CUUPS Affirms Consent Culture

The CUUPS board is working on a statement about Consent Culture which we will approve and then put before the membership for endorsement. We wanted to put the draft before the UU and Pagan communities for feedback as we do our work. You’ll find the draft below.

This draft draws on the good work going on in the UU, Pagan, and broader communities. Special thanks go out to Jessica “Zebrine” Grey, a UU Religious Educator and former member of the CUUPS board who wrote an article for the upcoming book “Pagan Consent Culture” edited by Yvonne Aburrow and Christine Hoff Kraemer and shared it with us for our use. Thank you also to the CUUPS chapter in Salem Oregon who developed a consent culture statement for their chapter and shared it with us for our use.

After the very good process developing our CUUPS vision, Black Lives Matter, and Environmental Justice statements last year we are glad to continue the work by addressing another critical dimension of the world we are working together to create.
Pagans have often been in the forefront of addressing consent culture, in part due to our affirmation of our embodied selves and our celebration of the gifts of sensuality and physicality and in part due to our emphasis on personal responsibility and the sacredness of every person. Lore attributes these words to the Star Goddess: “All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals. Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.” (Doreen Valiente, adapted by Starhawk) Most Pagans view the body and sensuality as sacred.

   Here is the current draft statement:

CUUPS Affirms Consent Culture(draft 2/15/16)
CUUPS is an inclusive organization committed to the foundational values regarding sex and sexuality endorsed by the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations.

Members and friends of CUUPS are aware that our popular western culture often acts as ‘rape culture’, creating non-consensual sexual interactions, colonization, bullying, and other unhealthful conditions for human beings.

We are committed to ushering consent culture fully into active reality in our communities.
Consent culture is a culture in which asking for consent is normalized and encouraged. It is respecting the person’s response even if it isn’t the response we had hoped for. We will live in a consent culture when we no longer objectify people and we value each other as human beings.

• We inherit a tradition of inclusivity from Unitarian Universalism and from Earth-centered spiritualities. Every person is entitled to respect, dignity and self-worth for their attitudes and beliefs about their sensual and sexual selves. All bodies and and human sexuality are sacred.
• We are a community of people of all ages, cultures, genders, sexual orientation, social status, and mental and physical abilities who are welcomed and treated with hospitality and dignity.
• We promote education and information regarding the belief that all persons have the right to accurate and readily available information about responsible choices, sex and sexuality that enhances the wholeness and fulfillment of consensual sexual expression, touch, commitment, love, and joy.
• We work toward social justice that acknowledges the often harmful, even violent, cultural biases and stigmas past and present associated with bodies, sex and sexuality against persons outside the narrow Western definition of sex and relationship.
• We assert that every person has an affirmative duty to actively own their own physical expression and sexuality and take responsibility for for that in an honest, accountable and responsive way without coercion, bullying, mental and or physical abuse, rape and assault, social discrimination or intimidation.
• We believe that every human has the right to live without fear of being outed or targeted, marginalized or oppressed by individuals, groups, institutions or other religious adherents.
• We recognize the right of all people to control our own bodies in all areas of life.

Suggested action steps:

• Be consent allies: learn more, practice and intervene.
• Encourage parents to enroll their children and youth in Our Whole Lives (OWL) classes within UU congregational settings, as designed and led by credentialed OWL facilitators trained to work with specific age groups within the overall OWL guidelines.
• Encourage all people to participate in young-adult OWL, adult OWL and facilitator training within local congregations, including raising funds to train facilitators.
• Implement action steps from UU curriculum and consent culture training to make our spaces safe, for children, youth and adults in our congregations, religious education settings and gatherings that we sponsor, host, or participate in.