Affirmative Consent Research Articles

Social Dimensions of Sexual Consent Among Cisgender Heterosexual College Students: Insights From Ethnographic Research

PurposeNonconsensual sexual experiences on college campuses represent a serious public health problem. The preponderance of existing research on students’ actual consent practices is quantitative, lab based, or focused on how single dimensions of social context shape consent practices. Filling those gaps and illustrating ethnography's potential to lay the groundwork for innovative prevention, this paper draws on research conducted with undergraduates on two interconnected campuses to examine multiple social dimensions of sexual consent practices. MethodsData include in-depth interviews with over 150 students, 16 months of participant observation, 17 focus groups, and key informant interviews. Research conducted for this study took place between September 2015 and January 2017 at Columbia University and Barnard College. ResultsAlthough sexual consent is often approached as an individual or interpersonal practice, this research highlights potentially modifiable social dimensions of consent. These seven dimensions of sexual consent practices are as follows: (1) gendered heterosexual scripts; (2) sexual citizenship; (3) intersectionality; (4) men's fear of “doing” consent wrong; (5) “drunk sex”; (6) peer groups; and (7) spatial/temporal factors shaping when consent is assumed. ConclusionsEffective promotion of consensual sex, as a strategy to prevent assault, will likely require understanding and modifying the social structures that shape consent practices, rather than just legislation that mandates the promotion of affirmative consent. We describe seven potential modifiable social contextual dimensions of consent practices, along with related strategies to promote consensual sex and prevent sexual assault.

Exploring Definitions and Prevalence of Verbal Sexual Coercion and Its Relationship to Consent to Unwanted Sex: Implications for Affirmative Consent Standards on College Campuses.

Campus sexual assault is a pervasive issue impacting the well-being, quality of life, and education of all students. There have been many recent efforts to prevent and address campus sexual assault, most notably the adoption of affirmative consent standards. (1) Efforts to address sexual assault on college campuses through an affirmative consent standard could be undermined by traditional gender norms, sexual scripts, and the power dynamics inherent in heterosexual relations, which lead to situations in which many women provide consent to unwanted sex. (2) Studies indicate that college women are likely to experience verbal sexual coercion, yet research has failed to come to a consensus on how to define, operationalize, and study verbal sexual coercion. (3) Research on sexual consent is also lacking, in particular as it relates to consent to unwanted sex as a result of the presence of verbal sexual coercion. (4) This article discusses how multiple forms of unwanted sex can be conceptually examined. (5) Policy implications and areas for future research are discussed.

A Schema of Denial: The Influence of Rape Myth Acceptance on Beliefs, Attitudes, and Processing of Affirmative Consent Campaign Messages

This study aims to examine the influence of rape myth acceptance (RMA) and the perceived salience of sexual violence on the cognitive processing of an affirmative consent campaign active on the campus where research was conducted. As part of a midcourse evaluation of the Consent is Sexy (CIS) campaign (N = 285), a subsample of participants who reported prior exposure to campaign posters (N = 182) was asked to review four campaign posters and indicate the extent to which they processed the message in the posters systematically. Robust gender differences in perceived salience of sexual violence, supportive attitudes, and perceived behavioral control (PBC) toward establishing consent were mediated by RMA. Moreover, robust gender differences in the systematic processing of the campaign were mediated by RMA and perceived salience in serial. Implications of the influence of rape myths and perceived salience on the cognitive processing of affirmed consent campaigns are discussed with respect to both campaign message design and implementation.

Barriers to the Success of Affirmative Consent Initiatives: An Application of the Social Ecological Model

ABSTRACTIn response to evidence that one in five college women are sexually assaulted, institutions of higher education have started adopting affirmative consent policies. Affirmative consent must be voluntarily and explicitly communicated—verbally or nonverbally. A recently published article highlighted barriers to the success of affirmative consent initiatives at the intrapersonal level. To extend this discussion, we identified barriers at each level of the Social Ecological Model. In our commentary, we discuss social determinants that are particularly relevant for campus sexual assault. There are elements in young people's micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems that hinder their adoption of affirmative consent practices. We focus on gender as an aspect of the macrosystem that is a formidable barrier to the success of affirmative consent initiatives, influencing each of the other levels. Finally, we discuss how sexuality education might begin to address the social determinants of sexual assault.

Affirmative Consent and Due Diligence

Affirmative Consent and Due Diligence

Public health nursing and the issue of trust in campus sexual assault

Public Health Nurses are the largest group of public health practitioners in both local and state health departments across the United States. Essential for the delivery of health services in the community, Public Health Nurses frequently provide care for underserved and vulnerable populations. Among these populations are the victims of campus sexual assault, a growing problem on college and university campuses. Both nationally and internationally, sexual assault has been described as a public health and human rights concern. With the signing of the Senate Bill 967 in California, affirmative consent, known as "yes means yes," requires both parties in a sexual encounter to give voluntary and affirmative consent. Many colleges and universities across the country have adopted similar standards. However, students may choose not to seek health care after an assault at the Student Health Center, preferring to obtain care in community clinics or health departments. Students must be able to be safe on and off campus, and must be able to trust they will be heard by campus authorities and the health care community, and be treated with respect. Public health nurses need to be prepared to work with victims of campus sexual assault and have a solid foundation in the issues surrounding assault, and the needs of the student to trust their caregivers. This paper presents an overview of the vulnerability and risk factors in sexual assault, presents legislation on campus and institutional responsibility, and provides a foundation for Public Health Nurses working with victims of sexual assault.

Sexual violence and collegiate athletics: US federal law, adjudication and the media spotlight

PurposeIn order to understand how collegiate athletics fits within the wider problem of sexual violence on college campuses, the purpose of this paper is to start with an examination of the overall scope of the issue of sexual violence in the USA and the larger culture that produces it. Next, the relevant laws and adjudication of sexual violence operant in American colleges are outlined. Finally, college athletics is placed into this bigger context by highlighting a number of particular cases to illustrate a broader understanding of collegiate athletes involved in sexual violence.Design/methodology/approachThe author examines the history of rape laws and adjudication and the federal laws relevant to institutions of higher education. The author investigates the debate over adjudication of sexual violence within the criminal justice system or through campus systems. The author read previous literature to determine links between sexual violence and collegiate athletes and highlights particular cases that have gotten significant media attention for clues to the rape prone culture that can be fostered within collegiate athletics.FindingsThis analysis highlights how collegiate athletics can be a context that creates a rape prone culture and that universities and the criminal justice system need further reform to overcome long-standing beliefs in rape myths which perpetuate sexual violence, discourage reporting by victims of sexual violence, deter bystander intervention and underplay the impact of sexual violence on victims. Thus, structural changes are needed within collegiate athletic cultures as well as on college campuses to address sexual violence.Practical implicationsCollege campuses and athletic departments must address climates that create rape prone cultures. There remains a need for systematic data collection of perpetrators of sexual violence, along side data collection of experiences of sexual violence. College campuses and athletic departments must have in place procedures and policy that adhere to federal law, whereby athletes are not treated differently from non-athletes and victims are offered appropriate services that recognize the trauma of sexual violence. Further progress toward a standard of affirmative consent is needed to move toward greater sexual autonomy for everyone.Originality/valueThere is evidence that collegiate athletes are disproportionately represented among the population of sexual violence perpetrators on college campuses. Thus, it is vital to understand this population and that connection. The value of this work is to explicate the complicated adjudication process between university disciplinary processes and the criminal justice system.

The Role of Hypermasculinity, Token Resistance, Rape Myth, and Assertive Sexual Consent Communication Among College Men

PurposeA greater understanding of how college men's gendered beliefs and communication styles relate to their sexual consent attitudes and intentions is essential within the shifting context of negative to affirmative consent policies on college campuses. The results of this study can be used to help design more effective sexual consent interventions. MethodsThree hundred seventy undergraduate college men completed cross-sectional online surveys. Hierarchical multiple regression examined how hypermasculinity, token resistance, rape myth acceptance, and sexual communication assertiveness were associated with consent-related attitudes, intentions, and interpretations. ResultsBivariate correlations among all variables were significant. In multivariate analyses, sexual communication assertiveness was positively associated with all consent outcomes, and token resistance and rape myth acceptance were negatively associated with some. Hypermasculinity was not a significant factor. ConclusionsPrograms seeking to improve sexual consent communication among college men should reduce destructive beliefs and encourage sexually assertive communication.

The Elephant in the Room: Sidestepping the Affirmative Consent Debate in the Restatement (Third) of Intentional Torts to Persons

In contemporary debates about legal responsibility for sexual misconduct, the status of “affirmative consent” is front and center. Most often associated with the campus rape crisis and the enforcement of Title IX by colleges and universities, affirmative consent places responsibility on individuals who initiate sex to secure the affirmative permission of their partners before engaging in sexual conduct. Going beyond “no means no,” affirmative consent is best captured by the slogan “only yes means yes” and aims to protect those sexual assault victims who react passively or silently in the face of sexual aggression, even though they do not desire to have sex and would not have initiated the sexual activity if they had been given the choice. The criminal law in most states has not yet caught up with these developments and has continued to require either a showing of “force” on the part of the defendant or proof of a verbal objection on the part of the victim. Given its prominence, one might expect affirmative consent to emerge as a central issue in the revision of the Restatement (Third)’s provisions on consent. Instead, affirmative consent makes an appearance only briefly in the Restatement's commentary and has not affected the core black letter statements of the law of consent. Although purporting to be neutral, the approach of the Restatement (Third) is incompatible with affirmative consent, both in the Restatement's definitions of actual and apparent consent and in its determination to assign the burden of proof to the plaintiff instead of the defendant. Because there is no controlling precedent that would prevent the Restatement (Third) from embracing affirmative consent, the Restatement (Third) is free to follow the Title IX model and incorporate affirmative consent into the body of tort law. This article makes the case for adopting affirmative consent in sexual misconduct tort cases, even if the criminal law in any given jurisdiction continues to apply a more defendant-oriented consent rules.

Janet Halley and the Art of Status Quo Maintenance

Over the past few years, Janet Halley emerged as one of the most avid critics of campus rape feminist activists, activists who push for the reformulation of university investigative rules to shift the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused. Halley contends that Title IX policies, embedded with affirmative consent, are not only procedurally unsound, but bad for boys, bad for sex, and bad for feminism, charging its agenda with “radical feminism” influences. Halley’s stance on campus rape is consistent with her long-held “queer theory” and its anti-feminist deregulatory drive. In this article, I argue that Halley’s “queer theory,” which she developed by polemically critiquing Catharine Mackinnon’s work, in an attempt to extol “sex positivism” in legal academia with the dignity of “fancy” theory, in effect stands Mackinnon on her head. By inverting Mackinnon’s gender/ sex constructions, Halley’s theory fronts as an idealist proposition indicting feminism with the invention of sexual injury and inspiring women to manipulate innocuous facts into scandalous protest. Flipping Mackinnon’s equality approach when it comes to legal rules takes Halley to the right of “consent” where Mackinnon had gone to its “left.” By mirroring Mackinnon’s critique of “consent,” except from the right, Halley’s theorizing echoes a sexual libertarian agenda without/before feminism. It defends male sexual entitlement avant liberal feminism. Ideologically, such theoretic formulations, along with the bundle of rules they advocate for, are designed to keep pressure on ruling liberal feminism from departing in its understanding of sex from the “pathology” model whereby all men are good except for those who are “pathologically” violent (classical liberalism) in the direction of understanding sexual entitlement as part of the social construction of maleness. By clamoring from the right of liberal feminism, mainstream liberal feminism is kept in check. In order to explain the various elements of Halley’s theories on gender/sex and expose their underlying pre-feminist “classical liberal” orientation, I position her comparatively within the gender/sex theories of the non-liberal academic left: Mackinnon (her antagonist), Duncan Kennedy (her ally), and Judith Butler (her theoretical homebody). I analyze the way these theorists used the theoretical traditions of Marxism, post-modernism, and post-structuralism to posit a relationship between gender and sex: sex is gender simpliciter (Mackinnon), gender is sex simpliciter (Halley), and the split difference between gender and sex (Kennedy). This exercise illuminates the doctrinal approaches of each theory, be it to the left or right of consent. I conclude the article with a succinct critique of Halley’s theoretic excursions and argue Halley is guilty of five themes of “misrecognition:” (A) theoretical, oscillating between an antagonism to the very idea of sexual injury and proposing a neutral proceduralist approach to identifying it; (B) political, targeting radical feminism with her critique while smashing liberal feminism on the way; (C) sociological, reading women’s sexual injury through the eyes of an “uninjurable” promiscuous gay man advocating a radical sexual ideology; (D) ideological, attempting to ally her sexual libertarianism with the left when the ideological universe it travels is “classical liberalism,” definitively, the left’s most pronounced critic; and (E )historical, advocating a “sex positive” agenda in radically sex positivist times.

Affirmative Consent and Due Diligence

Affirmative Consent and Due Diligence

Archival Consent

The idealized value of “open access” to information in traditional Western archives is grounded in a right to property based in a racially and gender biased jurisprudence, and thus legal arguments for “open access” replicate those same privileges and harms. Rather than rely on legal frameworks for decision-making around access and use, this paper argues that adopting consent-based models of self-determination would shift the paradigm of archival policies and practices around use and access from one based on individual property rights to one based on relationships, autonomy, and prioritization of record creators and subjects. To deconstruct these systems of privilege and actively bring forth the voices of non-homogeneous archival subjects will require not just advocating for small reforms, but for entirely new ways of thinking about and doing our work. This paper uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) to question Western jurisprudence and deconstruct the assumed neutrality of Intellectual Property (IP), the legal basis for the archival tenet of open access. Next, the paper offers three non-legal or extra-legal models of consent which serve as examples for thinking beyond status quo assumptions of archival practice. The three models explored and evaluated are indigenous protocols, feminist affirmative consent, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Instead of seeing this process as restricting or censoring, the adoption of these protocols would lead to increased trust, more accessible archival description, and a more pleasurable archival endeavor.

College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics: The Lives and Longings of Emerging Adults by Jennifer Beste

Reviewed by: College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics: The Lives and Longings of Emerging Adults by Jennifer Beste Jason King College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics: The Lives and Longings of Emerging Adults. By Jennifer Beste. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 376 pp. $35.00. Jennifer Beste's College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics makes an extremely valuable addition to our understanding of hookup culture. Using two years of ethnographic data collected among students at two Catholic colleges, Beste provides an explanation of hookup culture and its consequences from the mindset of students. [End Page 81] Beste's book is divided into three parts. In Part One, "Through Their Own Eyes," she uses student observations to describe hookup culture. Far from being an environment of carefree pleasure, students find hookup culture to be a highly stratified arena where those with more social status take advantage of those with less. Men tend to prey upon women, especially those whose judgment is impaired by drugs or alcohol. Heterosexual men bully any man who does not conform to masculine stereotypes and thus pose threats to homosexual men who do not hide their sexuality. Athletes dominate the social hierarchy, readily exerting their will over everyone else. This leaves most students feeling anxious, embarrassed, regretful, used, empty, and alone. However, this dislike for hookup culture is masked by "pluralistic ignorance" where everyone believes that they are alone in their unhappiness (121). In Part Two, "Becoming Fully Human," Beste analyzes the ethnographic student data to understand how hooking up fits in with students' larger worldview. It is a world where everything turns on one's social status and people's self-worth is determined by their peers. Neediness, vulnerability, and failure are all detrimental to one's social life. Religious faith is so far off the radar that it is not even mentioned as important to students. Being in control, not caring, and achievement, these are the factors that raise one's social value. Hooking up fits perfectly within this perspective. It requires no personal investment, often entails dominance over another person, and is a way to raise one's social standing. In part three, "Sexual Justice," Beste makes her most important contribution by articulating students' perceptions of sexual violence and assault. The drunkenness, the disregard of others the lack of vulnerability, and the sexism of hookup culture, all contribute to a situation where sexual violence is so rampant that it is difficult to name much less stop. Perpetrators—who are by and large men—utilize verbal and physical aggression to force women to hook up with them, and, when this does not work, they prey upon incapacitated women. In addition to the emotional trauma, victims of sexual assault struggle to [End Page 82] accurately recognize the incident for the violence it is. Friends usually encourage them to laugh it off and forget about it. If the victim considers pursuing charges, they will likely be accused of bringing it on themselves for the way they dressed or behaved, face being socially ostracized, and fear retaliation by the perpetrator. Institutions tend to fear bad publicity more than protecting victims, so they rarely investigate, much less expel, perpetrators. Beste's dive into the minds of students through the ethnographic data is what makes College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics such a valuable resource. She uses students' own words to identify the power dynamics of hookup culture and so the reasons why the vast majority of students are unhappy with hooking up. Thus, Beste's book should be read by college students to undo their "pluralistic ignorance" that masks the problem and hinders their ability to change the situation. Beste's book should also be read by college administrators so that they understand that addressing hookup culture is more about justice than sex. Hopefully, it would encourage a faster implementation of the policies Beste recommends for a more just sexual culture: affirmative consent policies, zero-tolerance policies, opposition to gender stereotypes, and encouragement of bystander intervention. In doing so, administrators would greatly help students change the problematic dynamics of hookup culture. Jason King Saint Vincent College Copyright © 2018 American Catholic Historical Society

The Elephant in the Room: Sidestepping the Affirmative Consent Debate in the Restatement (Third) of Intentional Torts to Persons

AbstractIn contemporary debates about legal responsibility for sexual misconduct, the status of “affomative consent” is front and center. Most often associated with the campus rape crisis and the enforcement of Title IX by colleges and universities, affirmative consent places responsibility on individuals who initiate sex to secure the affirmative permission of their partners before engaging in sexual conduct. Going beyond “no means no,” affirmative consent is best captured by the slogan “only yes means yes” and aims to protect those sexual assault victims who react passively or silently in the face of sexual aggression, even though they do not desire to have sex and would not have initiated the sexual activity if they had been given the choice. The criminal law in most states has not yet caught up with these developments and has continued to require either a showing of “force” on the part of the defendant or proof of a verbal objection on the part of the victim.Given its prominence, one might expect affirmative consent to emerge as a central issue in the revision of the Restatement (Third)’s provisions on consent. Instead, affirmative consent makes an appearance only briefly in the Restatement's commentary and has not affected the core black letter statements of the law of consent. Although purporting to be neutral, the approach of the Restatement (Third) is incompatible with affirmative consent, both in the Restatement's definitions of actual and apparent consent and in its determination to assign the burden of proof to the plaintiff instead of the defendant. Because there is no controlling precedent that would prevent the Restatement (Third) from embracing affirmative consent, the Restatement (Third) is free to follow the Title IX model and incorporate affirmative consent into the body of tort law. This article makes the case for adopting affirmative consent in sexual misconduct tort cases, even if the criminal law in any given jurisdiction continues to apply a more defendant-oriented consent rules.

College Students' Sexual Consent Communication And Perceptions of Sexual Double Standards: A Qualitative Investigation.

Affirmative consent standards adopted by colleges and universities are meant to decrease miscommunication that may lead to sexual assault. However, they may not take into account sociocultural factors that influence consent. In particular, the role of gender norms needs to be better understood. In-depth interviews about college students' sexual activity, including sexual consent communication, were conducted with 17 female and 13 male students at a large southern university during the spring 2013 semester. The interview protocol and analyses were guided by Carspecken's critical qualitative methodology, which seeks to understand both participants' explicit statements and implied underlying meanings and values. Themes and subthemes were identified through inductive analyses. Two overarching themes emerged: Students perceived a sexual double standard, and males viewed obtaining sex as a conquest. Subthemes related to the first theme reflected endorsement of traditional views of women's sexuality (the notions that "good girls" do not have sex, that women should privilege men's sexual needs over their own and that women "owe" men sex once men have "worked" for it). Subthemes related to the second theme reflected males' beliefs that sex is a commodity that pits women and men against one another, and that women can be "convinced" to have sex if they initially refuse. College students' consent communication may be influenced by gender norms that challenge assumptions of affirmative consent standards. Cultural shifts in students' views of sexuality may be necessary for affirmative consent policies to be effective.

Contesting consent in sex education

This paper explores discourses of affirmative consent in sex education curriculum and policy. It traces the ways in which discourses of consent have emerged in sex education debates, focusing first on the activism of two young women in Ontario, Canada who lobbied the provincial government to include discussions of consent in a new Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum. Their activism is instructive for the ways in which their lobbying was eventually subsumed into the logics of curriculum, with learning outcomes and lesson plans taming the passion of their protest. As others see in sex education the answer to sexual violence, we cannot forget that sex education is, in part, a defence against passion, and that consent – once swallowed up by HPE – might also work to tame the unruliness of sexuality. Turning to age of consent laws – another arena where discourses of consent discipline the sexuality of young people – I ask how our pedagogical and legal address to sexuality paradoxically refuses its force. This is the central argument of this article – namely, that the concept of consent brings with it, into education, a procedural logic that misrecognises sexuality as a transparent, communicative, and rational experience and mistakes compliance for learning.

Sex Ed in Higher Ed: Should We Say Yes to “Affirmative Consent?”

ABSTRACTIn this essay, the author explores the concept of “affirmative consent” as a sociolegal strategy for reducing sexual violence on college campuses. Meanings and implications of “consent” are considered from a psychoanalytic perspective, using the work of Laplanche and relational psychoanalysis to consider the fit between the construct of consent as it is invoked in contemporary sexual politics and our psychoanalytic understandings of sexual experience. The discourse of consent is also explored from the standpoint of queer and feminist theory. Finally, a brief clinical vignette is offered to illuminate the real challenges that are encountered in the effort to use language to communicate about sex. The author suggests an interdisciplinary, nonregulatory, exploratory approach to addressing the problem of sex and sexual violence on college campuses.

Building a Culture of Respect Across Genders: Eliminating Sexual Misconduct

ABSTRACTClinical staff members at virtually all college counseling centers provide therapy for victims of sexual misconduct experiences such as sexual assault, sexual harassment, relationship violence, and stalking. A number of college counseling center counselors are also involved in primary, secondary, and tertiary sexual assault prevention efforts. This article develops a model of prevention based on the twin principles of affirmative consent and bystander intervention. We begin with a review of research on sexual assault prevention on campus. We then illustrate this model as it was developed and implemented at a particular institution over the past two decades. We provide effectiveness data in the form of event participation rates, satisfaction measures, and learning outcomes to demonstrate the results of this comprehensive approach. Finally, we end with recommendations for further development of prevention efforts.

Affirmative Consent: What Do College Student Leaders Think About “Yes Means Yes” as the Standard for Sexual Behavior?

ABSTRACTAffirmative consent (AC) is becoming the standard for sexual behavior between students. However, little is known about how college students interpret and practice AC. We conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with a purposeful sample of 31 undergraduate students to understand students' perceptions of AC and how it was practiced in their sexual relationships.Despite knowledge about AC, many student leaders thought that it was an unrealistic expectation for students. This suggests that college sexual health education needs to clearly articulate actions that are consistent with AC and indicate how these can be incorporated into students' sexual behavior.

Affirmative Consent, by Way of the Intoxication 'Defense'

This short essay makes a general point about criminal law by making a specific point about the American Law Institute’s debates regarding affirmative-consent requirements in sexual assault law. Last spring, the ALI fought a floor battle over the core difficulty of affirmative-consent provisions — their reliance on objective definitions of “consent.” Rejecting the recommendation of its reporters, the Institute adopted a subjective definition of “consent,” focusing on whether the partner was “willing” to engage in the sexual activity in question. Without any change in proposed statutory language, the reporters’ latest draft commentary signals an approach that would undermine the Institute’s preference for a subjective definition of consent. The mechanism is a reversal of the reporters’ previous position on the intoxication defense. That reversal would return to the reporters’ preferred, objective approach to “consent” in the large percentage of cases in which the accused is intoxicated.