Are issues surrounding sexual consent (the relentless murk, mystery and misunderstandings) doomed to remain roughly the same, generation to generation? Every so often, a “parent-/adult-frightening”, youth-oriented film (Kids, Thirteen) comes along that rewires the conversation. One such film, How to Have Sex, by writer-director Molly Manning Walker, won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this year. To be clear: your daughters and sons (all young people) need to see this film, and so do you.
At times filmed in the style of a quasi-documentary, it’s about three 16-year-old British girls holidaying in Crete after taking GCSEs; one of them anxious to lose her virginity. In among the youthful hedonism (shrieking; partying; penis-shaped pools; slightly older youths; rowdy clubs featuring onstage blowjobs; copious alcohol; cheesy chips), the film tells a fundamental devastating truth: that, however much sexual consent is theorised, debated and culturally disinfected, “out in the field”, where it matters, where the real girls and boys are, it remains a slippery concept, and too often a non-existent one.
