Consensual : A Thesis

In 2018, my final and most important project at OCAD U was A Thesis titled: “Consensual”. This project consisted of three major parts as follows: 1) Consent Candy Hearts, 2) A Book titled: “Sexual Consent. What It Is and What It Isn’t”, and 3) A Process Book.

Each part is outlined below.

Consent Candy Hearts

The idea to create Consent Candy Hearts came to mind when I was thinking about Valentines Day : The official and hyper-commercialized and day of love & romance. But what often comes along with feelings of love and the culture of Valentines Day? Intimacy and sex.

Along with Valentines Day comes the sale of heart shaped chocolates and the iconic Candy Hearts printed with questions and prompts to promote sexuality and physical romance. But have you ever seen Candy Hearts with messages that promote Consent?

Through research, I noticed that a lot of the print on these hearts said things such as: “say yes”, “kiss me”, “all mine”, “be good”, “don’t be like that”, etc. I found the message that these sweets were sending did not promote a consensual understanding of romance and physical touch. Instead, they seemed to reinforce an exploding and problematic culture of sexual submission, and a deep misunderstanding of what consent actually is and what it looks like. From this, came Consent Candy Hearts.

Their Stories Book

Based on available Canadian data, as of 2014, there were an average of 460,000 Sexual Assaults annually. The book shown below, titled: “Sexual Consent. What It Is and What It Isn’t”, details the many stories of sexual assault. These stories were collected through personal connections, Reddit postings and Social Media postings. From both men and women, some participants asked to remain anonymous, while other’s bravely requested that their names be included. In the future, I would like to expand on this research to include stories from those who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, Indigenous peoples and POC. There was not enough data available at the time of this Thesis to include research from these various high-risk communities.