Inviting you to a consent workshop is not an accusation that you’re a rapist. It’s not a judgement of character whatsoever. What is a judgement of character is me telling you that if you’re going to kick up a fuss about being invited to a consent workshop, you’re almost certainly an arsehole.

It’s been almost six months since the The Tab Warwick published an illuminating thinkpiece, ‘Why I don’t need consent lessons’, with self-described ‘abysmal journalist’ George Lawlor dropping the bombshell that apparently all rapists are immediately visibly distinguishable from the general public of law-abiding citizens, and that all students at Russell Group universities know the importance of consent because they’re, like, really smart.

Wouldn’t you like to think that Cambridge is a nice insulated little bubble where everyone is really clever and understands the basics of how to treat other human beings? 77 per cent of Cambridge students have experienced sexual harassment. More than one in five have experienced sexual assault. One in ten have experienced attempted or successful sexual assault by penetration. 91 per cent of the perpetrators overall are men and 45 per cent of perpetrators are social acquaintances. These statistics are from 2014. These things happen around us all the time. In our colleges.

As new JCR committees start their work in earnest, it’s time to start thinking seriously about consent workshops again. Thankfully, a lot of people do agree on their importance. In October, roughly 4,000 new undergraduates will descend on Cambridge and it would be entirely unreasonable to expect everyone to be on the same page when it comes to consent. Thanks to the shockingly rudimentary sex and relationship education young people continue to ‘enjoy’ at school, we can by no means rely on the idea that basic principles of respect and communication are understood by all incoming students. Unfortunately in this respect we just can’t rely on everyone being so enlightened and evolved as George Lawlor.

But in some strange way, he had an infinitesimally small point: that the people most likely to fully engage with these workshops are those who already firmly believe in the importance of consent, and the principles behind it. What he perhaps failed to acknowledge was that consent workshops aren’t just about changing each individual separately, but the way we engage and take part in our shared cultures. It’s about what we see as acceptable behaviour, and what we don’t. It’s about understanding that making any kind of rape joke, however tongue-in-cheek, serves to legitimate perpetrators and silence the survivors who, statistically, are likely to hear you make that joke.

But this is also why we need to think beyond individual consent workshops and stop seeing the burden as being that of individual JCRs. Setting standards of what is acceptable and what is not within our colleges means we have to focus on getting the full weight of the college administration behind the message. Talking through consent with members of the JCR is very different to having senior members of the tutorial staff making it very clear what behaviour is unacceptable and will be met with sanctions. This sends a much clearer message and makes it more likely that incidents will get reported to college authorities. Colleges such as mine have been able to put enormous amounts of work into their sexual harassment policies in the last couple of years, but how much does it change if it isn’t made clear to students from the outset of their time in college, at freshers’ inductions and so on, that these rules and procedures exist?

And consent is only one part of the discussion. We need to be having more conversations in general about sexual harassment, boundaries and respect. That 77 per cent of Cambridge students experience sexual harassment does not only mean the horrible experiences which might first spring to mind, like cat-calling and being groped in Cindies. It also means those of us who have been made to feel unsafe in the confines of our own colleges.

Because you will not understand what it’s like to feel unsafe in your own college unless you’ve actually felt it. You don’t realise how important it is to have a room that you can lock and be safe in when you suddenly don’t feel like that’s there anymore. The collegiate system forces you to live in proximity to others. For too many of my friends around Cambridge’s various colleges, this has meant that they’ve been the targets of stalking from other members of college, or continued verbal harassment, and then had to sit down on the other side of hall from the perpetrator if they decide to go to brunch with their friends.

Your social space, your bar, your home is where you bump into the person that made you feel so unsafe, chatting to their mates or reading the newspaper like they’re the most normal person in the world.

And you know what? They look like the most normal person in the world. Yes, George Lawlor, quite often they do in fact look just like you. And it’s time that our colleges started taking a clearer stance from the outset and bearing the brunt of setting standards, instead of figuring out how the hell they’re going to deal with the aftermath.