TL;DR: In 2013, VJC's PE department showed the school's female students a series of upskirt pictures of them. These were accompanied by online forum comments that said they should not blame perverts who take upskirt pictures of them or rape them, and asked them if they want people to think of them that way. They also instructed them to lengthen their skirts.

Background: In 2013, some female VJC students' skirts rode up as they alighted from a bus, and a commuter took the opportunity to film them before sharing it on the famed gutter HardwareZone forum.

The VJC PE faculty rounded up the female students in the hall, displayed screenshots of the images and lewd comments that followed on the forum, and promptly rapped the girls for wearing their skirts too high.

We've been able to confirm that this did indeed happen, thanks to alumna Gerrie Chua, who was in the same batch as the anonymous poster.

"I can confirm that the PE department made the girls stay behind to listen to the briefing while the boys were let off. I can also confirm that they blamed us for having skirts that are too short. The thing is, most girls wear shorts underneath the skirts," Chua said.

"I can't remember if they made us lengthen our skirt, but they definitely told us that we should," Chua added.

This particular episode doesn't relate to the school's sex education programme, but could to a certain extent reflect the mindset that guides the teachers who impart knowledge through its courses.

Current sex education programmes in schools adhere to the MOE's guidelines, which implement both the Growing Year series and eTeens in junior college students. For these students, the former touches on issues in relationships, while the latter centers on prevention measures of sexually transmitted infections.

The scope and teaching approach of sexual education in schools currently advocate "abstinence before marriage as the best course of action for teenagers", covers the consequences of sexual activities, and teach facts about contraception, repercussions of casual sex, prevention of sex infections, and how to rebuke sexual advances.

In a separate paragraph, the MOE also highlights that sexuality education teaches "what homosexuality is, and the current legal provisions concerning homosexual acts in Singapore."

A cause for "consent"

Former students of other junior colleges have shared "horror" stories about their schools' sex-ed programmes, sparking controversy and debate over the types of things taught — these were captured in sensational-looking Facebook posts as well, on a page called SG Sex Ed Fails.

According to the site the Facebook page points to, The Consent Revolution, the group of people behind these posts are on a mission to include the "concept of consent" in sex and sexuality education in schools here.

A week after we contacted them, they told mothership.sg that the page is manned by "about 5 active members, a mix of students and working adults... who've had a problem with society's negative attitude towards sex in general, which has led to other problems such as victim-blaming, slut-shaming, unrealistic gendered expectations, exclusion of non-binary gender identities, lack of consent etc".

While they admitted that their role is not to propose policy change yet, the movement wants to incite the crowd to talk about the problems surrounding sex ed, and breed diversity of views and opinions.

From what we observe, their Facebook page invites students across the island to lambaste share about their experiences with their schools' sexual education programme in a pretty leading-looking Google form.

Here's a screenshot of a part of it:

On top of all that, they are also raising funds to create small handbooks and bookmarks illustrating what consent is (and the larger concept of respect) in context to body contact (hugging, kissing, sex etc) without actually showing the literal act of sex.

Why consent? They feel that "as kids, we are taught not to take something from someone else without asking -- that's stealing. Why does it become so fuzzy for adults and sex?"

Unfortunately, the funds they have collected thus far has been "embarrassingly low", so if you support their cause, you could help them by clicking here.

They also crafted a video about bodily consent, and previously organised an event at Hong Lim Park in March.

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