I do that?\u2019 I told him if girls get harmed it\u2019s mostly by their boyfriends and if I\u2019m a parent of a daughter, I want to know that the person who\u2019s taking her out is someone I can trust. If you\u2019re not up for doing that, that\u2019s a signal to me that you\u2019re not ready. <\/p>\n
Are we still a pretty sexist society?<\/p>\n
Professor Nicola Gavey [who’s quoted in the documentary] said she felt we\u2019re in a worse place now than we were 10 or 15 years ago. She was struggling to feel hope, particularly for young women, and that was really sad. <\/p>\n
What I come home to is my boys and the way conversation does shape them. I see how they correct each other, challenge friends when they say something, push back on ideas, so I do see the impact of adults turning up and doing the education. <\/p>\n
Does there need to be more sex education at school?<\/p>\n
At the moment there are guidelines that have been set by the Ministry of Education and schools apply those in whatever way they want. It\u2019s not a required curriculum and until now they\u2019ve been required to consult with the community on what they teach. What that communicates is all of this is up for debate. But we need some basic principles. Safe sex is not negotiable and consent shouldn\u2019t be optional or up for debate. <\/p>\n
The final curriculum hasn\u2019t yet been released and it will be rolled out over the next three years. Community consultation has been taken away so schools will be able to teach what they want. It will be set to a curriculum but we have not seen that yet. <\/p>\n
And what should politicians be doing about it? <\/p>\n
I\u2019d love to see three things: frontline training of school counsellors, social workers and police, even midwives, because the risk of strangulation when there\u2019s pregnancy is so high. Secondly, some top-quality academic research that\u2019s quantitative. And the last one, which is super important, is a nationwide prevention and awareness campaign.<\/p>\n
Young people don\u2019t know they\u2019re more likely to end up having a stroke, have memory loss, experience depression and anxiety [from choking]. They don\u2019t know it\u2019s a crime. So they\u2019re just trying stuff out and creating a lot of damage in the process. <\/p>\n