Sexual Violence Prevention in Schools with Shael Norris from SafeBAE

Shaile Norris:

This program is brought to you by Pussy Magnets. Put a bit on your friends with a pussy magnet.

Freya Graf:

Welcome, welcome, my lovely lumps. Or should I say, lovely labs. I'm so thrilled to have you here in the Labia Lounge. We're going to yarn about all things sexuality, womanhood, relationships, intimacy, holistic health and everything in between your legs. Ooh, can't help myself. Anyway, we're going to have vag loads of real chats with real people about real shit. So buckle up, you're about to receive the sex ed that you never had. And have a bloody good laugh while you're at it.

Freya Graf:

Before we dive in, I'd like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I'm recording this. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. It's an absolute privilege to be living and creating dope podcast content in naam. And I pay respect to their elders, past, present and emerging. Now, if y' all are ready, let's flappin do this. Oh my God. Is there such thing as too many vagina jokes in the one intro? Whatever. It's my podcast.

Freya Graf:

I'm leaving it in. Don't panic.

Shaile Norris:

You're not broken.

Freya Graf:

Your sex education was a piece of shit. Get your flaps out and pull up a couch.

Shaile Norris:

It's the Labia Lounge.

Freya Graf:

Hey gang, just before we jump into this episode, I wanted to offer you an opportunity to access my new mini course for free before I start charging for it in future. It's for people with vulvas and it's quick to complete. It's all about demystifying the female body and pleasure anatomy and getting some basic fundamentals to understand your body better. It's called Pussy Pleasure Roadmap to bedroom bliss. You can grab it on the freebies page of my website or in the show notes. It's a great little free resource to kind of dip your toe in or act as a bit of a taster for my work. So if you've ever been curious about this sort of thing and you just don't know where to start, or you want a really quick, easy, accessible, non threatening way to get the ball rolling and start working on this stuff, this is a great place to start. Hey, labial lovelies, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Potty.

Freya Graf:

We're going to be chatting about prevention strategies for sexual violence in secondary schools and universities with the founding executive director of Safebay, the only US national survivor founded youth led organization working to prevent sexual violence among teens. We'll be covering things like cyberbullying, online safety and digital sexual violence, as well as consent culture and how to embed this in the curriculum. Bystander intervention suggestions, the origins of rape culture and the common challenges facing young people in the area of sexual misconduct in their school years. Plus what you as a teacher or student can do about it and how Safe Bay can support you with this on so many levels. So I'm really excited to get stuck into this. To give you some background on my guest today, her name is Shaile Norris. Shaile has dedicated her career to ending sexual violence and empowering youth activism. It was her early work in higher education prevention that led her to advocate for the creation of youth led prevention programming among secondary students.

Freya Graf:

In 2014, she began to seek funding and youth partners to establish Safebay, culminating in its creation in 2015 in partnership with Daisy and Charlie Coleman, Ella Ferrin and Jada Smith. Shale's data from Safebay's 2019 summit is published in the 2024 Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. And I'd really love to hear some of those findings actually, like once we get stuck in Shale. But firstly, welcome to the lounge. Grab a clip cushion, get comfy.

Shaile Norris:

Oh my God, sure. Here I am. Thanks for having me.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, pleasure. So excited to talk to you. It's a really special and really fucking cool thing that you've created, to be honest. And so I want to hear a little bit about like how it all happened as a young activist back in the day, maybe when you were at uni or college yourself. Like how did you cut your teeth in this field? And what sort of drew you to getting into such deep activism work from a young age.

Shaile Norris:

Really how I got into activism is what I have now coined as a phrase accidental activism. I was quite literally standing in the right place at the right time in a moment in my life where I met pivotally brilliant mentor activists that were my entire introduction in education in this world. My background was in theater, so I figured instead of waitressing, I could sew costumes instead. So that ended up working its way into a wardrobe, not career, but wardrobe time where I was overseeing wardrobe departments in different theaters on Broadway, off Broadway. But I happened to meet these producers along the way who went on to produce a then not popularized show called the Vagina Monologues. And they had asked me to work backstage for them. And I had read the play and I actually was like trying to get out of wardrobe. I was really interested in moving in toward production things and producing and so.

Shaile Norris:

But I had Read the play. And I was like, okay, yeah, I meant I'm interested in hearing more. And they said, why don't you go down and meet with Eve, who now. Eve Ensler, who now goes as the Ensler. And that was really it. I went down to her tiny office on 18th street and I got off the elevator and fell in love with her like everybody does. And was really just. I mean, I think art and activism is always sort of intrinsically connected.

Shaile Norris:

Like theater in particular. You. You want to create theater that moves people in some capacity. So there's always like an intrinsic connection there. But this is. This was next level. Like, I'd never seen what happened in 1999 with the debut of the Vagina Monologues. And again, was 23 at the time.

Shaile Norris:

23, 24. And was really just eager to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could. I did go to uni for two years, but dropped out and moved to New York City to like, just sort of pursue that theater dream. And so everything about my education in philanthropy came from that very small group of women who really decided that there was an opportunity to galvanize audiences and the people who were supporting the Vagina Monologues as well as ticket sales from the show to end violence against women and girls. And so I said, I want to help. How can I help? And that's where my career with v day, my 18 year career with V Day started. I was invited to help oversee the college and community campaigns, productions of the Vagina Monologue. So every benefit production, all the ticket sales went toward programs working to end violence against women and girls.

Shaile Norris:

And I'm sure some of your audiences participated in, directed, were cast in performances of the John Wallings because it became a global phenomenon and so huge now. I mean, for a long time it has been, you know, this pivotal show that I think was really. So I'm in extremely good company when you say the Lady Lounge, because that was like, my whole world was just like, everything. Vaginas. There were vagina pillows. There were vagina pop up art, menstrual bladder. Like, oh, my gosh, so many things. Things that I was like, where are we? But we were in like vagina land for a very long time.

Shaile Norris:

And. And I loved it. I loved every second of it. I loved every translation of the Vagina Monologues. I loved every college production I got to be a part of and. And see. And help bear fruit and. And just see all the stories, right? Because all of these productions gave money back to a local Charity working to advance against women and girls.

Shaile Norris:

So I was working with kids who were like, okay, so my chosen beneficiary for my production at my university, where we raised $5,000, all goes to this local charity where when I was a young girl, my mother and I stayed in this domestic violence shelter when we ran from my father in the dark of night with the clothing on our back with nothing else to our names, and I get to give money back to them. So to me, that was just like, I will never do anything more important with my life ever. Like helping people to come full circle in their healing, to come full circle in their experiences, to give back to place that gave to them. And what it did was lift so much financial burden off of charities at the time. These, all these charities around the planet that always need support, always need funding, always need to be doing more than they are. People just were doing these local productions and just handing a check to these charities that didn't have to do anything for them. So that in and of itself was a really special gift. And, you know, and again, when I thought I would never parallel ever again until, you know, through my tenure there, we were really seeing these college campuses were like, just turning like all of this power from, quite frankly, from productions of the Vagina Monologues, but also other conversations that were happening to say, like, there are massive cover ups happening on a global scale around sexual violence on college campuses.

Shaile Norris:

We are not addressing it, we are not preventing it, we are not helping people heal from it when it does happen. And we are sure as hell not giving justice to the people that are experiencing it. And so what kids were able to do with their platform of the Vagina model was shine huge lights on this. We got huge stories around it. One of the very first pivotal story was like a three or four part story in Chronicle of. I forget what it was that talked about all of these stories on college campuses across the US and how they all had the same experiences with coverups, with lack of support, with no investigations, with no accommodations to make it so these kids could stay in school. And again, it was a time in which gender violence, as we know gender violence is what sexual violence is referred to. Now.

Shaile Norris:

I'll get to why I don't refer to it as gender violence anymore in a minute. But at the time, there was certainly no space to talk about any male or other gender identities experiencing sexual violence. But it was an opening to start talking about what was truly catastrophic impact to health safety, mental health education across the boards for any survivors. So What I saw was just this breaking open that again, I do think, like, rippled across the world, but kind of started in that US Base of like, telling the story, breaking it open with amazing journalists, and then having college campuses start to go, oh, we better do something about this. Like, we started to see in the US a discussion around Title ix, which is a law that had been around since the 70s, but never enforced. So we started to see a huge uptick in enforcement. We started to see the White House at the time under Obama released a Dear Colleague letter was what it was called, but it was a know in certain terms, an instruction manual for. You are going to investigate these things on college campuses now.

Shaile Norris:

You are going to make sure that the equal access to education with regard to safety is something taken very seriously on college campuses. And we want you staffed up and this is your deadline. So we started to see these big shifts. And so being sort of sitting squarely in the middle of that work with all these benefit productions and with all these kids who are really galvanizing their productions into hugely mobilized activism, I immediately, because I'm in insane, said, well, now we do need to do work younger than university, right? We need to talk about all of those years leading up to university that everyone's afraid to talk about, no one will fundraise around and that there are no vehicles to do. And everyone told me I was insane. Everyone was like, what are you doing? Like, underage conversations are going to be a whole different ball game. And I was like, oh, I'm clear. But I thought we established like a long time ago that I'm clearly insane if I, like, for 18 years I've been like, getting kids to scream vagina on their college campuses, among other terms for vaginas.

Freya Graf:

And.

Shaile Norris:

That wasn't without its pushback. That wasn't without its major upheavals along the way. So as long as we're sticking with the theme of I'm willing to push the margins, I always say, you might not like what I'm saying, but you are not going to wonder what I'm thinking. And it doesn't matter to me if I never get invited to dinner parties, because what I talk about makes people uncomfortable. I wanted to give to so many other kids what was given to me, which was, was that mentorship from, you know, brilliant feminists in the space, brilliant philanthropic leaders in the space, and culture changers. And I wanted to, if I was going to use what I. What was my higher education to provide that space for young people, I was going to do it in a way that uplifted them with adult allyship. Like they needed to steer it.

Shaile Norris:

They needed to understand what it was and talk about what it was. They were the experts of their own experiences. And all I needed to do was facilitate those opportunities for them and bring in as many adult allies as possible. So that's kind of where it was like, we need to do this work younger. Let's. I want. I co founded the organization with a group of young survivors who all experienced sexual violence at the age of 14 and whose stories were going to be debuting in a Netflix documentary called Audrey and Daisy. And I said, again, we have that opportunity to connect art and activism.

Shaile Norris:

This film is going to be seen by millions of people across the globe on Netflix. Let's build tools that can galvanize their being moved by the stories they're going to hear that they may not otherwise ever have any knowledge of what young girls go through and make them want to help us change things. So that's really where we started and that was back in 2015. So it will be our 10 year anniversary this September. Oh my God.

Freya Graf:

Are you doing anything special for the 10 year.

Shaile Norris:

We are fighting for our lives in the funding field. As you may know, in the US we are not caught up. This is what's amazing is that like I've watched the trajectory of a much shorter timeline in Australia. Be like, y', all, your. Your government is like mandating consent, education. Your government's throwing money at the issue everyone's talking about. There's been this reckoning in Australia that has actually resulted in change, which is such a wild concept for people in my country because we don't do that. We have this huge upheaval.

Shaile Norris:

Upheaval. People get wildly upset and there's just like these pockets of discourse. But change across the country, absolutely not. Change state by state, tiny little bits. We love to pass legislation that has no teeth and no money and no mandate and no, we've passed legislation that's just like we can wipe our butts with it. Like it's absolutely useless. So I think that's what we've seen here. But they're like, we're watching like actual evidence based education.

Shaile Norris:

Go to play. All these things that I'm like in such a short timeline have been transformed in your country. And I'm like, we can only aspire to this over here. And so we are in absolute catastrophic dumpster fire of funding in the United States. We lost a $90,000 grant four days ago. That was a federal grant that was going to introduce our programs. I'm not gonna be able to talk about it without crying. But like, you know, it's one of those things where like there is a sea of dead bodies over here of like nonprofits that are closing, people that can't do their work, people that are losing their jobs across the board, like government jobs, nonprofit jobs.

Shaile Norris:

But to know that I had lined up schools to do our programs in, lined up stuff, we have evidence based programming that is not reaching the number of people that like you all have been effectively able to do across your country. That's like aspirational at best in the US And I'm over here going that funding would have allowed us to do like this tiny little window where we can continue to build momentum, pilot things in different districts, rural districts, urban districts, districts that have absolutely no resources whatsoever and really work with the kids and the parents and caregivers and educators in those districts, centering the student experience and lifting up student led peer to peer education around sexual violence prevention. Because without that we're going to see just this rollback. We're just going to continue to see more and more school push out which is when survivors can't stay in school because they can't stay safe and the mental health outcomes. We just had the CDC in the US release a report a couple years ago that said there is an intrinsic connection between suicidal ideation among girls and sexual violence experienced among girls. Now I know that, we know that like There is anecdotally 100% of sexual assault survivors at young, of a young age group, you know, particularly 14 to 18 that will experience suicidal ideation as a result of experiencing abuse. And yet here we are just like rolling back, cutting. It's like I know that we're doing life saving work.

Shaile Norris:

So to continue to be in this uphill battle that is, where will we be selling, celebrating our 10th anniversary? In all sincerity, like it's just going to be major, major pushes to fundraise so that we can stay in existence and we do our work on a dime. We have very, very, very small budget. I didn't start taking a salary. And even now it's like I wouldn't call it a salary, a stipend maybe to do this work because I believe in it so passionately. But I also just like don't want to let all the young people I'm partnered with down. I'm the only, I'm the only, I guess we'll say old person on staff. I'm, I don't think of myself as an old person, but almost everybody's under the age of 25. And one other.

Shaile Norris:

My co founder, Ella, is 27.

Freya Graf:

Wow. And, you know, you've just been doing it a long time. You're an elder in the space. Like, you're a mentor with this.

Shaile Norris:

That's what we'll call it. Yeah, but I don't want to let these young people down.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, of course. It just must be so intense and frustrating and devastating and heartbreaking. Like, you're on this incredible mission, and I can really relate to this feeling of just, you know, being so deeply passionate and knowing that what you do changes lives, saves lives, and yet the powers that be are, like, hamstringing you at every step of the way. I feel like that with my work and censorship and all of the sort of opportunities that I miss out on because of the prudish algorithms and. And the patriarchy, basically. But it's so. It's so powerful. Like, as you were speaking about this full circle, you got to witness with, you know, students that had been abused and then got to be in this really healing experience and reclaim their power.

Freya Graf:

You know, I was just riddled with goosebumps as you were speaking about that. And there is something so potent and healing about, like, art forms, especially theater, when it comes to, like, you know, PTSD and. And stuff that is, like, starting to be recognized and. And researched. But, you know, you. You've been on this tip for, you know, over a decade now, which is so cool that you were right there at the start of.

Shaile Norris:

You're generous. It's almost three decades. What?

Freya Graf:

Okay.

Shaile Norris:

All right, we're getting up there now.

Freya Graf:

Okay. I thought you were way younger than that.

Shaile Norris:

No, I turned 50. But I think that's. In these years. I think that's the number one thing I've witnessed, and I think to bear witness to the unmatched healing power of, like, there's a catharsis in. Well, I always say the last stage of healing is going back for the others. And I get so emotional whenever I talk about it, but it's like, there's therapy, there's PTSD therapy, there's talk therapy, there's group therapy, and then there is feeling like you've taken into your hands the power to prevent what happened to you from happening to somebody else. And I think that's the gift that was given to people who did the productions of the Vagina Monologues and really felt not only that they were able to have a powerful presence on the stage, but give back to the Charities that supported the work that saved them. But I think that's very true in Safe Bay as well, because these young people becoming peer educators, are taking this experience that happened to them or a very close person in their lives.

Shaile Norris:

And they'd said they're just like, I want to change the way my school addresses this or doesn't address it and educate more young people. And if I have to wait around for adults to do it, that's going to be never. So we're just taking it in our own hands. I think that's why Safe Bay has been so successful, is because we give all of our youth engagement programming away entirely for free. Not a great sustainability model, but completely necessary in order to prevent adult gatekeeping and to provide kids with this experience of, like, galvanizing, taking that control back. Because when you lose the control over your own bodily autonomy, there's nothing quite as healing as saying, I'm going to come back in. And I'm going to say, this was not right when it happened to me. I don't want it to happen to another person.

Shaile Norris:

And that is where we're going to do the work together. And I think it's guided and everything about Safe Bay. And it allowed us to really hit that, like, hit the mark so profoundly and so perfectly every time, because we're meeting the moment for whatever survivors are telling us we need. Again, I said it earlier, I say it all the time. Survivors are experts of their own experiences and what they need. And we even like. One of the things I think that shows up the most is we do work with perpetrators. So teen perpetrators, people in that secondary, like 13 to 18 age range, the vast majority of them are unwitting perpetrators.

Shaile Norris:

They all think they understand consent. They do not understand consent. And we know that so many times those perpetrators, aside from not even understanding that they've caused harm, have no means of redemption. They have no means from coming back from that. And we kept hearing from survivors, it was almost always in a. In a secondary school setting, that it was a group of friends. One person in the friend group turned another person in the friend group. The friend group fractures.

Shaile Norris:

Nobody knew who knows who to believe or who to support or who to cancel or who to gaslight. And so there's just like all this, like, frenetic energy. And the survivors in those situations just kept saying, I just want them to say they're sorry and I just want them to not do it to anyone else. So if we were going to meet that moment and really listen to them, we had to Give a resource, which we call an accountability training to young perpetrators to have a way back, to have a way to reflect on what they thought was consent, what that wasn't, or where they went wrong in any given situation. So that not only can we get them to not do it to another person and not and say they're sorry, but like the importance of reducing that likelihood of recidivism over a lifetime has to be hit in that young age group. Otherwise oftentimes they, they'll just go on to re. Perpetrate and, and you know, even elevate their perpetration in a lot of ways. Because if you can get away with something and there's no accountability for it, no reflection, then that'll continue.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, exactly. So just, yeah, you're doing such incredible work. I'm just like relieved that something like this exists. And I love that it, it's so powerfully involves survivors because that is such a beautiful way to reclaim your power and feel a sense of meaning and purpose and empowerment in taking action. I think activism and advocacy can be massive in your healing journey like you described. It's sort of that final piece of the puzzle where you go back for the others and involving the students in this way is just, oh, chef's kiss. Like, I love, I love everything that you guys are about. And on that, like, let's chat a little bit about all of the different things because I was blown away when I started researching Safe Bay.

Freya Graf:

I was like, oh, what's this about? And I was like, oh my God. Like, you know, you guys are like, you're, you're offering to provide like, you know, consent curriculum, professional development for staff, staff training for trauma, informed victim response, policy review and guidance in creating survivor centered sexual misconduct policy. Like, you've got posters and resources for people to print out and put in their school. Like, there's so many different avenues someone can take if they want to get involved and utilize your resources and your trainings. So like, can you give us a bit of a rundown on safebay and what you offer? And I think there's like a slightly newer branch that's like safe bay360 schools like the prevention and response approach. Yeah, just lay it on us.

Shaile Norris:

You've done your homework, nice job. It's very rare that I meet somebody who can like, like actually reiterate back to me, like, what are all of our programs are? And like they hit the mark. So nicely done. Yeah. And like, thank you for noticing. We have created the largest library of sexual violence prevention resources for this age group that I know of on the planet, it's a lot and you know, it's a lot to do it with with $3. But here we are. So, yes, what we refer to as a whole school approach, again, something that again is starting to have much more popularity in the UK and Australia, but absolutely nobody else in the country in the US is doing it.

Shaile Norris:

So I think what we know from that whole school approach and the several other like pieces of this puzzle, this full spectrum, whole school way that we tackle this issue is that there's. So there's a, a huge body of research that supports that it needs to. This type of work is best received in a peer to peer capacity. So we got to get students involved. Students have to be not only the delivery deliverers of this information, but they need to be really heavily involved in the creation of its content. It cannot be static. It cannot feel like your mom made it. It has to be authentic to their experiences.

Shaile Norris:

We create a ton of short format video content as learning tools so that we're not just static. Right? We know short format videos where we live and breathe whether we like it or not. That's how they're learning information. So let's embrace and so we in house created by Youth for youth. I stand in the back and buy the pizza. Video content that is created for the purpose of integration into our curriculum and our peer educator training and everything else. We do so for that school full spectrum approach, like you said, we do a lot of teacher, faculty and staff training, education resources. We really talk about a cross curricular delivery too, because I'm sure you see it too.

Shaile Norris:

We love to, to silo this right into a health class and never ever, ever talk about healthy relationships outside of health class. Well, a cross curricular approach is a much more I think integrated way to talk about this. I refer to like the different ways in which we can have a conversation about history and the ways and places and times we've seen abuses, domestic violence, rape as a tactic of war throughout history and have different conversations about patriarchy and misogyny and rape culture as it's embedded in history. So there are moments that you could have in history class where you reflect and move some of these conversations out of the silo of health class. But one of my other favorite examples is I used to use exclusive the example of the Scarlet Letter. Like it's one of those books that certainly in us is like a literature stronghold. Like you're always. Everybody's sort of assigned that over the years generationally for years.

Shaile Norris:

We love to look at that puritanical history of the founding of the US and the Scarlet Letter. You know, plot is really about this affair that's happened between a minister and a parishioner and she's forced to wear a letter A on her shirt. That's for adulterer. And, and all of that book is like framed around the fact that she was in the wrong. That we really don't see a lot of teaching around that book in the way that when we're talking about power imbalance, for example, how was that abuse inflicted on her as a parishioner from her preacher when she set out to seek solace in her preacher, things like that. So again, having those conversations. And most recently there's a new Broadway show called John Proctor is the Villain that's about the Crucible, which is another very stronghold classic, rich literature book. Do you guys read?

Freya Graf:

Yeah.

Shaile Norris:

Do you guys read?

Freya Graf:

I did that at school, the Crucible.

Shaile Norris:

Okay. So sure. So the plot of the Crucible, very similar. We are always, throughout history we've been taught that John Proctor is a hero. He's willing to die for his name. Right. And this new Broadway show that I'm desperately, desperately trying to and have done outreach to partner with them is all about this experience of MeToo as it hits these high schoolers as they're reading the Crucible in class and having this reckoning. And so it's set to this sort of backdrop of reading the Crucible and these girls like really dig in and are like, wait a minute, he's not a hero.

Shaile Norris:

For like we never ever talk about like what a predatory was. All of these types of pieces where we see power imbalance and male power and influence and we are always like slut shaming women in these types of historical contexts without ever reflecting on how problematic that is. So again, that cross curricular piece is so important. We can talk about this outside of health class. And I think what we really look at in that body of research is also, you cannot have a one off conversation about healthy relationships, unhealthy relationships, consent, any of the pieces, because there's a lot of pieces that go into it in a one off or a short format health class delivery. There need to be multiple times that you're receiving this message over these messages over your developmental period. Because something is going to hit very different at 14 than it is at 18, for sure. And so you need different developmental touchstones along the way.

Shaile Norris:

You also need multiple messengers. Right. I don't think it should be exclusively left up to children to teach this as I think anyone would agree with that. I think peer to peer is super important, important, but needs to be paired with that cross curricular adult delivery in classroom as well. And that we can. So when we look at like the best delivery of our model, we say train kids as peer educators, give them opportunities to do education, like say that they did a delivery of a lesson on consent in a classroom, you know, at one point in the year. But then maybe your health class teacher is touching on healthy versus unhealthy relationships and boundaries and things like that. But then maybe you're, you know, you're reading the Crucible and that teacher is talking about power imbalance and respecting boundaries and holding boundaries and things like that.

Shaile Norris:

There's so many different ways that we can integrate this across multiple messengers, multiple messages times throughout the years and then pairing that with also awareness raising activities. And that's why when we talk about like student engagement, we talk about not only do we want to train kids as peer educators, but we want to have like a club type model, a school club engagement, not necessarily a specifically separate school club. I often say like our Safe Bay club structure is meant to be able to be used anywhere across any country, wherever you are to do this work. But if you have like a student leadership group or a mental health club or something like that, that you can house this programming within that mental health club or another opportunity like a student helper type group. Because for two reasons, that brings me back to what I said earlier about accidental activism. If you have a sexual violence prevention club after school, that doesn't sound like a super fun time to most high school students, you might not get the buy in you're hoping for when you're just doing that. Right. But also if you house it within a group that feels like more comfortably gender neutral, then you're going to get people who will not think that they have a voice within this work and in important part to be contributed within this work, to experience the activist accidental activism moment where they can then learn that they can have a hugely profound, important voice and platform to do this work and how important it is for people of all gender identities to be represented in this work.

Shaile Norris:

But I think you have to sort of destigmatize it before we're going to start to see more people just opt in like voluntarily to do the work. So I think think we work really hard in the US to do like there's something called National Honor society and student government, even like places like that to house sexual Violence prevention work within those already leadership clubs. So that's the sort of student engagement piece. And then, yeah, we do policy work. Again, critically important to have a sexual misconduct policy. I don't know about in Australia, but in the US most schools do not have a sexual misconduct policy. Or if they do, they're very minute and they're sort of like tucked in very slightly mentioned. We don't want to say sex anywhere in a policy in school without, you know, really scaring our puritanical ancestors.

Shaile Norris:

So we, we really shy away from that. So it's really important that we created a sexual misconduct policy reform guide for a student to use or an adult in a system to use, whether it's somebody in a, a school board or a parent in a district to say, I really think that it's important to have a robust policy so that everybody knows what that protocol is. They know who to report to, they know where to report, and they know what the investigation process is going to look like. We know that that reduces the secondary trauma for survivors if they know before they report what the process looks like and they understand what justice outcomes might be involved. And so one of the things we talk about with school, school partners all the time is like, you can just like put up healthy awareness, Healthy education awareness posters all over your school. But what we're going to want you to do on the bottom of that poster is have a QR code that people can scan. And next to that QR code, it says, if you or a friend is experiencing relationship abuse, scan this code. That code's going to go right to whoever that reporting process piece is in that school specifically.

Shaile Norris:

So that not only are we making a robust policy, but we're teaching kids how to access it, we're teaching kids how to report. It's a little bit counterintuitive because what you're going to do if you put up posters like that and you tell kids about what the rules are and how to report things is you're going to increase reporting. And people are like, oh my gosh, we don't want to have like zero rapes reported last year and 15 reported this year. That's scary to everybody. That's going to be like a horror show. But actually that shows that not that there's more rapes happening in the school or sexual assaults or bodily autonomy violations, but that people know where to report it and how to report and feel safe to report it. That's another piece. People always think, well, there's zero.

Shaile Norris:

We're good statistically, it is impossible for your school to have zero statistically, not even an anomaly. Like it's impossible. So don't be fooled by those low numbers thinking that means your school is safe. That means kids don't know where to report. They don't feel safe. So those are really important pieces to like close that loop. Because we also know that that connection between suicidal ideation and sexual violence happens when there's no access to healing. And we are supposedly in the US mandated to provide healing resources to kids that come forward and.

Shaile Norris:

But they can't access those healing resources if they never come forward or they don't know who to come forward to, or if when they come forward, it's even, even more traumatizing to go through an investigation. And that's why we also want to offer that accountability training as a piece of that like a restorative justice solution. So restorative justice or alternative justice? Because so many of these survivors were saying, like, I don't want them expelled. I don't, like, it's not helping me have everybody in school hate me because so and so had to like leave the school because I reported them. And I really don't want them to leave the school. I just want them to not do it to anyone else. So offering a tool like an alternative to, to traditional justice for survivors to choose, opt in not to be pressured or forced into by their school administrators, but to choose and say, you know what, they're showing a level of empathy that I think that this would be a really good opportunity for alternative justice, then it feels more like justice. There's also a lot of protections.

Shaile Norris:

Again, I'm not familiar with Australia, but in the US to what student discipline is what, like what can be shared publicly. There's a lot of protections around, like student conduct and things like that in the US So sometimes you'll report a sexual assault, there'll be a whole investigation, and you'll never know what the outcome is because the protection laws prevent survivors from knowing what the outcomes are for perpetrators, which certainly doesn't feel like healing, certainly doesn't feel like justice. So if we can provide more resources to alternative justice, we're going to provide something that feels more like justice to people and it's an opportunity for a perpetrator to be interrupted and not be on the path to doing it again. So all of those pieces, I feel like I've forgotten something. I mean, I don't know what else.

Freya Graf:

I think that was pretty comprehensive. I'm sure you guys do so much more, but I mean it's kind of amazing that you're managing to pull all of that off to begin with. That's so thorough. Like in my. I'm just listening to you going holy fucking shit. Like how can we get this over here? Like we need, this is. We need to be rolling this out here. This is so wonderful on anybody in.

Shaile Norris:

Australia can use the peer educator training.

Freya Graf:

Hey baby babes. Sorry to interrupt. I just had to pop my head into the lounge here and mention another virtual lounge that I'd love you to get around. It's the Labia Lounge Facebook group that I've created for listeners of the potty to mingle in There you'll find extra bits and bobs like freebies behind the scenes or discounts for offerings from guests who have been interviewed on the podcast. There'll also be hopefully inspiring, thought provoking conversations and support from a community of labial legends like yourself. My vision for this is that it becomes a really supportive, educational and hilarious resource for you to have more access to me and a safe space to ask questions you can't ask anywhere else else. So head over to the links in the show notes or look up the Labia Lounge group in Facebook and I'll see you in there. And now back to the episode.

Freya Graf:

First of all, absolutely love that you kind of touched on this whole concept of, you know, the consequences of reporting an incident usually being all or nothing and that really deterring victim survivors from reporting things because they don't want the perpetrator to necessarily get into major trouble. They want something done, they want it to be acknowledged, they want their experience validated and for something to be improved. Maybe it's that the perpetrator learns a lesson and understands on a deeper level how they have harmed someone and therefore it might mean that they don't harm another person or something like that. Ideally there's some sort of of solution or ramification of them reporting it, but because generally it's either they're ignored, they're not believed, or they're put through this horrifically traumatic, drawn out, dramatic process just to try to prove their version of reality and then punish the perpetrator. It's such a deterrent. So many people don't want to report things because the options are so extreme. It's so all or nothing. So love that you mentioned that, because if there were pathways like you've suggested, where there's just some training involved, there's some awareness education, there's some conversations had, that's like a middle ground option that would be pretty Reassuring, I imagine, for a victim survivor to kind of know that, that if they do report something, what's going to happen is very reasonable and actually constructive, you know.

Freya Graf:

And so I love that you have created a resource and like a pathway for education for the perpetrators because, you know, so often they don't know what they don't know. And it's not gendered. I know all genders can be victims, can be perpetrators, can be survivors. But something that you were sort of mentioning about the type of perpetrator that doesn't actually realize, like the accidental kind of oblivious, clueless perpetrator reminded me of Chanel Contos coined this term entitled opportunist to describe a category of sexual violence perpetrator that doesn't mean any harm by it really, or doesn't know that what they're doing is wrong. But it's just coming from a, like, from ignorance or naivety and a kind of like, lack of empathy and caring for the other person's needs or boundaries and prioritizing their own from a place of socialized, culturalized, conditioned entitlement. These types of perpetrators are often, at least from the research in her book and from what I know in Australia and like the man box study and stuff, are often boys against women generally. And they're entitled opportunists because all of these little microaggressions or moments of kind of entitled sexism and misogyny happen. And they're so commonplace, they're so normalized.

Freya Graf:

They've been normalized because we've been in this sort of culture of misogyny for our entire lives, for generations, because of patriarchy. Sorry about the cliche buzzword, but, like, that's why. And these boys don't even realize they're doing anything wrong because that's kind of all they've seen on screens from their, you know, dads, potentially from role models, male role models of masculinity in movie scenes, in every facet of their lives, they've seen pretty much this one blueprint for masculinity, which is very much be assertive, don't take no for an answer. Go after what you want. The world's your oyster and you're a man, so you kind of deserve to just take what you want from the world and extract. There's this really extractive approach of what can I get from this? What can I. What can I get away with? What can I get out of this girl or this woman or this sexual encounter? How far can I go? And it sort of often prioritizes them and what they want to happen or what they want to get out of it over their partner. And it doesn't come from a malicious place generally like with these entitled opportunists.

Freya Graf:

It just comes from socialized entitlement and a kind of lack of understanding and empathy for how their actions might impact the other person. And because in a sort of heterosexual dynamic in terms of gender stereotypes and the way that we've all been socialized according to our bodies and what gender people assign to us. It's like the girls in these situations probably don't even know half the time that something wrong is going on or that their boundaries and their consent is being violated. Because we've been socialized to ease and appease and people please and allow and to keep the peace and to go along with things and not make a scene or basically not say no. We've been taught that our needs are less important than a man's needs. We've been conditioned to put ourselves second. We've been told that our worth is attached to our beauty or our sexuality or our ability to please a man or a partner or just others. So there's these kind of gender stereotypes and this conditioning and socialization that plays into dynamics that, that are really common when it comes to the typical consent violations and commonplace kind of microaggressions or everyday sexism or sexual violence.

Freya Graf:

And I feel like so much of. And that's like the majority of rape and sexual assault that happens is like not the overt, forceful, violent, aggressive type of. Of sexual assault. It's the really insidious ones that maybe even the victim doesn't realise is not okay. It's where both parties don't even realize that the dynamic's a little bit skewed and non consensual. It's the drunken hookups where maybe someone feels a bit taken advantage of or a bit confused afterwards. Or it. It's the kind of groping and one person seeing how far they can go and the other person sort of allowing them to go a little bit further than they maybe feel comfortable with because they don't think it's cool to stop them.

Freya Graf:

They don't want to be called a frigid. So I think that's the majority of the sexual assault that's actually happening. And so much of that could be eradicated if we had more education and awareness around it. And what your creating and offering for the perpetrators is an amazing resource to help them reform and to help them change their behavior once they actually know anyway. Big Big rant, rant over. And those are just quite heteronormative sort of examples and dynamics. But yeah, I'm curious what you try to help people understand through your teachings and your advocacy around, like, rape culture and how insidious that can be and how that shows up in day to day life. It's a really, you know, triggering kind of big word.

Freya Graf:

And I feel like when people hear rape culture, they can balk at that because it sounds kind of extreme. And I think people don't understand that. It's actually quite nuanced. And when we say rape culture, we're not, meaning everyone's out here like having aggressive p. Envy, rapey sex. It's more just like the day to day sexism and the smaller things that contribute to the water that we're swimming in that creates a fertile foundation for sexual violence and misogyny and microaggressions all the way up to the most extreme end of that spectrum of sexual violence. And actually before. Sorry, one more thing before you talk about that.

Freya Graf:

Something that made me. That sort of triggered a little thought in my head earlier and I just figured I'll give it a bit of a plug when you're talking about how Australia's had a bit more funding and a bit more awareness and some more policy coming in in recent years around affirmative consent. I had the privilege of contributing to a pretty cool resource actually recently around this because of a grant stemming from that affirmative consent policy. And basically it's for everyone that's interested and you want to go check it out. There's the third season of this podcast coming out. It's called Is this okay? I'm on the third season that's coming out soon, but there's already a couple of seasons available. And basically what it is is I work for an organization called the Man Cave.

Shaile Norris:

I'm aware of them. I follow everything.

Freya Graf:

Ah, yeah. Incredible.

Shaile Norris:

I didn't know that. That's amazing. Okay.

Freya Graf:

And we have gotten some funding to create this resource. And this season we've partnered with Teach Us Consent, founded by Chanel Contos. And so we're creating resources for staff, teachers, parents, adults that are interested in this, which is like the podcast side of things. And then we're also creating some YouTube video content for students and teenagers. So that's been a really cool project that I've been involved in. And I suppose like a big part of why I often talk about things from quite a heteronormative lens is in my business, I work mostly, I work with all genders but historically, over the last decade, I've worked with majority women, especially women who have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of men. And then in like, you know, this other kind of day job I have at the man cave, I'm working exclusively with teenagers, boys. So the total other end of the spectrum and what the man cave do really well, like kind of at the crux of it, the work is around increasing emotional literacy in boys and challenging these kind of outdated gender stereotypes around masculinity and what it is to be a real man so that these boys can understand their inner worlds better, they can understand how the man box rules and these gender stereotypes are impacting them and their relationships and their mental health.

Freya Graf:

And ideally downstream, because of this increased emotional literacy, this deeper understanding of how to relate to themselves and their emotions and how to relate to others and others emotions and needs and the kind of interplay between all of that. Ideally we're hoping to reduce male suicide and domestic violence. So it's really potent, powerful work. I'm super passionate about it, very exciting. And so I kind of get to look at this stuff from a couple of different angles and lenses. Anyway, back to my kind of earlier question around rape culture. Do you have anything to add or any thoughts around this? It's big, big topic.

Shaile Norris:

So many things are coming up for me. So first, yeah, a lot to unpack. So first off, rape culture is hugely embedded. It is so normalized, it is so deeply rooted within us that it's part of our DNA across the planet, everywhere we go. So I think that I don't shy away from the language at all. I think it's really important to talk about what it is and talk about the impact it has when we think of it as nothing and how it's a contributor to everything. It's been so embedded for so long. Like I, I'm pretty sure there were cavemen drawing like horrible things on the walls, but here we are.

Shaile Norris:

And I think it is, it's just like that embedding across so many mediums of like, whether it's old wives tales or it's like ad campaigns or film television, there's all kinds of places where we just kind of like don't take seriously the issue of sexual violence or we like Gaslight, somebody who calls us out, right? So if somebody says hey, like don't say that and you're like, oh, sorry, didn't know you were such a feminist. And like we make it about you being the problem instead of taking accountability and saying oh yeah, shit, I Was kind of. I stepped out of line. I shouldn't have said that. But I think because it has been so normalized and it. And we are just saturated in it from every aspect that from humor to all of these different media formats that we consume, something as simple as, like a seemingly innocent rape joke or something very misogynistic builds up. Like, what that does is. I think, for me, the best way to explain it is when we reduce somebody like that to like, a joke or a punchline or something consumable like that.

Shaile Norris:

What it does is disembody somebody from their, like being a person with a soul, with humanity. And if we are constantly reducing. Because oftentimes rape culture comes out in that misogynistic piece, right? So if we're reducing people to their sexuality or the naked image of them, or making jokes about violating them or committing violence against them, because we can only do that if we disembody them. If we make them a thing to be consumed, a thing, not a person, then it allows us to other them and it allows us to take advantage of them. And so. And, And. Or cause harm to them. And so I think that when we're looking at that, like, really insidious, like, why should we take that really small thing so seriously? It's because that really small thing invites and those intrusive beliefs that those people are not worthy of respect, of safety, and of humanity.

Shaile Norris:

And so that othering is where it really comes into play. I think that's. That's where we. Any. Any group of people that we dehumanize allows us to commit atrocities against them. That's where war, the origins of war, is that those are an other, and we need to put those others in their place. And so little things contribute to that othering and invite this world of violence all the way up to rape as a tactic of war. Like, I would say that that would be like the.

Shaile Norris:

Probably the highest levels of rape culture is rape as a tactic of war, systematically used in genocides and. And in controlling populations during wartime, all the way down to that sick little thing you said or that you laughed at or that you didn't correct when somebody else did it. And it's really hard to make that step from one to the other. But it is all interconnected. And if we don't interrupt the small thing, then we invite a little bit bigger and we. And we excuse a little bit, be bigger than that, and then we just find ourselves giving permission.

Freya Graf:

Desensitized.

Shaile Norris:

Yeah.

Freya Graf:

Yeah.

Shaile Norris:

And I think that, yeah, that's A big thing to unpack and a big thing to overcome. But collectively we have the control over that. Collectively we can, you know, start to humanize those people. I think that's where if you look at tipping points in even say the acceptance of queer people and even like gay marriage and something like that, again, one generation ago it was considered completely taboo and unacceptable. And you can make jokes about it and it was like completely dehumanized because we didn't give a shit about gay people. We didn't give a, about their experience. We didn't humanize them. They were other.

Shaile Norris:

And once we started to see, interestingly, once we start to see more representation in media of gay people as humans, as gay people having full rich lives and contributions to society, God forbid we admit how many gay people contribute to the most incredible art of this planet. And once we started to do that, we couldn't other them anymore. So we couldn't want to take away their rights in the same way that we could before and we couldn't commit the same levels of violence again. Now, again, again, there's certainly exceptions. We know there are people who still other gay people all the time and commit violence against them and other them in every way. But it's not the social norm anymore. It's not as universally socially acceptable as it used to be. So it's that type of cultural shift that you can make when you stop othering people and you humanize people and create like a shared experience with them versus like, I don't know anything about them.

Shaile Norris:

They don't deserve my basic level of decency. So I think isn't that all we're all looking for on this planet is to be created, you know, to experience a level of equality and acceptance and kindness from people that we would want, we want to give them and they, we want them to give us. That's all any of us are aspiring toward. But that means on all levels we cannot deem acceptable the small, all the way to the large. And, and I think adults have to model that for young people. Adults have to create responsible media. Adults have to embed that because it is a high level concept that young people are going to need the lessons and the introductions to those high level concepts from the adults in the space in order to shift it.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, that 100%.

Shaile Norris:

Yeah.

Freya Graf:

And, and you know, just on such a kind of small, like on a really accessible level, like a very simple example of how you can kind of not contribute to and kind of interrupt a very common sort of feature of rape culture is like, for instance, just don't laugh at the sexist joke around the dinner table. Don't engage in those little microaggressions and those micro misogynistic moments that create fertile soil for rape culture. There's little things. Again, same with, like the bystander stuff we were talking about. It doesn't have to be big, massive activism that puts you in the line of fire. It can start really small just to create those little shifts in the culture within your kind of social microcosms. And if enough people are doing that, hopefully that does start to shift.

Shaile Norris:

But I also want to say that I'm really careful not to heavily villainize one gender over the other. And I brought it up before, I do not call sexual violence gender violence because first of all, on a global scale, we do not fund gender violence. Less than 1% reported by the UN, less than 1% of all philanthropic donations go toward gender violence and even less goes toward prevention. So I want to like de silo at this from being a gender issue. We know that the vast majority of people who experience sexual violence are either queer, trans or female identified. We do know that. We know the vast majority of people perpetrating sexual violence are male identified. However, if we do not desilo, and we do not start destigmatizing the way in which everybody of all gender identities have a part in this in in solutions, not just that vilification, then we're going to keep bumping up against defense walls.

Shaile Norris:

And I think we need to be really careful about that and also openly invite young men to talk about when they've been sexually violated as well. Because that's the other thing that I think is deeply rooted in sexual violence perpetrated by young men or men in general of any age, is that the vast majority of them have experienced abuse themselves. It is a phenomena to that particular gender identity that males who experience abuse go on to perpetrate abuse much more frequently than a female or a queer person that has experienced abuse going on to perpetrate abuse themselves. So I think that is rooted in misogyny. That is rooted in like, we can't talk about our feelings, we can't have feelings. We certainly can address those feelings and get to the root of those feelings. So we don't replicate those feelings and experiences. All of those things are very real.

Shaile Norris:

But until we invite more community and more open conversations around the ways in which sexual violence impacts everyone. So like, that's why we built out like a wealth of content. For example, in partnership with Teen Vogue, we Did a video about how partners in dating after sexual violence, whether you yourself have experienced violence and you're going on to date and what that's like and what that experience is like, or if you are dating someone who's experienced sexual violence and you're trying to navigate their triggers and their PTSD and things, how we can better navigate those things as partners together, that's a really important conversation to have. So we know that sexual violence is going to impact male people in that way as well. As well as we did an awesome video just last year we released about male survivors and like, why don't men who experience, you know, body autonomy violations identify as survivors, talk about that, feel comfortable, conflict coming forward, etc. We need to open up a lot more conversation to, to create vulnerable spaces, to have those conversations and be welcomed into this work. But I also think it makes me nervous to like fully. There is obviously and clearly a certain segment of every population in every society that are opportunists and entice and, and experience those types of things.

Shaile Norris:

But I think that's where getting into what you were talking about, like when people don't really understand that they've perpetrated is much more common. I think we are very quick to call people entitled were and assume that they are just taking advantage, etc. Or that they just like are themselves victims of the culture and what they've been taught is acceptable. I say that all the time about my generation. Right. Like I say to the kids all the time, you're going to have to it. That's the part I forgot. Parent work.

Shaile Norris:

You're going to have to forgive your parents. We grew up in a generation where our films were garbage, our television was even worse, and we were taught that that was a bad night or a bad date and go about your business. There was absolutely no space for us to talk about this. So we're on a slower learning trajectory than you are because we were given really bad like lack of resources and we learned everything from garbage media. So we're trying to unlearn that culturalization for ourselves. But I think that's where because of media perceptions and portrayals, we see people as opportunists or entitled. And I think it's much more common that we have been culturalized again across every continent to think that getting somebody dropped drunk to get with them is an acceptable way of practicing consent. I think that everybody on, across all segments of the population think that that's acceptable.

Shaile Norris:

So when we talk about it in our lesson, when we're talking about consent. And we break down the six pillars of consent. We get to, you know, we get to sobriety. I like to create, and it's a little bit controversial, but I like to create a very hard, hard line. I say to every kid who here knows about drunk driving, and they're like, yeah, we've all been taught about drunk driving, but when nobody's connecting is that a generation ago, a very powerful group of women got together. They had all lost their kids to drunk drivers, and they created something called Mothers against Drunk Driving. Do you remember that? No. Prior to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, there was no such thing as the term designated driver driver.

Shaile Norris:

Nobody thought about it. Everybody just drank and drove, drank and drove, totally normal. It was probably illegal somewhere, somehow, but it wasn't enforced. Nobody thought anything about it. It was just totally normalized to get behind the wheel drunk. And it was Mothers Against Drunk Driving who created an entire campaign around bystander intervention to take keys away from a friend if they'd been drinking and to create designated drivers and situations. So everybody understood when in one generation, we learned very quickly that it was not culturally acceptable to drink and drive and. Or to let a friend drink and drive, and that we had terms for it, and we had practices and methodology to go about how to interrupt it.

Shaile Norris:

One generation, it took. And that took massive marketing campaigns, massively powerful mobilization, and understanding that the outcomes were life or death. Death. Right. We had to help people understand that one night of drinking and then getting behind the wheel could kill you or could kill a friend and so. Or an innocent bystander. So when I ask kids, like, who knows about drinking and driving? They go, oh, we do. And I'm like, okay, well, why don't we drink and drive? What's the risk? And they go, somebody could die.

Shaile Norris:

Somebody could get hurt. And I say, yes, the same is true for drinking and hooking up. So if you apply that same standard, what you also need to know is the same rules apply. If you drink and you hook up, someone could die. Not that night behind the wheel. All of those things that you're familiar with with drunk driving, but absolutely could die as a. As a result of suicidal ideation because they experience sexual violence. So they all look at me like, wait, what? I said, actually, statistically, much higher that someone who drinks and hooks up and then that person didn't give their consent and couldn't give their consent to a sexual experience, has experienced a violation, and then goes on to experience suicidal ideation as a result of that.

Shaile Norris:

And so that's why I always give, like, a really hard line of, if you've had too much to drink to drive, then you've had too much to drink to hook up. Use that same barometer, like, and the same is true for a friend. If your friend is about to try and, like, get somebody to hook up with them or. And they've been drinking too much, absolutely step in, pretend you're taking those keys away from them, and say, you know what? We're going to get that Snapchat handle, and we're going to go, you know, we're going to reach out to them tomorrow when we're all sober. And so getting to them to think along those lines with those barriers as well, like, overcoming that culturalization of, like, drinking and hooking up with people is totally normal. And not only normal, but, like, a rite of passage even. It's not even, to me, it's not entitlement. It's just like, we see it in every movie, we see it in every TV show.

Shaile Norris:

We're seeing it all around us, and nobody's made a big deal about it. Our parents did it before us. It's how we were conceived. Like, all these things that they're, like, normalized in everything that's coming at them, including the adults in their spaces being like, yeah, that's normal. So until we unpack that for them and, like, shift it to something better, it's not entitlement, it's just ignorance. And I think the same is true of coercion, because I think we've been normalized again across all cultures. To think no means try harder. No means that maybe somebody's just trying to play hard to get.

Shaile Norris:

Or maybe somebody's, like, pretending they're more innocent than they are. Or all of those things, like, play into thinking that a no really isn't a no. And until we again unpack that, undo it, deculturalize ourselves, deprogram ourselves from thinking that pressure, guilt, coercion, and all of the things that go into it. I promise you, I do not ever say this in a classroom because we tread lightly, but in conversations with kids, I'll say, okay, who can tell me what is something that you might have heard of that helps you feel, like, pushes you to feel like you should do more than you might be comfortable with, because if you don't, your partner will experience physical pain as a result. Or maybe you start something with somebody and you're stop abruptly because you change your mind and your partner is going to feel physical pain and they all go, oh, blue balls. We know what that is. We were all raised to understand what blue balls is and what a brilliantly like, evil, like, horrific way of embedding in culture. Why revocable? Why changing your mind is not a pillar of consent.

Shaile Norris:

Because it is. But we've all been taught that if you change your mind, because I tell kids all the time, revocable is one of the six top pillars of consent. That means you can change your mind at any time, for any reason, under any circumstances. I do not care if you're stark naked. I don't care if you did it with that person this morning or are going to do it with again with them again in a week. It does not matter. You can change your mind at any time for any reason. And not only will you not be causing your partner to have physical pain as a result, it is your God given right and your partner should not only be preparing for that change.

Shaile Norris:

Pause. You know, putting the brakes on moment. They should be inviting it. They should be asking questions ongoingly to continue to invite the conversation around consent. So at any point, even if you aren't sure, you can say, I need to stop. They're saying, hey, you look like you're a little bit hesitant. Let's stop. So they're not only preparing for it, they're inviting it.

Shaile Norris:

So again, those are some of the places that I think we just haven't deeply invested in the re education of everybody. Because if I'm teaching this as an adult in a school, but kids aren't teaching it to themselves, like across the boards in a peer to peer capacity, or God forbid somebody goes home and their parent goes like, that's not what I learned. I learned that you're a dick tease if you change your mind. Then again we're gonna, we're rolling it back. So we gotta keep rolling everybody forward. Which is why it's so important to pair like young person education with old person education. Because otherwise we were fighting against all of those really poor messages we got when we were a kid and were hampering our ability to move forward with the young people that we're working with. So, yeah, it's a lot to unpack though.

Shaile Norris:

I really feel like I just don't want to be in this position of like vilifying people or not inviting more people to that space or, you know, segmenting populations to say, like, this is your experience, this is my experience. And this is where. Because I think we share a lot more than we realize when we get down to it.

Freya Graf:

Oh my God, 100% and I had Clementine Morrigan on the podcast recently talking about incest and childhood sexual abuse. And, you know, she's got a really amazing and nuanced take on it all and was really highlighting, like, exactly what you said. You know, perpetrators generally are victims themselves, like, pretty much 100% of the time. Like, something has happened to them that has now created what's going on and what they're doing to others. And yeah, and it's not as, like, gendered as a lot of people would think. However, even though I agree with everything you say, I do really feel like there's the entitlement piece. It's not like they're deliberately or consciously entitled, but I feel like there's a socialized, normalized entitlement that does create a dynamic when there's a boy and a girl. There's an incredible book called Consent Laid Bare.

Freya Graf:

And there's a lot of statistics in that that were pretty eye opening. And at least in Australia, we're like, very aligned with my personal experience growing up as a woman and also my professional experience working with, with thousands of women that have, that have been victims to, you know, more overt sexual assault. And also a lot of this kind of, you know, what has been coined, like, entitled opportunistic consent slips. And I feel like because of, you know, I don't know if you've heard of the man box study, but because of these, like, rules of, you know, masculinity, these stereotypes of what it is to be a real man, there is a certain level of entitlement that comes with the privilege that men are born with just by virtue of being born into a patriarchal system. So I feel like I 100 agree with everything.

Shaile Norris:

Or they're culturalized too.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, sure, yeah. So it's. And you know, because like, like, especially.

Shaile Norris:

With male athletes too, like, again, I never want to be like, male athletes are the only people who assault people because there's so much of that red. But if you expect that everything you embed in male athletes is get go, dominate, you know, and you lift them up on this huge pedestal, which I know certainly in the US Even in like, high school hero, you know, athletes, they are put up on this huge pedestal that they become untouchable not only for the students in the, in that same district or school to, God forbid, press against, but also if there's money behind that, that sports program, they're really not getting pushback. The level of entitlement is really embedded. I agree. Like, it's there, it's a piece of things.

Freya Graf:

Excuse this quick interruption. I'm shamelessly seeking reviews and five star ratings for the potty because as I'm sure you've noticed by now, it's pretty fab and the more people who get to hear it, the more people I can help with it. Reviews and ratings actually do make a big difference to this little independent podcaster, and it's really easy to just quickly show your support by taking that simple act of either leaving five stars for the show on Spotify or even better, writing a written review and leaving five stars over on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're a real overachiever, you can do them both. That would be mad. If you're writing a review though, just be sure to use G rated words because despite the fact that this is a podcast about sexuality, words like sex can be censored and your review won't make it through the gates. Lame. Anyway, I would personally recommend doing that right now while you remember, just to get on top of it and let me know you're with me on this journey.

Freya Graf:

Thanks, gang. Enjoy the rest of the epi.

Shaile Norris:

I have to tread very carefully and be like relatively conservative. But I think when I'm talking about school delivery are we're called groomers here in the US When I talk about what consent really means, when you want to get down to it and you get to call it down to like what I call the global takeover, it is that consent at its core is about mutual pleasure. And we cannot talk about consent truly in its most like basic capacity. Unless we're talking about pleasure, unless we're opening up the conversation about pleasure, and unless we are inviting people in. Talk about a marketing campaign. Do you want to to be the best lover you can be? Yes. Check this box. Now we're going to practice consent because if you're showing up deeply invested in my pleasure and I'm showing up deeply invested in your pleasure, then everyone's going to experience that consensually and we are going to be checking in and we are going to be dialed in.

Shaile Norris:

We're going to be like doing that vibe check throughout and we're going to be making sure that if pleasure is not experienced, then it can't like you can't really get to those levels of consent that you need to be getting to aspirationally and to be a good partner, to be a good lover, to genuinely be the best you can possibly be. Which I think would really appeal to kids if we really peeled back all the adult discomfort with it. I Think it would really appeal to kids. Like, we're going to teach you how to be the best you can possibly be in bed. And they're like, I'm listening. So that's like my TMI moment. Like, I would never, ever, like, run into classrooms and start being like, who wants to be a great lover? Raise your hand. But at the end of the day, we have to talk about pleasure because it's the.

Shaile Norris:

It's a key element to consent.

Freya Graf:

Yeah. Big time. Big time.

Shaile Norris:

So that's my team for sure.

Freya Graf:

Well, it kind of segues perfectly into the other segment that I do, which is get pregnant and die. And it's around, like, what you missed out on in your sex education, what they did badly, how it failed you, or, like, something that you would have loved to have learned more about or that you think should be included in. In sex ed. And I guess this whole episode is basically about that. But do you have an anecdote about your sex ed?

Shaile Norris:

Don't have sex because you will get pregnant and don't have sex. Missionary position. Don't have. Don't have sex standing up. Just don't do it. Promise? Yeah. I mean, I think really, when it comes down to it, it was that relationship piece. We.

Shaile Norris:

There was no social and emotional aspect to sex ed. It was like, here's a banana. Here's. You put a couple. How you put a condom on it. And I think, oh, my God, there's just so much. Right. Whether it was healthy relationship or, God forbid, we didn't have anything outside of heteronormative lessons or things that made adults uncomfortable.

Shaile Norris:

I think that's the biggest thing that I see across the board with, like, sex ed is that there's. It's like the Wild West. If a gym teacher doesn't feel comfortable or a health teacher doesn't feel comfortable presenting it, they are not made to teach it. So there's no mandate. There's no, I think, you know, specifics like that have to be covered. It all comes down to, like, these. This sort of weird gatekeeping and comfort zone stuff with adults. And I'm like, that's where I feel like it's lacking across the boards.

Shaile Norris:

I know it. I know it was for me, like, I felt like I couldn't ask questions or that certain things were out of bounds or I was going to be judged by people if I did ask that question. And then that we just didn't reach anybody outside of that heteronormative. Like, everything feels like it's so framed in, like, Love or having babies or. Or fear based. That's what I would say. What's what passes for, like, you know, really comprehensive sex ed in the US is fear based. You're going to get pregnant, you're going to get an sti.

Shaile Norris:

These are the things. This is what it looks like when your genitals have STIs on them. Like fear based for days versus being authentic to their experiences. Really. Like, I think hitting porn culture dead on and just being like. I think that's one of the things I loved about watching Teach Us Consents work is that y'.

Freya Graf:

All.

Shaile Norris:

I God bless over there because in the US you want to talk about porn with people under the age of 18, you are canceled. You are put in pedophile prison over here for that. Like, you can't be doing that. And yet it's a stupid, important conversation and so lacking from everything we're talking about with kids. Like, we need to, like, if we don't do a good job in the classroom, then they're exclusively relying on porn for their education. They don't understand that what they're watching is completely outside the bounds of normal intimacy. And so all of that was lacking. Right.

Shaile Norris:

We didn't say this is what porn really is, kids. We just everybody pretends like it doesn't exist. And like, even though kids are like one of the number one consumers of it. So all of those things feel wildly lacking. They felt wildly lacking back then and they still feel wildly lacking.

Freya Graf:

So, yeah, big time. Oh, I hadn't made a lot of progress. Justine Ang Font on the podcast a couple of times, actually. We did an episode on Consent and Boundaries and more recently one on the fertility industry. But she, like, had a huge road bump in her career as a teacher because she tried to talk a little bit about pleasure or porn education in sex ed and she got like, cancelled so hard.

Shaile Norris:

She did. Yes, she did. Fired and cancelled.

Freya Graf:

Yeah. So I see why you're.

Shaile Norris:

Oh, I follow it all, all my Google News alerts to see what the hell is happening out there. What thing is going to cause me to be crazy today.

Freya Graf:

Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So, all right, speaking of, like, online safety, let's chat a little bit about, like, what you teach or bring into the conversation with students around, like, you know, sending nudes or cyber bullying, things like that.

Shaile Norris:

Yeah. So, oh, my gosh. Now I want to say it was like seven years ago at least now. We created a campaign with a group of high school kids. We were at their school, we said like, what do you feel like is like, the biggest pressing issue? And they were like, sending these nudes. Like, we can't. It's bad over here. And so we created a campaign called Know before youe Nude.

Shaile Norris:

Again, I was really concerned. I thought, oh, well, we have to call it like a sexting aversion program. And the kids were like, absolutely not. We are not. This is not. Our mom's like, like. And I was like, what? Well, they said was that it's. That's not sexting.

Shaile Norris:

And I was like, what? And they said, well, nudes is something different than sexting. And I went, oh, God, let me get a book. Like, I don't. I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't. We had Polaroid pictures. Like, that's it. We didn't do this when I was a kid.

Shaile Norris:

So, like, fill me in. And they were like, it's something different. If you call it sex, sexting, then kids are going to be like, this is dead in the water. This is not relating to what our experience. Right? So we first of all had to call it no before you knew. So I thought, okay, this is never going to happen in any school ever. Like, it's going to make adults uncomfortable. I am so happy to report that this, many years later is one of our most popular resources.

Shaile Norris:

We have, you know, know before you Nude is embedded in our peer educator training, our curriculum. We also have, like, a short format, like, teaching guide if you want to just like, just like, use the video and the teaching guide with it to teach it in a classroom. If you have a short, you know, window to do is one of our most popular resources. Because nobody was tackling it before. Nobody was saying, not only do we know you're sending nudes, but we're going to talk to you about it in a way that is not judgmental. That is not just do not. Do not put your nudies out there. It is going to be authentic to your experience.

Shaile Norris:

And we're going to really try to talk about, like, what, what. What are the risks? What are the ramifications? Have you thought it all through, like, all of those pieces so that they can be informed decision makers even if they decide to go on and send a nude. And I think I again was concerned that adults would be made nervous by like, not just like a blanket don't do it campaign, but we also know those historically, every time, fail, fail, fail, fail. You can't do a no, don't do it. Abstinence education doesn't work Say no to drugs. Like that just didn't work. So we know that we have to like, just kind of meet them in that moment. But I, I'm, you know, have been so thrilled to like, know that that's been an opportunity for kids to really understand and be much more conscious consumers.

Shaile Norris:

I think it's applicable when we're talking about these deep fake AIs that kids are starting to make now and things like that. Like teaching them how to be responsible partners digitally and in real life is important too. So all of those pieces all play a part in it. What was your other question? Oh, online, like harassment and things? Yeah, we did. We started off because I think it was a really natural segue after the, you know, debut of Audrey and Daisy. So much of what Daisy experienced was like that harassment from people who didn't believe her, who, you know, shamed her. Like, just. There was so much like online discourse to just try and shut her up and remove her.

Shaile Norris:

So that became like this really important, I think, like after campaign message we wanted to do with the film and galvanize the audiences who really felt that and how much people are just like how abusive they are online. So we did a couple of things. One, we partnered with Teen Vogue about some online harassment messaging. Again, they have like an incredible platform and different audience. And then we also created a couple of. A couple of short format videos. One is called Quit this shit. And the entire script of Quit this Shit is rooted in direct messages that all of our co founders received after coming forward about their assaults.

Shaile Norris:

And it was just like everything from kill yourself to your slut, like all of those things. So we wanted to like, really be authentic with, like, this is what we experience and this is what the consequences of that are. So we did Quit the shit and then we did a like non explicit version of Quit the Shit that sort of gets into that conversation as well, just kind of in a different medium. So again, all of those, you know, all of the videos we create have that teaching guide are built into the curriculum, peer educator training. So it's all, you know, all embedded in there and all on our website as well for, for preview and then for, you know, whatever format educators might want to use it.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, amazing. I think it's so rife these days in the younger generations. And it's really fun and scary because so much of it happens in a space that like, adults aren't privy to and it can't be underestimated how damaging it can be. So I'm really stoked that you Guys have. It is. It really is like a 360. You know, you. You've.

Freya Graf:

You're coming from, like, all the different angles, which is so freaking cool. And it wouldn't be possible if you hadn't involved students because, like, they actually know what's going on, you know, like, um. Yeah, So I guess, like, something I want to talk about that would be really practical for people listening because obviously there's so many things people can go and, like, download resources and do trainings and look at your website and whatever. But I just want, you know, just a lot of people don't follow through with these things. So I just want to give some people that may listen to this and then, you know, never, never do anything else again some tangible actions that they can take when it comes to bystander intervention. And also, like, you know, if you're a parent or a teacher or if you're, like, a young person and you're at school or university and you're sort of witnessing things going on, maybe we can give some examples of, like. Because I feel like some things are really obvious that something a bit untoward is happening, and then other things are quite insidious and maybe like. Like, masked by social norms that are, you know, a little.

Freya Graf:

A little bit lacking in the consent department. What are some things that we might commonly witness that could be an opportunity for us to intervene? And, like, how do you go about being an active bystander?

Shaile Norris:

I think, you know, bystander intervention is such, you know, it's such a unique and difficult and really loaded element of this work, because I think there's a few things that we learned, particularly among young people as we were, like, traveling around to schools, is that the vast majority of young people were, like, bystander intervention is aggressive. They were feeling like in order to intervene, they needed to either verbally intervene, like, aggressively, like, hey, you. What are you doing? Kind of thing, or physically, like, they needed to be, like, ready to throw hands at a given moment in order to be an active bystander. And. And so we were like, okay, if that's how people are perceiving bystander intervention, nobody. No wonder people are not participating in that. They don't want to put themselves out there. They don't want to get hurt.

Shaile Norris:

Their own safety's at hand. Like, their social currency is. Is a big piece of things. Right? I think that's where, you know, we look at some of the really profoundly important books like Girls and Sex and Boys and Sex by Peggy Orenstein or Sexual Citizens Social currency cannot be under. Underplayed at any point. So if we're going to make bystander intervention feel accessible, there's a lot of different ways that it's been sort of portrayed over the years. I've always had sort of, like, felt like a swing and a miss to me, like the four Ds of bias and Enter. I never understood what that felt like, was going to appeal to kids.

Shaile Norris:

What I feel like the most accessible and most like, doable for any person, young or old, is just a little interruption. You don't have to be just a distraction of some kind. So, you know, when we famously. I will. I will totally cop to this was my contribution to our bystander intervention video. It's called Game On. It. It presents a bunch of different bystander intervention techniques and like.

Shaile Norris:

Like, events that you would need to be an active vice knitter in. And one of the ones that I wrote into the script because I always thought, like, it's difficult because it has, like, an element of period shaming. But when we're talking about weighty topics like this, like, heavy. Heavy topics like this, Any place we can get any levity, Any place we can get, like, a little bit of, like, laughter or, like, taking the. The heaviness out of it is a critical lift for us to just get people to, like, be in the space with us. Us. So there's all these moments where this girl gets to be an active bystander throughout a party as she's seeing different scenarios. And she sees this one girl definitely being, like, a little, like, creep vibe from this guy.

Shaile Norris:

And so she goes across the room to the girl with a tampon and says, hey, Susie, or whatever the name was. I have that tampon you asked about. And the guy's like. And, like, it's a perfect. It's a perfect touch point for teenage kids, right? Like, there's not a teenage boy on the planet that is not, like, trying to get with this girl who's not gonna be like, oh, she's on her period. And then the girl goes on to, like, further say, you said it was a really, really heavy period this month. And the guy's like, okay, check, please. And, like, leaves.

Shaile Norris:

So again, I want to acknowledge that we're not here to period shame, but also we're trying to get a little tiny bit of comedy in there, and we're trying to get a. That distraction moment where she could go, let's go in the bathroom. And, like, you're gonna be like, what are you talking about? You fool with this tampon. And I can say, are you okay? That's it. Like a. A quick moment of, like, distraction. I always say. Like, my go to distraction used to be, hey, come outside and have a cigarette with me.

Shaile Norris:

I worked in theater. Everybody smoked. I did not smoke, but, boy, could I get somebody outside to have a smoke with me. It was only when they got out there that they found out that I didn't have a cigarette. And. And they were like. But I could be like, are you okay? That looks, like, a little sketchy. Like, are you.

Shaile Norris:

Like, do you want to get out of here? There's so many moments that you can just interrupt a thing, and maybe that person says, I'm fine. Get out of here. Like, I'm trying to, you know, trying to, you know, have a drink with that person or whatever it is that they're trying to do, but you've interrupted it. You've checked in, you've said, are you okay? And you found out and given them an opportunity to. To get out of there safely if needed or tell you that they're fine. And thanks for checking in. And I think, like, it can just be that simple. We, like, expect it to be this big lift or this monumental thing that we're supposed to do to be the hero of this story.

Shaile Norris:

And we're not out here trying to create the next hero. We're just trying to create a distraction, and I think that's much more attainable for people. I would say, too, to kids, like, I don't know how much time you spend on the tiktoking, but I say to kids all the time, if you want to know about bystander intervention type bystander intervention into TikTok, there's some great little pieces in there. There are really fun ones that I think, like. And the more hits those get, the more we're going to foster that, too. Like, let's build out algorithms around bystander intervention searches. But there's some great ones out there that are just, like. There's one that we actually downloaded and use in some of our classroom presentations is this girl.

Shaile Norris:

She comes out to, like, I think, walk her dog or something, and she sees a girl across the street. She's with a guy. It doesn't look right to her. And she's like. She's got her phone on her, and she's like, do I go over? I don't know what to do. What should I do, guys? All right, Girls stick together. And, like, she runs across the street, and she, like, runs up to the girl. And she's like, hey, girl, haven't seen you.

Shaile Norris:

Let's go. Who's this guy? Let's go, let's go. Let's catch up. And she grabs her arm and starts walking her down the street. And the girl. Girl's like, thank you. And she was like, do you even know that guy? And she was like, no, not at all. Let's go.

Shaile Norris:

And now she's got. She felt safe. A little bit more safe to do it because she had her dog with her. And she just was like. Wasn't aggressive. Wasn't like, accusing the guy of anything. She was just like, girl, let's catch up, let's go. And then just rushed her out before he could even know what hit him.

Shaile Norris:

And again.

Freya Graf:

Yep.

Shaile Norris:

So easy. So there's some good ones out there. And again, if they're going to be scrolling on social media anyway, I'd rather have them looking for things that I want them to, like, learn a little something from teachable moments across any place we can get them.

Freya Graf:

Totally. And I think, like, what you're saying about it not having to be aggressive or this big dramatic thing is really important because if we just reframe it, it doesn't feel as, like, daunting or risky. And I like to think of it as almost, like, cool. If I was in a relationship rom com right now, what would be the diversion I would create? How would I interrupt this process and like, yeah, sort of just divert, distract in, like a cute, funny, unthreatening way that no one's the wiser. I mean, the perpetrator, whether he knows he's being a perpetrator or not, like, isn't. Isn't feeling like, you know, confronted or put out or like I've done anything. He's not defensive. He's not aggressive.

Freya Graf:

It's literally just like. Like just a quick, cute little, you know, interaction that. Yeah, that can just break. Break that, you know, circuit. And that is doable. Like, that's way more accessible. And you can kind of treat it like a fun little game. Because most of the time, like, obviously if it was a more serious situation and there was a lot of risk, like, it would be more about, like, you know, keeping yourself safe and, you know, call the cops or whatever.

Freya Graf:

But most of the time, like, these.

Shaile Norris:

Yeah, little moments. Sorry, I totally. Well, I was just gonna interject that, like, yeah, you bet. The conversations I'm having with my daughter and son look a little bit more in depth. Right. Like, because you want to provide. And this is where And I cannot emphasize enough when we do work with parents in school district parents and caregivers to say, like, listen, I'm coming at you as a girl mom and a boy mom. And I got the broiest bro three season athlete boy, and my daughter, who is really involved in our work and leads all of our programmatic work at Safe Bay.

Shaile Norris:

And they are both critically important ambassadors of this work. Because my son's gonna move in spaces that my daughter will never, ever, ever have any insight into to. And I always say so. As a parent, we want to set rules for our kids and we want to assume that those rules are going to apply and that they're going to. They're going to stick to those rules and they're never going to break them. But as a parent, we also know that we are living in the real world. And I think that it's really difficult to hold the line, if these are my rules, follow them. And also, if you break my rules.

Shaile Norris:

And some. I always start to cry when I talk about this because it's, if you break my rules and somebody's in danger, I'm ride or die. I will ask no questions. You will get in no trouble. You will face no consequences. Your safety or anyone's, a stranger's safety is at risk. I am your first. I am your go to.

Shaile Norris:

I am the person who is going to make sure that everyone gets home safely. But also, parents aren't necessarily the person that kids are going to call. So we have to give them both. We have to say, as parents, we are going to give you a free pass to break our rules if you need to call us because somebody's safety is at risk. Like, you know, I said to my kids all the time, I do not want you drinking. But also, you know, my hard line is there will be no driving. There will be no letting anyone else drive. So there's like, your rules, and then you're like, hard lines.

Shaile Norris:

And I don't listen. I don't think I won the, like, parent prize on all things parenting, but I think my kids knew, like, when they needed to, like, involve me. And I'm really lucky that my son felt safe to ask my daughter for help in situations, too. And then vice versa. Like when all of a sudden she was like, wait, he. He's bigger and taller and much stronger than I am. And I might have to call him for some help, too. Like, whereas when she was the older sibling for so many years, he would call on her for help and support in different situations, just trying to navigate those spaces as a young boy when he was hearing rape culture, like, front and center.

Shaile Norris:

I'm so in awe of the way that my son is able to navigate those male spaces, hold his beliefs, and spend social currency in ways that I don't think other boys, the vast majority of other boys feel safe to do. He will stick his neck out and say, yeah, that's not fucking cool. That may. I'll never forget, he was in, like seventh grade, I think, when these boys at a football game were making jokes about raping these girls. And he heard it and he texted his sister and he was like, just come over. Just, I don't need you just yet, but just come over and just stay over there. And she's like, what is going on? And she just went and stood in the. And he had.

Shaile Norris:

He walked over to that boy, he was new to the school district, and he said, I don't know how they do things where you come from, but that's not the we do here. Now get your ass up and you're gonna go over and apologize to the girls, those girls right now. And I'm never gonna hear that out of your mouth ever again. And if I do, we're gonna have a real problem. And that's what seventh grade, like, I thought the level of social currency. And he was, you know, willing to drop an F bomb in here and no problem. And that kid, like, didn't know him, didn't know the vibe. And everybody was just like, what the just happened? And my daughter was like, mom, you're not gonna believe what Aiden.

Shaile Norris:

Because she was so proud of him. And I was. And he's just like, you're making a big deal. And we were both like, it is a big deal. Yeah, it's a really big deal. Did you see any of guys willing to say, don't do that? No. And you're setting the tone. You know, what the fuck is up? And you're going to be a leader in this.

Shaile Norris:

And as a result, a lot of guys have come to him and asking questions. And on. Across the boards, they ask him questions. I'm dating this girl, she was assaulted. How do I. How do I help her? And he's like, I got you. And like, just so across, like to this day, like. So I.

Shaile Norris:

I called, he and I were catching up, and he's 19 next week. And so I was like, what am I gonna see you next? Blah, blah. And I told him that we lost the grant. And he was like, mommy, I'm so sorry. And I said, thank You. And he said, I'm gonna restore your faith in humanity a little bit. And I said, okay, I'm here for anything thing. And he said, so this guy I know on his Instagram stories he posted now I know him.

Shaile Norris:

Like, I know his sort of political leanings too. And he said, he posted on his stories, what if instead of demanding that they release the files, we just believe women? And Aiden was like, oh, from this guy. Okay. And so he swiped up, up, and he said, like, I really commend you. And like, whatever their discourse was after that, he just said, good on you that you posted that. And I said, you know what, honey? I hope it's because at some point he had a conversation with you. And. And he understood.

Shaile Norris:

And he said, I think it was his sister. And I said, then I'll take it doesn't matter because you reinforced it. You said, I see you and I like it. And so maybe he won't be as afraid to be a little more leaning on the side of supporting and believing women in the future because somebody he sees as a peer and a cool guy, you know, like, not only. Not only just gave it a like, but commented, like, swiped up and sent him a DM to say, yep, yeah, yeah, celebrate that.

Freya Graf:

Acknowledge that. And that's like, that's really cool. Because that was going to be something else I wanted to just like, chat about is like, that's a whole other layer of kind of bystander intervention and like, advocacy and activism. Like, you can. You can do it on so many levels. It doesn't have to be direct. It can be indirect. It can be like, you know, relatively passive.

Freya Graf:

If you just want to repost some stuff in your story all the time still have. Helps create more of a culture of consent and respect for people and humans. So I think it's really cool that you just described on one hand your daughter might be doing more of the pattern interrupt little. Oh, hey, do you have a tampon? And your son is doing it from a different angle in the locker room and actually calling out things when he sees it that are contributing to rape culture. That's so fucking cool. And it can be so simple. And you can start small if you're. If you're afraid of being teased or that you're going to look uncool, you know, take that little risk and repost something or send.

Freya Graf:

If someone else has posted things like that, you can, you know, send them a message and say, hey, that's really cool that you did that. You know, just. You can still have an impact in your own little subtle ways, and just build on that so it doesn't have to be this huge thing that becomes a massive part of your identity that you're this, like, advocate. Because I get that, you know, in schools especially, like, especially as a boy, like, you might be teased. You might. Like the school that I went to, like, you'd be called gay. You know, and that was like an insult back then. That was, like, you did not want to be called that if you were, you know, if you were trying to, like, stick up for the girls or nowadays, you'd be called a simp.

Freya Graf:

So I get that it can be risky socially in terms of your social currency and standards.

Shaile Norris:

That's changing. That's so shifting, like, again, exactly.

Freya Graf:

It's becoming cool.

Shaile Norris:

I'm living for the moment because I. How lucky was I that I got to live through the cultural shift that the Vagina Monologues brought on? But now here I am, 50 years old, can't even believe when the hell that happened. But here I am, and I'm starting to see and be, like, right directly on the front lines of seeing a huge cultural shift happening right now. Boys are not afraid to touch this issue right now. And the number of. So we do a summer activist institute every year. This past. Just past month was our fourth annual one, and we had more male applicants than ever before.

Shaile Norris:

Cisgender heteronorm, like, male identifying boys from high schools across the country in the US Opt in to spend four days together with us and have these conversations. We had them sit and do, like, a podcast for us and have conversations about, like, what is most prevalent for them, what do they feel like they face? What do they want to talk about the most? Why? Why is this an issue they care about? And just, like, the enormity of that cultural shift. But I'm really. I'm starting to see it everywhere we go. We did a conference in Massachusetts just a few months ago, sponsored by the governor of the state. And the number of boys in that room, I thought, this is huge. And this was not just, like, you know, a free excuse to get out of school for the day. These kids were engaged in doing the work in their schools and really leading it and really, like, bonding together over it.

Shaile Norris:

And I can't. Ten years ago, when we started, I didn't. I was like, I'm not sure. And that's why, like, I think it's a testament to Charlie, too. Like, as our only male co founder who's had such a unique voice and saying, listen, These were my friends and like, and my fellow athletes that assaulted my sister. Like, the relatability of that, when we went into settings that were like athletes, predominantly athletes, was just like he could say the. If he and I had the exact same scripts that came out of our mouth, it's gonna hit different coming out of his mouth than it is out of my mouth. It's just, just that, yeah, of course.

Shaile Norris:

And that's why it's so important to be represented, representational of your audience. But it is so critically important that he speak to what that experience was for him and speak to what that vulnerability was for him and how in that world he navigated like understanding like how to have those conversations since, you know, he's a baseball coach. So like how do you model that in the young boys whose characters you're shaping along with their, you know, ball field skills? So I think like those are spaces that we just need to be like opening up, investing, inviting and making really safe for young boys so that they, they want and feel drawn toward this work with us and taking away. This is a gender violence issue. This is a human issue for us. And particularly in my like grant writing and funding like outreach in the U.S. i, I'm like, first of all, this is not a gender violence issue. This is a public health crisis and it is in every country on the planet.

Shaile Norris:

It is a public health crisis and it is a mental health crisis. You know, in the US we're really digging in on teen mental health. I know that that's a big thing that's come up for you in Australia too. Teen mental health is at an all time low and this is the number one predictor, predictor of suicide among females. It is the number one predictor of suicide. Like I'm going to say it over and over and over again so people understand the dire life and death issue. This is because it is really personal for me at this point. I co founded this organization with a girl who is no longer with us.

Shaile Norris:

Daisy is embedded into everything we do. We talk about her at length. We talk about the intrinsic connection between suicidal ideation and the fact that it is a slow burn too, that healing is a very, very difficult and non linear process. We need to invite all levels of safety and community around that so people feel comfortable being coming forward, that they feel like they're going to be believed and that they then have access to healing resources. It needs to be all of those things because even if you have access to healing resources, if none of your friends fucking believe you, you then where are you left and what does your future look like? And how much risk taking are you doing in your future? What kind of roads are you going down that are leading to all kinds of things. Homelessness, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sex trade. Like, there's so many things that all get tied back to what you experienced in your youth that you didn't have access to resources for. And so if we don't start treating this like the life or death issue, it is across every continent, across every demographic, but particularly in this teenage age group.

Shaile Norris:

That suicidal ideation piece is the highest from 13 to 18. For some reason. It goes down a little bit if you're over the age of 18 and you experience sexual assault. But in those age groups, it is life or death. And. Yeah, so I, I have a really hard time, like, dialing back my urgency and trying to make my urgency comfortable for people because I get up every.

Freya Graf:

Day and I say, if today somebody's.

Shaile Norris:

Gonna die, then I have to keep doing this work. And so I have to keep doing this work. So nobody else is going to die today. So a bad day is for sure when we lose funding, but I can have a million bad days because a really bad day is when we lose somebody and it's happening and it's happening all around us and we don't even have statistics because those people do not tell what happened to them before they take their lives. So it's a hard topic, it's a heavy topic, but so critical, I think, you know, again, there's not a world in which I could be doing anything else with my time.

Freya Graf:

Yeah. And thank God for you. You honestly, I just adore your mission and your passion and I'm so grateful to have had a chance to have this chat and that you are doing the work that you're doing in the world. And I, a million percent gonna just like, put my brain to like, figuring out how we can collab and how we can, yeah, cross pollinate. Because ultimately we're all on the same mission and, you know, we're just, we're tackling it from slightly different angles. But that's, that's the beauty, you know, like what you were saying about embedding consent in the curriculum across the board, like, is so fucking valuable and has been such a blind spot up until, you know, you started emphasizing this. And I think like, you know, man cave comes from one angle. Safebay comes from another.

Freya Graf:

Teacher's consent and consent labs and elephant Ed. And there's a. All of these organizations that are like, now starting to try to tackle this. And I'm really excited to see what happens when. Yeah, I mean, it's already happening, and there's. There's a bit of a ripple effect, and you're getting to witness it. It's so cool that you have teenagers that you can, you know, see this in action.

Shaile Norris:

Y' all have a platform, and particularly Chanel has a platform that is quite unparalleled at this point. And I think. But it's not without. And I can't emphasize, you know, this enough. It's not without, you know, the people who tread before her, too. And that's, you know, that's one thing I'm. I'm always after my young advocates to understand is you have to have historical knowledge of the people who've come before you, who've made things in your world possible. And in no uncertain terms.

Shaile Norris:

We had a huge following in Australia when Netflix dropped Audrey and Daisy there. And it's only that audience shifted immediately over to Teach Us Consent when Chanel's story became. Became as popular as it did. There's a huge, you know, precursor there that I think is really important. I. I think it would be incredible to have a conversation with Chanel about, like, the legacy that came before her and the. And the conversation that Daisy opened up that allowed this work to. To really, like, just blow up in and across Australia, because Audrey and Daisy was hugely popular.

Shaile Norris:

Like, that was, like the second highest watch country to us, I believe, of that particular documentary. Yeah. So there's a lot of people.

Freya Graf:

Okay, cool.

Shaile Norris:

We were in a Starbucks in Manhattan at one point when these whole group of girls, like, recognized her in line, and she was like, well, this is a first. And I was like, you're speaking to these girls. Like, go talk to them. And they were all from Australia. Wow.

Freya Graf:

Hey, me again. If you'd like to support the potty, and you've already given it five stars on whatever platform you're listening, I want to mention that you can buy some really dope merch from the website and get yourself a labia lounge tote tea togs. Yep, you heard that right. I even have labia lounge bathers or a cute fanny pack if that'd blow your hair back. So if fashion isn't your passion, though, you can donate to my Buy me a Coffee donation page, which is actually called Buy me a soy chai latte. Because I'll be the first to admit, I. I am a bit of a Melbourne cafe tosser like that. And yes, that is my coffee order.

Freya Graf:

You can Do a once off donation or an ongoing membership and sponsor me for as little as three fat ones a month. And I also offer one on one coaching and online courses that'll help you level up your sex life and relationship with yourself and others in a really big way. So every bit helps because it ain't cheap to put out a sweet podcast into the world every week out of my own pocket. So I will be undyingly grateful if you support me and my biz financially in any of these ways. And if you like, I'll even give you a mental BJ with my mind from the lounge itself. Saucy. I'll pop the links in the show notes. Thank you.

Freya Graf:

Later I'll put the links to Audrey and Daisy in the show notes and to SafeBAE. All those resources. I highly encourage people to go check out the website and if you're a teacher or a parent or anyone that has kind of access to a workplace or somewhere where there's kids, like, download some of the resources, get the posters happening, like, check out what's on offer. Because there is this fucking insane body of work. Like I didn't know where to begin when I was on your website. I was like, whoa. Rebuilding our website for a while, it's hard for us.

Shaile Norris:

Like we get in the weeds of it and I'm like, we need to redo the website because the flow is like, who's going where and doing what. But no, but I think there's so many moments.

Freya Graf:

There's so much good stuff on there.

Shaile Norris:

And if, like to your point, I think if, if you just follow social media, there's so much you can learn in safe face social media. We just went viral yesterday for a whole post on TikTok about love bombing and we've been doing. I don't know if you all. Do you have access to the current season of Love island or will that hit you later? It's like all the rage in the U.S. yeah, it's garbage television and it's, you know, one of these like horrible forest dating shows, like reality television dating shows. And there's just been really, really unspeakably bad modeling of toxic relationship stuff on there. So we keep doing like these teachable moments with current media that is still garbage and being like, we're going to do a breakdown because this show is doing a huge disservice. They have a very young audience and they are not telling you that what you're witnessing and you're all taking sides and you're all having your online commentary about who's, you know, who's a train wreck and who isn't.

Shaile Norris:

And what they're not telling you is what it actually is. Like, this is toxic. This is, you know, gaslighting. This is love bombing. These types of things to really break things down so people, you know, can have that teachable moment for something they're already consuming. And that even if all you do is share one thing on your story that you like from our social media, it's messaging yourself as a safe person who will believe survivors, who will be helpful, maybe have resources if you need them. That's one tiny thing that you can do that just is. Like, that's a culture shift.

Shaile Norris:

Those little types of things are the culture shifts that add up to a consent culture instead of a rape culture.

Freya Graf:

Yeah. Beautiful. I love that image of like, you, you posting things like that signal yourself as a safe person or a safe harbor that. That people can come to. Yeah, that's a really beautiful way of looking at it. Amazing. All right, well, I'll definitely have to have you back, but I loved this chat and I really appreciate everything that you're offering the world and that you've offered my listeners today. I'll put all the resources in the show notes and go follow Safe Bay.

Freya Graf:

Yeah, really appreciate this chat.

Shaile Norris:

Thank you. Me too. This has been very fun.

Freya Graf:

And that's it, darling hearts. Thanks for stopping by the Labia Lounge. Your bum groove in the couch will be right where you left it. Just waiting for you to sink back in for some more Double L action next time. If you'd be a dear and subscribe, share this episode or leave a review on itunes. Then you can pat yourself on the snatch because that's a downright act of sex positive feminist activism. And you'd be supporting my vision to educate, empower, demystify and destigmatize with this here podcast. I'm also always open to feedback, topic ideas that you'd love to hear, covered questions or guest suggestions.

Freya Graf:

So feel free to get in touch via my website or over on Insta. You can also send me in TMI stories to be shared anonymously on the pod. My handle is freyagraphhelabia Lounge. If my account hasn't been deleted for being too sex positive, which you know is always a possibility with censorship. But just in case the chronic censorship finally does obliterate my social channels, I'd highly recommend going and joining my mailing list and snagging yourself some fun freebies for the trouble at www.freyagraf.com freebies anyway. Later, labial legends. See you next time.