All freshers and new undergraduates attending Oxford and Cambridge universities are to be given compulsory “sexual consent” lessons. The objective – launched by the National Union of Students – is to prevent rape and halt sexual harassment. It is also an attempt to stamp out the “lad culture”. The students are to be taught that when it comes to sexual engagement of any kind, “No means no”.
This isn’t entirely a new idea. In fact, the Catholic Church was supporting something similar in the 16th century when Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Casatico, published his Book of the Courtier in 1528.
This is a codification of the concept of gallantry and chivalry, and was intended to refine the “rougher” manners of men – what you might call the lad culture of the Renaissance. Being courteous and considerate to women, treating all women as ladies, was central to Castiglione’s code.
The Church even broadened this out to say that a Christian man treats all ladies with respect in the name of Our Lady.
Believe it or not, the Irish Christian Brothers – more famous for being fierce with the cane than with courtly ways – were teaching a version of Castiglione’s code right up until the middle 1950s. They distributed a little book called Politeness for Boys which contained extensive instructions on “showing proper respect for ladies”. It’s pretty antiquated by now – it would be considered a right laugh, indeed – and it’s quaint to think of lads from a Dublin slum being told they must always “remove your hat when you enter the compartment of a lift in which there are ladies”. Still, if you treat a lad like a gentleman, he is more likely to aspire to behaving like one.
Circumstances have changed radically and some Oxbridge students regard the “consent” programme as patronising. And I think there may also be some crossed wires when it comes to cultural differences. In business, the French say “No” even when they mean “Yes”, and the Japanese say “Yes” even when they emphatically mean “No”.
Maybe “consent” lessons are just a new way of figuring out a code of manners.
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Political commentators are still wrestling with the “ideological identity” of Theresa May, who was 60 last weekend. While they are accustomed to defining politicians as “left” and “right”, she remains an enigma: analysts cannot figure out how she can be a Conservative Prime Minister and still be concerned for the poor, the “just getting by” and the victims of injustice. How come she changed her mind on same-sex marriage, first voting against it and subsequently accepting it?
The answer to Mrs May’s “cultural identity” is, quite simply, that she is a Christian, and being a Christian doesn’t necessarily fit into rigid constructs of “left” or “right”. A Christian must be concerned for the poor and certainly must be alert to injustice. And a Christian examines her conscience and perhaps changes her mind on an issue of conscience. The commentators can’t get their heads around the seeming contradictions.
To be sure, the Prime Minister is also a politician. As a politician, she plays her cards shrewdly. But the consistency in her values make sense in the context of her Anglican Christianity.
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Jonathan Dunne, an outgoing man from Colorado now working in our National Health Service, has started a movement handing out lapel badges inviting “Tube Chat” on the London Underground.
As the accepted protocol on the Tube is that you never make eye contact with another passenger – staying strictly focused on newspaper, paperback or screen device – this has been met with dismay by some commuters; though a few have been surprisingly responsive.
Actually, as most Tube travellers tend to be young, my experience is that older people – maybe because we appear more rarely – are often treated congenially on the Tube. Seats are offered, and if “chat” is not exactly embarked upon, friendly greetings often are.
And since I changed my hair colour to purple, young people sometimes tell me: “I like your punk hair!” It seems as though oldsters don’t really need a lapel badge suggesting “Tube Chat”. Just look a bit of a wrinkly and you’ve got it!
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