Sexual Consent Research Articles

The presumption of lack of sexual consent in the case of a minor victim: a model of inspiration for the Moldovan legislator?

The hypothesis of taking advantage of the victim’s incapacity to express her/his will is already considered in art. 171 and 172 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova. Therefore, it is not necessary to complete the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova with articles similar to art. 2181 and 2191 of the Criminal Code of Romania. Such a completion would only double the provisions of art. 171 and 172 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova in that case. The solution is the effective application of art. 171 and 172 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova if the perpetrator takes advantage of the minor victim’s incapacity to express her/his will.

Exploring the Influence of Romantic Relationship Communication on Adolescents’ Self-Efficacy to Ask for Sexual Consent

ABSTRACT Adolescence represents a crucial period for sexual and romantic relationship development, and acquisition of skills and confidence essential for effective sexual consent communication. However, various barriers may interfere with adolescents’ belief in their ability (i.e., their self-efficacy) to negotiate consent in practice. This study aimed to investigate the state of adolescents’ self-efficacy to ask for consent and explore the influence of romantic relationship communication (a construct comprised of three characteristics: relationship assertiveness skills, positive conflict resolution, and communication awkwardness). Participants were 411 adolescents who had current or past relationships (61% girls, 77% Latine, 79% heterosexual). Participants generally reported above-average levels of self-efficacy to ask for consent (M = 4.14 out of 7, SD = 1.24), with LGBQ+ adolescents exhibiting statistically significantly higher levels of self-efficacy compared to heterosexual adolescents (M = 4.51 vs. 4.09, t = -2.66, p = .008). Self-efficacy to ask for consent was positively individually related to positive conflict resolution and relationship assertiveness skills, and negatively related to communication awkwardness (all ps < .001). In a path model, romantic relationship communication displayed a statistically significant association with adolescents’ self-efficacy to ask for consent, with high positive conflict resolution, low communication awkwardness, and high relationship assertiveness skills being associated with higher self-efficacy to ask for consent. Findings suggest improving adolescents’ romantic communication skills may enhance their self-efficacy to ask for consent, and contribute to increased rates of sexual consent communication. Intervention strategies should target multiple levels of influence to promote positive consent cognitions, behaviors, and cultural norms.

Rethinking Dignity and Exploitation in Human Trafficking and Sex Workers’ Rights Cases

As forced migration increases dramatically due to such factors as climate change, rising conflict, and authoritarianism, more legal cases on human trafficking and sex work are sure to arise. To date, very few cases on these issues have been decided in international human rights tribunals, and they have been subject to extensive criticism, especially for their conflation of slavery, human trafficking, forced prostitution, and consensual sex work. This article analyzes recent jurisprudence from Europe and Africa to address this conceptual confusion and argue that tribunals must interrogate their use of the terms dignity and exploitation or risk further marginalizing already marginalized people.

Resilience and associated factors in orphaned and separated adolescents in Kenya: Understanding the relationship with care environment and HIV risks

ABSTRACT Orphans are at higher risk of HIV infection and several important HIV risk factors than non-orphans; however, this may be due to a combination of related social, psychological, and economic factors, as well as care environment, rather than orphan status alone. Understanding these complex relationships may aid policy makers in supporting evidence-based, cost-effective programming for this vulnerable population. This longitudinal study uses a causal effect model to examine, through decomposition, the relationship between care environment and HIV risk factors in orphaned and separated adolescents and youths (OSAY) in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya; considering resilience, social, peer, or family support, volunteering, or having one's material needs met as potential mediators. We analysed survey responses from 1105 OSAY age 10–26 living in Charitable Children's Institutions (CCI) (orphanages) and family-based care settings (FBS). Follow-up time was 7–36 months. Care in CCIs (vs. FBS) was associated with a decreased likelihood of engaging in forced, exchange, and consensual sex. Excess relative risks (ERR) attributable to the indirect pathway, mediation, or interaction were not significant in any model. Care environment was not statistically associated with differences in substance use. Our findings support the direct, unmediated, association between institutional care and HIV risk factors.

‘It’s nice that we can do that too’: investigating transgender persons' negotiations with identity and community questions in Indian science institutions

Abstract In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court passed the landmark NALSA v. Union of India judgment that not only granted transgender persons the right to self-identify their gender but also recognized their right to equitable and accessible education. Further, in 2018, the apex court passed another landmark judgment in the case of Navtej Singh Johar &amp; Ors. v. Union of India, reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, and, therefore, decriminalizing consensual adult homosexual sex acts. In the backdrop of these landmark judgments – i.e. in post-NALSA and post-377 India – identity and community questions pertaining to transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary persons’ access to and presence in educational institutions in India have intensified. Focusing on science institutions, this paper attempts to delineate the ways in which proximal and distal networks of caste-class and gender shape transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary persons’ exclusion from and belonging in science collectivities. Further, this paper also investigates how transgender persons’ sense of belonging to certain communities speaks to their shifting epistemic dispositions. Finally, contextualizing transpersons’ negotiations in science communities and individual and collective scales as ‘unstable and hybrid assemblages’, this paper demonstrates the ways in which trans collectives in science institutions radicalize community building and development in these institutional spaces by interrupting dominant institutional cultures and practices.

Queer and trans community building in post-NALSA and post-377 India: a critical reflection

Abstract This article reflects on contestations that mark queer and trans community building in post- National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and post-377 India. In the past decade, queer and trans communities in India have witnessed two landmark judgements: the NALSA v. Union of India judgement 2014 and the Navtej Singh Johar and Ors. v. Union of India judgement 2018. The former granted transgender persons legal recognition and a promise of civil and substantive rights. The latter read down the draconian Sec. 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalized consensual adult homosexual sex acts. In light of these two judgements, this article traces challenges faced by queer and trans communities and challenges to queer and trans community building in contemporary India by tracing recent developments in the contexts of health, public policy, jurisprudence, social institutions, education, popular culture, and the precarity of gender and sexually transgressive communities during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the authors also trace narratives of hope that demonstrate how queer and trans people in post legal reform India continue to build enabling and affirmative communities in the face of an increasingly neoliberalizing country.

Gender and Sexual Orientation Differences in Sexual Violence Knowledge, Prevention Behaviors, and Care-Seeking Behaviors.

Sexual violence (SV) on college campuses disproportionately affects cisgender (nontransgender) women, sexual minorities (e.g., gays/lesbians, bisexuals), and gender minority (e.g., transgender/nonbinary) people. This study investigates gender and sexual behavior differences in common SV intervention targets-SV-related knowledge, prevention behaviors, and care-seeking. We analyzed cross-sectional survey data, collected in 9/2015-3/2017, from 2202 students aged 18-24 years attending college health and counseling centers at 28 Pennsylvania and West Virginia campuses. Multivariable multilevel models tested gender and sexual behavior differences in SV history; recognition of SV; prevention behaviors (self-efficacy to obtain sexual consent, intentions to intervene, positive bystander behaviors); and care-seeking behaviors (knowledge of, self-efficacy to use, and actual use of SV services). Adjusting for lifetime exposure to SV, compared with cisgender men, cisgender women had higher recognition of SV and reproductive coercion, prevention behaviors, and care-seeking self-efficacy (beta range 0.19-1.36) and gender minority people had higher recognition of SV and intentions to intervene (beta range 0.33-0.61). Cisgender men with any same-gender sexual partners had higher SV knowledge (beta = 0.23) and self-efficacy to use SV services (beta = 0.52) than cisgender men with only opposite-gender partners. SV history did not explain these differences. Populations most vulnerable to SV generally have higher SV knowledge, prevention behaviors, and care-seeking behaviors than cisgender men with only opposite-gender sexual partners. Innovative SV intervention approaches are necessary to increase SV-related knowledge among heterosexual cisgender men and may need to target alternative mechanisms to effectively reduce inequities for sexual and gender minority people.

Yes, No, Maybe So: The Effects of Relationship Status on Perceptions of Inferred Consent.

Despite the notion that sexual consent is either granted or refused, its communication can sometimes be ambiguous. This uncertainty stems from the tendency to rely on implicit, nonverbal cues to indicate consent. Without clear, explicit communication, people might be encouraged to rely upon contextual information when assessing whether a sexual encounter was consensual. Perceived levels of intimacy and familiarity in a relationship might influence these perceptions, such that prior intimacy might lead to ambiguously communicated consent being interpreted as more consensual. Gender roles can dictate the behaviors expected in a sexual encounter, with female-initiated sexual violence against men potentially being perceived as more consensual than the inverse. The current study examined how relationship type (Experiments 1 and 2) and gender pairing (Experiment 2) influenced participants' perceptions of how consensual various sexual encounters were. Participants read a series of vignettes in which sexual consent was verbally granted, verbally rejected, or inferred using nonverbal cues. Additionally, the dyads' relationships were either described as dating, friends, or strangers. Following vignette presentation, participants provided judgments regarding how consensual the interactions were. Experiment 2 expanded upon this by manipulating the gender of the initiators and targets. When consent was not clearly indicated, more established relationships were associated with higher ratings of perceived consent. Male targets were attributed more responsibility for sexual interactions, and they were also believed to want nonconsensual sex more than female targets. These findings highlight the importance of contextual information in instances where sexual consent is unclear.

Uncovering young people's situational construction of sexual consent.

Aim: To investigate how young Danes construct sexual consent generally, but also specifically in relation to heavy alcohol intoxication. Methods: Drawing on 30 qualitative in-depth interviews with young people, aged 19-25 years, and adopting a critical discursive psychological framework, we explored the interpretative repertoires that the participants made use of to construct sexual consent and the subject positions those repertoires enabled. Results: The participants made use of three interpretative repertoires that we named as follows: (1) sexual consent as an agreement between rational individuals; (2) sexual consent as a heteronormative practice; and (3) intoxicated sexual consent. Discussion: Young people draw on different repertoires when discussing sexual consent in general, sexual consent in relation to gendered practices and expectations, and sexual consent in relation to heavy alcohol intoxication. Conclusion: It is vital to keep the situational nature of young people's constructions of sexual consent in mind if we wish to understand and eventually reduce the number of non-consensual sexual experiences.

‘It's a much bigger deal than people think’: UK undergraduate University students’ discussions around sexual consent

Sexual abuse, harassment and assault are increasing in educational institutions. Education focuses on improving understanding of consent: research highlights nuances and constraints by gendered and heteronormative norms for young people. Findings explore how undergraduate university students conceptualise consent in relation to the wider contextual factors that impact sex and consent. Students (aged 18–24 years) at a West Midlands (UK) university in focus groups conceptualised consent in relation to sexual assault, legal consequences of assault and ways that emphasised victimisation, inequities, double standards, and power differentials that largely impact men. Gendered and heteronormative norms shape students’ understanding of consent and impact consent discussions. The findings have implications for secondary school Relationship and Sex Education and consent campaigns aimed at university students.

모의 배심원의 성별, 피해자의 저항 여부와 지적장애 유무가 성폭력 처벌 판단에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of mock juror's gender, the resistance and intellectual disability of victim on punishment judgments in a sexual assault case, this study is designed with between subjects 2(resistance: do vs do not) X 2(intellectual disability: present vs absent). Participants, aged 20 to 59 eligible for jury duty nationwide, were presented with manipulated trial scenarios and narratives regarding the resistance and intellectual disability of victim. Subsequently, they were asked to provide judgments on guilty/not guilty, probability of guilt, sentencing, as well as to provide Korean Hostile Sexism ratings. Although there was no interaction effect between the victim resistance and intellectual disability of victim on the probability of guilt and sentencing, the probability of guilt was higher when resistance was present and when there was an intellectual disability. Additionally, sentencing was higher when there was an intellectual disability. The study findings indicated that female were more likely than male to render guilty verdicts. Further analysis revealed a sequential mediating effect between gender and sentencing judgments, mediated by hostile sexism ratings and judgment of consent to sexual intercourse. In other words, men had a higher level of hostile sexism ratings than women, and the higher hostile sexism ratings, the higher the degree of sexual consent. The higher the degree of sexual consent, the lower the punitive judgment.

The Marital Rape Phenomenon as A Form of Gender Oppression: An Analysis of the Urgency of Sexual Consent Mubādalah's Perspective

&lt;p class="abstrak"&gt;Many women continue to face cases of sexual abuse in biological relationships between husband and wife, sometimes known as marital rape. This phenomenon is often considered taboo to be discussed, conveyed, and addressed. So in turn, the phenomenon of marital rape becomes a problem that cannot be resolved immediately. In particular, the main question in this research is how Islamic law views the phenomenon of marital rape in husband-and-wife relations and whether the urgency of sexual consent from the mubadalah perspective is a step to prevent marital rape. This research is included in the category of library research with a qualitative approach, data collection techniques with documentation types, data processing techniques with descriptive-analytic methods, and an analytical framework with mubādalah theory. The results of this study show that the act of marital rape due to unequal sexual relations between husband and wife is part of an act of violence, both physically and psychologically. Islam prohibits sexual intercourse through coercion and violence. Husband-wife relationships in any condition must have an element of pleasure from each party, meaning that there should be no coercion from both. Thus, sexual consent education needs to be pursued to become a preventive spirit and safe behaviour for instilling a foundation of mutual respect between individuals. This is expected to pave the way for married couples to enjoy a healthy and happy relationship for both parties.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;masih banyak dialami oleh perempuan. Fenomena ini sering dianggap tabu untuk dibicarakan, disampaikan dan disikapi. Sehingga pada gilirannya fenomena marital rape menjadi permasalahan yang tidak segera ditanggulangi. Secara spesifik, pertanyaan utama dalam penelitian ini ialah bagaimana hukum Islam memandang fenomena marital rape dalam hubungan suami istri dan bagaimana urgensi sexual consent perspektif mubadalah sebagai upaya preventif terjadinya martial rape. Kajian ini termasuk pada kategori penelitian kepustakaan dengan pendekatan kualitatif, teknik pengumpulan data jenis dokumentasi, teknik pengolahan data dengan metode deskriptif-analisis, dan kerangka analisa dengan teori mubādalah. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah bahwa tindakan marital rape akibat hubungan seksual yang tidak seimbang antara suami istri merupakan bagian dari tindakan kekerasan, baik secara fisik maupun psikis. Islam melarang hubungan seksual dengan paksaan dan kekerasan. Hubungan suami istri dalam kondisi apapun harus ada unsur kesenangan dari masing-masing pihak, artinya tidak boleh ada unsur paksaan dari keduanya. Dengan demikian, pendidikan sexual consent perlu diupayakan guna menjadi semangat preventif dan safe behaviour dalam menanamkan landasan saling menghargai antar individu. Hal ini diharapkan mampu membuka jalan untuk pasangan suami istri agar dapat menikmati hubungan yang sehat dan membahagiakan bagi kedua belah pihak.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Healthy sex, moving beyond legal consent framing in sex education: a call to action in US colleges and universities

ABSTRACT This paper provides an extensive literature review of current approaches to sexual consent and demonstrates their insufficiency for teaching higher education students about healthy sex. Their overemphasis on the giving of consent to the detriment of attention to the process of gaining consent, as well as their inappropriate utilisation of incomplete legal frames, make them inadequate for preventing rape in a world shaped by gendered social norms. Additionally, these inadequacies make current approaches even less appropriate for the more aim of teaching the broader and vital topic of healthy sex. The goal of this paper is to challenge the way sexual consent education is currently framed in the USA, recommend a paradigm shift regarding perspectives on sexual consent education, and provide suggestions for formative research concerning the provision of university-level, interdisciplinary healthy sex education courses.

‘There is a No that means Yes!’ – Coercive and aggressive sexual behaviours in adolescents’ heterosexual relationships in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

ABSTRACT This qualitative study examined sexual negotiation in heterosexual romantic relationships of rural adolescents in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Participatory visual research methodology alongside focus group discussions were employed with 18 and 19-year-old adolescent boys (n = 10) and girls (n = 12) to understand how sex is negotiated in heterosexual relationships. Findings suggest adolescent boys and girls had little understanding of mutual sexual consent, and lacked the skills for exercising it. Adolescent boys’ coercive and aggressive sexual behaviours in romantic relationships were embedded in hegemonic masculinity characterized by male dominance, hypersexuality and multiple partners; and included boys pleading for sex, buying gifts, threatening to dissolve the relationship if sex is not initiated, screening pornographic films and rape. Sexual violence prevention strategies commencing during early adolescence are needed and should focus on developing adolescents’ understanding of mutual sexual consent, incorporate skills for autonomous sexual negotiation, and emphasize gender transformative and equitable norms.

When “Yes Means Yes”: Short-Term Effects of an Educational Video on Acceptance of Ideals Related to Affirmative Sexual Consent Among Young Adults

Sexual violence is a prevalent problem impacting college students across the United States. One of the prevention efforts suggested to deal with this concern is to better educate young adults about the ideals of sexual consent. Specifically, many colleges and universities have focused their attention to promote the practice of an affirmative sexual consent standard. Using the theory of planned behavior as the theoretical framework, an experimental study was conducted to test the effectiveness of a short educational video on increasing participants’ acceptance of an affirmative consent standard related to sexual consent, as reflected in more positive attitudes, norms, and greater perceptions of behavioral control related to the enactment of affirmative consent within sexual interactions. Participants were also asked about their endorsement of an indirect approach to sexual consent following viewing of the educational video. Overall results found support for most of the hypotheses, as the findings have practical implications for college health practitioners interested in promoting healthier sexual beliefs, specifically the acceptance of an affirmative consent standard for sexual consent.

Proper Address and Epistemic Conditions for Acting on Sexual Consent

Proper Address and Epistemic Conditions for Acting on Sexual Consent

Sexual consent in the Spanish Criminal Code: shadows of its political and legal construction through the Law on the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom

The criminal regulation of sexual crimes in Spain has recently been modified in order to include a consent-based definition of rape. From a feminist framework, this socio-legal research calls this criminal reform into question. Specifically, the main objective is to study the potentialities and constraints of the legal element of sexual consent to meet women's lived experiences and their ways of performing gender. Drawing on the works of feminism and legal feminism of the last century that dismantled heteropatriarchal sexual politics, as well as relying on current feminist approaches to consent, I expose the shadows, grey areas, and deep-rooted assumptions that underlie the political-legal construction of this hackneyed concept. To do so, I primarily use Carol Bacchi's critical policy analysis in order to explore the Spanish criminal policy discourse concerning this penal modification. In my analysis I examine the preparatory works of the legislative amendment as well as selected oral debates held in the Congress of Deputies and in the Equality Commission. The main findings show how this policy contradicts and collides head-on with many foundational contributions of feminist theory in relation to sexual violence. Nonetheless, relying on broader historical discourses of human rights and international law and repeatedly alluding to the feminist social movement, as well as due to the functionality of the modern notion of consent in a neoliberal system, this legislative amendment enjoys a high level of acceptance.

Effects of medication on dopamine transporter imaging using [123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT in routine practice.

Dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging is used to support the diagnosis of neurodegenerative parkinsonian disorders. Specific medications have been reported to confound the interpretation of[123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT scans, but there is limited data. The aim of the current study is to identify potential medication effects on the interpretation of[123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT scans in routine practice. Consecutive patients undergoing a[123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT/CT scan on a 360° CZT camera between September 2019 and December 2022 were included. An exhaustive review of patient medications (antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, anti-parkinsonians, benzodiazepines, lithium, opioids, and stimulants) was performed. Two experienced nuclear physicians, blinded to the medication reports, interpreted the[123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT scans visually and a semi-quantitative analysis was performed using a local normal database. The study included 305 patients (71.0 ± 10.4, 135 women) and 145 (47.5%) visually interpreted normal scans. In normal scans, the striatum/occiput radioligand uptake ratio was decreased by noradrenergic and specific serotonergic antidepressants (NASSAs) (n = 15, z-score of - 0.93) and opioid medication (tramadol, n = 6, z-score of - 0.85) and was associated with a younger age in the multivariate analysis. In the overall population, the striatum/occiput ratio was influenced by NASSAs and associated with consensual visual analysis, age, sex, and anti-parkinsonian medications related to the status of the disease. Our study confirms the potential impact of antidepressant (NASSA) and opioid (tramadol) medications on the semi-quantitative analysis of[123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT scans. However, when performing a visual analysis, only NASSAs significantly impacted the interpretation of[123I]I-FP-CIT SPECT scans.

“If you loved me, you’d sleep with me”: Constructions of Sexual Consent in 1970s Dolly Magazine

“If you loved me, you’d sleep with me”: Constructions of Sexual Consent in 1970s Dolly Magazine

"You kind of blame it on the alcohol, but. . .": A discourse analysis of alcohol use and sexual consent among young men in Vancouver, Canada.

There is growing awareness about issues of sexual consent, especially in autonomy-compromising or "non-ideal" contexts, including sex involving alcohol. Understanding the conditions needed for consensual sex to occur in this emergent milieu is critically important, especially for young men (ages 18-30 years) who normatively combine drinking alcohol with sex and are most often perpetrators of sexual violence. This study offers a discourse analysis of young men's alcohol use and sexual consent. Data are drawn from qualitative interviews with 76 young men (including gay, bisexual, queer, and straight men) in Vancouver, Canada, from 2018 to 2021. Informed by Kukla's non-ideal theory of sexual consent and critical and inclusive masculinities, this analysis identified three discursive frames: careful connections, watering it down, and blurred lines. In careful connections young men discussed their efforts to actively promote sexual and decisional autonomy for themselves and their sexual partners when drinking. Yet, in watering it down young men invoked discourses of disinhibition, deflection, and denial to normalize alcohol use as being somewhat excusatory for sexual violence, downplaying the role and responsibility of men. Lastly, men operationalized blurred lines through a continuum of consent and of "meeting (masculine) expectations" when discussing sexual violence and victimization while intoxicated. Together, these discursive frames provide insights into the gendered nature of sexual violence and the extent to which idealized notions of sexual consent play out in the everyday lives of young men who use alcohol with sex. Findings hold philosophical and pragmatic implications for contemporary efforts to scaffold sexual consent.