Mixed Messages: Understandings of Consent in Online Discussions about Australian Consent Law

Abstract

The global #MeToo movement, along with several recent Australian investigations, have demonstrated that sexual violence is widespread. But they have also demonstrated that understandings of consent and sexual violence can differ. If we are to have any hope of reducing sexual violence, we need to understand the sociocultural norms that inform this violence. Evidence suggests that there is a major discrepancy between how consent is understood and how it is practiced. Research on community understandings of consent in Australia is limited. This study explores the sociocultural dimensions of consent in online discussions about Australian consent law from a feminist biopolitical lens. A thematic analysis of pre-existing discussion threads from the online domain Reddit revealed that consent is largely constructed as gendered. As such, consent negotiations are dependent on sociocultural norms and gendered power relations. Further, persistent acceptance of rape myths was identified in constructions of rape as violent, and rapists as abnormal individuals. As such, contributors consistently relied on problematic sociocultural and gendered norms to justify mistaken belief in consent. The findings of the study highlight an increasing awareness of the potential for normal men to perpetrate sexual violence, instead of the narrowly constructed abnormal and dehumanised rapist. This is leading to a potential shift in power between men and women in which men are increasingly feeling vulnerable and powerless to accusations of rape.