The IRL Dolly Doctor Has Written A Book About Consent & Can We Send A Box To Parliament?

Welcome To Consent, dolly doctor

Dr Melissa Kang, the longest-running expert behind the iconique Dolly Doctor column, has just released a book about consent, co-written by Yumi Stynes. And guess what? So far, I can’t see a single milkshake in sight. Wow!

From Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, Welcome To Consent is an inclusive, frank, and accessible guidebook to help you navigate consent, from everyday things like getting a haircut to respectful relationships.

And just because this book is aimed at a younger audience doesn’t mean it’s exclusively for tweens and teens.

Hardie Grant Publishing.

Stynes, a mum of teens, has witnessed firsthand how conversations about consent are missing in schools and how parents are lacking the resources they need to explain consent to their kids.

“We felt like there was an urgent need to put this out in the world, and so we set to work to make a book that was snackable, informative, with rock-solid explanations of what consent is and what it can mean during adolescence,” Stynes said upon the book’s launch.

Dr Kang, who was Dolly Doctor for a whopping 23 years, added that she highly encourages all adults, especially parents, carers, teachers, health professionals, and anyone who works with young kids to read the book.

“Consent is actually at the heart of gender equality – who can touch another person’s body when, where and how, no matter how young or old,” Dr Kang explained.

“This book is only the start of much needed conversations at family dinner tables, classrooms, sports change rooms, workplaces, and most definitely in the corridors of power.”

Welcome To Consent comes exactly a month (April 19) after the Australian Government’s Respect Matters program released that truly baffling attempt to educate students about consent via… milkshakes.

The entire video sucked ass, but its milkshake bit – you know the one – went boonta viral for using a forcibly consumed milkshake as a metaphor for forced sex.

The milkshake video was pulled from the campaign the next day, but sadly lives on in a cursed corner of my brain.

But as Yumi Stynes put it, Welcome To Consent is “the antidote to this milkshake nonsense.”

Dr Kang and Stynes previously teamed up on Welcome To Your Period, a fabulous guidebook for tweens and teens about that bloody time of the month.

Purchase either title for yourself, your young sibling or cousin, or your mate with a kid (the list goes on, tbh) at wherever you buy your books.

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