Latest news with #ChanelContos
West Australian
26-05-2025
- Health
- West Australian
Consent education hits screens in fresh initiative
A first of its kind consent education initiative aims to meet young Australians where they're at - on social media. Teach Us Consent, the organisation founded by youth advocate Chanel Contos, has launched the Promoting Consent Initiative (PCI), which aims to teach young people about respectful relationships and prevent sexual harm. Ms Contos, 26, founded the organisation four years ago after an Instagram post went viral and alerted her to the dire need for mandated consent education in Australian schools. "Australia is really leading the way in terms of focusing on preventing sexual violence," she told AAP. "There is an important message to be shared overseas about what is happening in Australia and what lessons can be learned for other countries." The PCI has been funded by the Department of Social Services as part of the ten-year National Plan to End Gender Based Violence launched in 2022. The initiative is the first of its kind in Australia to use social media to reach young people through users they know and trust. More than 25 influential young Australians from footballers to beauty vloggers have signed up to demonstrate the importance of having vulnerable and open conversations about consent. "We wanted to make sure that young people were hearing this messaging online from people they already knew and trusted," Ms Contos said. "It was really important that the people delivering these messages were peers and also role models." The resources are available in a variety of formats including podcasts, TikToks, Instagram posts, essays and YouTube videos. They have been translated into six languages other than English and specific resources for First Nations communities are also in development. Parents and educators are being encouraged to use these resources to start conversations around respectful relationships with young people. Child sexual abuse by adolescents aged under 18 has increased in recent years, with nearly one in five Australians experiencing sexual abuse by an adolescent before they turn 18. The increased accessibility to pornography and the fact it was being used as sex education was contributing to these rates, Ms Contos said. "In recent years what has changed the most is the influence of the manosphere and algorithms," she said. "These challenges are rising quicker than we're making progress so we're going to need to be creative and innovative in terms of how we provide holistic educational resources to young people on these issues." 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491 National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
Perth Now
26-05-2025
- Health
- Perth Now
Consent education hits screens in fresh initiative
A first of its kind consent education initiative aims to meet young Australians where they're at - on social media. Teach Us Consent, the organisation founded by youth advocate Chanel Contos, has launched the Promoting Consent Initiative (PCI), which aims to teach young people about respectful relationships and prevent sexual harm. Ms Contos, 26, founded the organisation four years ago after an Instagram post went viral and alerted her to the dire need for mandated consent education in Australian schools. "Australia is really leading the way in terms of focusing on preventing sexual violence," she told AAP. "There is an important message to be shared overseas about what is happening in Australia and what lessons can be learned for other countries." The PCI has been funded by the Department of Social Services as part of the ten-year National Plan to End Gender Based Violence launched in 2022. The initiative is the first of its kind in Australia to use social media to reach young people through users they know and trust. More than 25 influential young Australians from footballers to beauty vloggers have signed up to demonstrate the importance of having vulnerable and open conversations about consent. "We wanted to make sure that young people were hearing this messaging online from people they already knew and trusted," Ms Contos said. "It was really important that the people delivering these messages were peers and also role models." The resources are available in a variety of formats including podcasts, TikToks, Instagram posts, essays and YouTube videos. They have been translated into six languages other than English and specific resources for First Nations communities are also in development. Parents and educators are being encouraged to use these resources to start conversations around respectful relationships with young people. Child sexual abuse by adolescents aged under 18 has increased in recent years, with nearly one in five Australians experiencing sexual abuse by an adolescent before they turn 18. The increased accessibility to pornography and the fact it was being used as sex education was contributing to these rates, Ms Contos said. "In recent years what has changed the most is the influence of the manosphere and algorithms," she said. "These challenges are rising quicker than we're making progress so we're going to need to be creative and innovative in terms of how we provide holistic educational resources to young people on these issues." 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491 National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
New York Post
15-05-2025
- New York Post
The dangerous bedroom act that can go ‘from fun to deadly'
Nearly a third of young Australians are engaging – for pleasure – in a sex act that can go 'from fun to deadly' in a matter of seconds, new research has found. Of the more than 54,000 people who took part in The Great Aussie Debate – a wide-ranging, 50-question survey launched earlier this year, uncovering what Australians really think about everything from the cost of living and homeownership to electric vehicles and going shoeless in supermarkets – 30 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds had engaged in strangulation during sex. They were also the generation with the highest rate (3.31 percent) of it happening without their consent. Defined as when a person's breathing is stopped or restricted by the use of hands, other body parts or ties around the neck, the act, commonly referred to as 'choking', cannot be performed safely during sex, police, doctors and researchers have said. 4 18 to 29-year-olds were the generation with the highest rate of engaging in strangulation during sex, and the highest group of it occurring without their consent. LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – Though the practice isn't new, Gen Z's increased acceptance of it as part and parcel of 'normal' sex has become a central concern for experts. As Teach Us Consent founder Chanel Contos asked in her National Press Club address, 'How can it be a significant indication a man is going to kill you has become commonplace in the bedroom?' 4 Gen Z's increased acceptance of choking as 'normal' sex has become a central concern for experts. Volodymyr – First and foremost, the University of Melbourne's Professor Heather Douglas told 'I think we can blame the extraordinary accessibility of online pornography and sharing over the internet' for the rapid rise of sexual choking. In a survey led by Douglas of 4700 18 to 35-year-old Australians, pornography was the primary source (61.3 percent) of participants' exposure to information or depictions of the practice, as has fear of being perceived as 'vanilla', movies (40.3 percent), friends (31.9 percent), social media (31.3 percent) – where memes have minimized and even romanticized the risks, and discussions with potential partners (29.2 percent). Douglas's findings showed two things, Women's Health NSW Senior Project Officer Jackie McMillan told 'The idea that it is safe to do, and the idea that all your friends are doing it.' 'And when more people are introduced to a sexual practice, they may also go on and try it with their future partners, which can lead to increased prevalence,' McMillan said. 'When people think sexual choking is normal and routine, it can become decoupled from the health and safety risks associated with it, and it can reduce the impetus on every sexual participant to get informed, affirmative and specific consent before they try doing it.' Male Great Aussie Debate respondents were most likely to be curious about engaging in choking during sex (4.45 percent), while fewer than 2 percent of women (1.84 percent) said they had any desire to partake. 4 'When people think sexual choking is normal and routine, it can become decoupled from the health and safety risks associated with it,' Jackie McMillan, Women's Health NSW Senior Project Officer, said. LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – Of those who had engaged in choking during sex, 12.5 percent said it had been with permission, versus 2.3 percent who said it had been without. Non-binary Australians (8.15 percent) were most likely to have been subject to choking without their consent, followed by women (4.69 percent) and less than 1 percent of men. Irrespective of consent or the lack thereof, the harms and risks associated with strangulation are well-documented: everything from the immediate – bruising or swelling to the neck, blurred vision, dizziness or light-headedness, difficulty swallowing – to long term. Of greatest concern to experts is brain damage, which can take days, weeks, or even years to manifest. No matter how briefly, restricting blood flow to the brain can cause permanent injury like cognitive impairment or a stroke. Douglas pointed to research that, over a month, compared people who had been consensually strangled during sex on three or four occasions with those who had never been strangled. 'The people who were strangled showed brain damage,' she said. 'They were slower at solving problems, had more memory issues and even the structure of their brains looked different.' There is also growing evidence that, much like the cumulative harm of repetitive head injuries on football players and boxers, hypoxic/anoxic brain injuries from sexual choking also add up, McMillan said, and can lead to long-term cognitive problems. A 'fine line' exists between the amount of pressure applied during fatal and non-fatal strangulation, Douglas said. 4 According to Heather Douglas, a professor at the University of Melbourne, there is a 'fine line' between fatal and non-fatal pressure for strangulation. MergeIdea – Even the 'relatively low' amount of force it takes to open a can of soft drink, when applied to someone's throat, is enough to cause unconsciousness and risk brain injury. People who are engaging in strangulation during sex, she continued, are unlikely to be 'experts on pressure use' – a survey of 169 Australian university students published last year found that most considered it to be risk-free. 'The timeline between pleasurable and fatal sexual choking is measured in seconds, not minutes,' McMillan said. 'It can move from being fun to being terrifying and deadly very quickly. If you throw drugs or alcohol into the mix too, you can imagine how quickly stuff can go wrong.' McMillan noted there is also 'legal risk' to sexual choking. Under NSW law, 'having someone's consent doesn't protect you if you cause serious harm or the death of another person … even if you use harm-reduction techniques like 'moderate' pressure and communication throughout'. 'If you're going to keep (engaging in) sexual choking – and that's entirely your prerogative – we say it's a good idea to make it something you only practice occasionally, rather than part of your 'daily' or regular sexual practices,' McMillan said, referring to Women's Health NSW's online learning hub, It Left No Marks. Though the program stresses that there is no risk-free way to engage in the act, it provides information for people 'about lower-risk activities, including holding your own breath (so you can let it go when it gets scary) and simulating choking (play acting) rather than actually restricting someone's air or blood flow to the brain', McMillan said. 'Nobody wants to give or receive a brain injury during sex,' she added. Given the threat to people's brains posed by strangulation, Douglas said that 'we need to separate (it) from other kinks'. 'Helping people to understand these risks is key,' she said.
