Check It
CHECK IT AS A VERB: to respond in the moment to potential harm we may witness (specifically sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking). To intervene, to make a choice to do something when we see an absence of consent or a situation where someone may or is being targeted.
CHECK IT IS DOING SOMETHING when we see a Check It moment.
CHECK IT moment = witnessing an absence of consent or a situation where someone may be at a higher risk for being targeted/harmed by someone. Witnessing sexual assault, dating violence, stalking = CHECK IT moments. Those moments require action and for us to CHECK IT (intervene/do something).
CHECK IT (as a movement):
CHECK IT is about creating a campus culture where it's the norm to embody consent and CHECK IT when we see an absence of consent.
CHECK IT is about creating a campus culture that is more rooted within a sense of community where we look out for one another and have each other's backs.
CHECK IT is about making clear to those who commit acts of violence that it is not acceptable and we are not going to put up with it in our community.
CHECK IT is about strategizing as a community different ways we can take action when we see potential moments of harm happening around us so that in those moments we have the tools to do something instead of nothing.
*From the Check It Facebook page
IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT CONSENT:
*Info below taken directly from Scarlateen’s article: Driver's Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent as cited on the Check It homepage
- Consent is about everyone involved in a sexual or possibly sexual interaction. For sex to be fully consensual, everyone needs to seek consent, everyone needs to be affirming it, and everyone needs to accept and respect each other's answers, nixing sex or stepping back, pronto, if and when someone expresses a stop.
- Consent can ALWAYS be withdrawn. Consent to any kind of sex is not a binding contract nor does consent obligate anyone to follow through. It is also one-time-only: because someone consented to sex Tuesday does not mean they were giving consent for sex on Thursday.
- Nothing makes consent automatic or unnecessary. Being someone's partner doesn’t give anyone consent by default. Someone loving you or saying they love you doesn't mean they have your sexual consent or you have theirs. No one kind of sex means consent to another, or that anyone is "owed" any sex. Because someone has had any kind of sex in the past does not mean they will have sex or consent to sex again with that same person or anyone else nor that they are obligated in any way to do so.
- In some situations, full, informed and free consent cannot truly be given or shared. Those include: being drunk or wasted, being asleep, being unable to really understand what one is saying yes to including possible risks and outcomes being under severe duress, like when seriously upset, ill, grieving or scared or being unable to understand another person's words or other means of communication. Consider things like these to be a red light to even asking about sex: sex should usually be off the table entirely in these situations. Legally, when someone is under the age of legal consent, with someone of an age where sex is not lawful, and in most of the above situations, sex is a crime.
- Nonconsent means STOP: If someone is NOT consenting to something or says no with their words and/or actions, the other person MUST stop trying to do that thing AND must not try to convince that person to do that thing in any way. If they do not stop, or exert emotional or other pressure and that person gives up and gives in, they are sexually assaulting that person. Sex is not sex if everyone is not consenting. If anyone is not consenting or not asking for consent, then what is happening is or may be rape, sexual abuse or assault.
- A lack of no does not mean yes.
IF YOU SEE AN ABSENSE OF CONSENT, CHECK IT.
