Clíona Saidléar: Sex education needs to be about more than consent

The lesson history has repeatedly taught women is that every win, every tool, every strategy will be appropriated and potentially turned against us

Clíona Saidléar, executive director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland: 'Now that we can consent, we are responsible, to blame even, up to and including for our own deaths.'

Some years ago, I had a surprising conversation with a prosecutor who said the fact of anal sex involving a young woman was evidence of rape, with nothing else needing to be proven. After all, we (and any jury of contemporaries) could assume that no girl would consent to this activity. 

In yet earlier times, sexual activity outside marriage was generally taken to indicate a wrongdoing, often with a women subject to punishment for this activity. Times change and what is within the range of mainstream sexual activity has expanded.