A viral sex education video made by an English police department explains consent through the metaphor of a cup of tea for unwanted sex.
In Tea and Consent the Thames Police Department uses stick-figure animations to show how if you offer someone a cup of tea and they don’t want it, you don’t force it on them. If someone initially wants a cup of tea, but later changes their mind and says they don’t want tea, you don’t force it on them. If someone is passed out drunk, you don’t force a cup of tea down their throat.
When this educational video was shown at an end-of-term presentation on sex education resources for teachers, Bob Smith, an older faculty member who has been accused of inappropriate touching of students, asked “But if you serve the tea in a Beer Bong is that OK?” He followed up with the question, “If you serve tea at your house then that’s off school grounds and it’s OK right?”
The next day an anonymous faculty member posted a stick figure sketch showing that it is never OK to have a student in your house alone. It was quickly followed by stick-figure pictures of not offering tea in a locked supply closet, not offering tea in a dark parking lot late at night, not offering tea in a job interview, and not offering tea that is really alcohol.
The images were later copied on the men’s room walls with graphic additions. Bob continued to joke about “tea parties” and went so far as to have a “tea shirt” printed up. The problem was resolved to Bob’s satisfaction when a “hot” group of young female faculty members came and threw his shipment of shirts into the polluted stream nearby. Bob was happy that he was able to get a video of the hot teachers for his Twitter feed because it earned him a large number of new followers.
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