“Yes doesn’t always mean yes, but no means no”: Exploring the perceived ambiguities in university students’ experiences of sexual consent

Abstract

This article aims to explore situations of consent and non-consent in university students to understand regulatory mechanisms that contribute to the perceived ambiguity of students’ experiences of sexual consent. To apprehend these experiences, 37 semi-directed interviews were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis, systemic analysis, and contextualizing analysis. The results illustrate the existence of a dichotomy between students’ knowledge of consent and the practice of consent. This ambiguity appears as an integral part of the act of consent. It was apparent in the students’ understanding, affirming, retracting, and decoding of consent. The authors’ analysis highlights the regulating mechanisms, that is, internal and external injunctions at play in the act of consent. Three injunctive mechanisms were identified: relational injunctions to consent, social injunctions to consent, and men’s unrestricted access to women’s bodies. These injunctive mechanisms act in different manners according to one’s social position, individual characteristics, the type of relationship and the social spaces. By facilitating or hindering consent, they make it a profoundly ambiguous act.