UL cancels sexual consent classes due to lack of interest

The University of Limerick (UL) has cancelled sexual consent workshops due to lack of interest.

Just 14 students signed up to attend the sexual health and consent classes.

UL Students’ Union had no choice but to cancel the three workshops due to the low numbers, a representative said.

Consent workshops at University College Dublin (UCD) were also cancelled recently due to a lack of interest from students — just 20 students attended the classes from a student population of more than 30,000.

UL Student Union welfare officer Caolan O’Donnell said the lack of take-up by students for the “fantastic and engaging” workshops is disappointing.

“The biggest issue we see in college (in the Welfare Office) is the grey area that happens when we’re out drinking,” he said.

Students crucially need to learn about consent because sexual activity in college is inevitably linked with the consumption of alcohol, he added.

A total of 80% of rape complainants and 76.6% of suspects have consumed alcohol on the night of a reported incident, according to research available from the Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI).

A recent Eurobarometer poll also found 11% of Irish people believe being drunk or under the influence of drugs justifies sex without consent.

The ‘Smart Consent’ workshops run through open discussion with students who are given hypothetical scenarios and encouraged to discuss.

The majority of sign-ups to the UL consent workshops were female students, according to Mr O’Donnell.

He said most male students he spoke to seemed hesitant to sign-up for the classes, in case they would be somehow seen by their peers as a rape perpetrator.

He described this as “disappointing”, as he said great care was given when creating the scenarios for the workshop to ensure all genders and sexualities were included.

UCD students may have not have signed up for their university’s consent workshops because they thought the workshops would be a one-sided lecture, UCD Student Union spokesperson David Burns said.

“People just didn’t appreciate that it would be a discussion and people need to realise it (the workshop) is a two-way process,” Mr Burns said.

The UCD Student Union said it will continue to work on the issue of consent by running a project with the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), Mr Burns added.

The ‘Smart Consent’ workshops, developed by Dr Paudraig MacNeela of the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), were integrated into a first year orientation week at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) this year.