EVERYONE'S INVITED NEWSLETTER: 003

November News

Dec 01, 2023

Dear EI Community,

This month, we spotlight Molly Manning-Walker’s debut film ‘How to Have Sex’.

“How to have sex” - follows the story of three teenage girls on their first girl’s holiday away as they await their GCSE exam results. It begins as a nostalgic love letter to teenage sisterhood and slowly descends into the gritty world of young women navigating sex and consent in the modern day. There has quite possibly never been a more relatable and nuanced depiction of teenage coming of age as Manning Walker explores the pressures to have sex and the traumas induced by pervasive rape culture as we witness the dismissal and minimisation of sexual coercion and assault.

Thrust into an objectifying, heavy drug and alcohol-fuelled environment, starkly uneven distributions of power lead to coercion and assault. Watching the film was both a triggering and validating experience. What is shown is a culture that’s all too familiar, reminiscent of many of the stories shared by our survivor community whose first and most vulnerable sexual experiences were too often defined by coercion, discomfort, pressure or pain.

The film’s interrogation of consent, rape culture and excessive pressures on young people to have sex sparked, in us, a renewed sense of urgency in our mission as a charity. There is still a desperate need for conversations and education about the nuanced nature of sexual assault, the impact of rape culture and the importance of understanding consent.

Education

November is always the busiest month for our education team. We have run sessions on 28 days of this month to students, staff and parents.

This included visiting schools up and down the UK and visiting Geneva to teach at an international school. We also worked with Warwickshire and Lancashire PSHE networks and delivered training to Schools Police Officers in Manchester. We end November with a keynote speech at the Cambridge Rape Crisis Conference and a well-deserved rest for the whole education team.

Survivor Safe Space

As we enter the winter season, the website team is still working hard to get through the hundreds of testimonies we receive every day! The testimonies remind us of how important and relevant our mission is, and spurs us on to continue this work. We have also received lots of interest from our supporters who would like to volunteer as part of the website team, which is amazing to see. We are always happy to expand our team, so anyone interested in getting involved, please send an email into dania@everyonesinvited.uk.

Online Community

We’ve had a busy month for EI as we head toward the end of the year. We revisited the intersection of consent in film, exploring things about sex that films get wrong, as well as Molly Manning’s groundbreaking ‘How to Have Sex’ which deals with self-discovery, sexuality and consent. We also marked the start of 16 Days of Activism, a global campaign against Gender-Based Violence led annually by UN Women, by recognising the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25th).

everyonesinvited