On October 1, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown passed a bill requiring high schools in California to provide lessons on sexual consent and the “yes means yes” law. This will mean that students will be mandated to take these courses — unless they have parental consent to opt out. The lesson will have a deeper emphasis on the importance of giving your consent during sexual activity. The hope for the program is to make the line clear between consensual and involuntary sexual interactions and to touch on a variety of other prevalent and serious topics that include sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

   Human Interaction teacher Lynne Moquete feels this legislation is a show of California moving in a more forward-looking way.

   “It will be nice to say now that there is an actual law in place. When something becomes a law it validates it more, shows it’s worth. I am grateful to live in a state that has progressive thinking on these types of important issues,” said Moquete.

   By passing this law, all schools in the state are being affected. Here we offer a Human Interaction class that already includes topics that cover an array of deep topics from homelessness and drug abuse, to depression, and more. This class is required unless a parent or guardian has signed a permission slip for their student to not take it. While it will now be required to include more information regarding sexual violence, our Human Interaction classes have already been educating students about this for many years.

   Moquete is a strong believer on getting the message across clearly to her students, saying, “We always teach in Human Interaction that consent must be a verbal, sober, yes. It can’t be a nod, or a grin, or something that is implied. If it’s not a yes, then it’s a no!”

   Moquete comments on whether or not her students  will respond well to such a sensitive topic.

   “I don’t feel like my students are uncomfortable. Of course, some students are more mature than others and understand the concepts more, but over all I feel like students respond well to the lessons. Ms. Cain and I work hard to make things accessible and understandable to students. I think it’s important. Too many people say ‘it seemed like she said yes’ or ‘I felt like he was into it’. Yes Means Yes is clear and simple truth and that is valuable!” said Moquete.

   Freshman Dylan Santa elaborates on this topic.

   “That was one of the main focuses of her [Ms. Moquete] class. She clearly stresses consent from the very first day of the class, talking about sex and consent is her number one thing. She has many people come and talk about it — it definitely is a high priority of hers.”

   This high priority isn’t shared throughout Sonoma County. Given that Sonoma County has 567 sexual predators, it is one of the counties that has the highest rate of sexual predators in California. With the next few generations going through the class, some students are hopeful the number of sexual predators and sexual violence cases will significantly diminish.  

   Sophomore Jacqueline Clarke has an optimistic view on how the class will affect these numbers.

   “I think that when they learn about those topics, then, they’ll maybe want to do something more to prevent those things outside of school. They’re probably now more aware of all the situations,” said Clarke.

   Santa also believes a change is coming, but that the results have to come within the people’s principled decisions and will not appear for quite some time — if at all. “People know when it’s okay and it’s not okay, regardless of the law or not. It’s their own morals that stop them, or let them continue doing what their doing. After the new generations — when the new generation passes through — yeah. But for now, it’s going to take a while.”