Transformations in Sexual Consent

Abstract

How is the #MeToo movement reshaping everyday life? In this article and our forthcoming book (Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life, Routledge), we examine the simultaneous profound transformations, and potent challenges to these changes, that we are witnessing in both the public and private arenas. This gender revolution has led to a culture in which people of all genders increasingly reject abuses of power in interpersonal relationships. Transformations in discourses surrounding sexual consent, harassment and assault, although also vigorously contested, are creating gendered social and cultural change at both the political and personal levels.

Three women and two men sat around a small conference room table on a cold November day. As students at a Midwestern commuter university, they were gathered as complete strangers in a focus group. We asked, “Do you think that there’s confusion about how to define sexual consent?” Although our questions sought to understand general attitudes toward the rise of women in politics, consent, and the #MeToo movement, many participants chose to share deeply personal experiences.

Maram (all names have been changed to protect confidentiality) was the first to answer our question about consent: “Definitely. If you’re all ok with me sharing just a little bit.” She took a breath and then continued: “I was assaulted a year and a half ago and I didn’t realize I was assaulted until about a year ago.” Maram went on to discuss how “the lines were so blurred” between consent and sexual assault that she didn’t recognize her experience as sexual assault at first. Affirmative consent standards, now typical on college campuses and in some state laws, emphasize that sexual activity must be informed, voluntary, and active.

Maram reported seeing parallels between her own situation and the story that came out about actor and comedian Aziz Ansari, who was publicly accused of sexually assaulting a woman on their first date: “I saw how similar that was to my own story. And that’s when I broke down and finally understood why I felt the way that I did. I could not look my parents in the eye. I wanted to burn my skin off in the shower.” She initially had a difficult time defining her experiences as sexual assault: “I was feeling all the things that a trauma victim endures, but I couldn’t put my finger on why it felt that way if it wasn’t assault. I couldn’t find myself a clear definition of it.” Slowly, with the help of a therapist who validated her experiences, Maram began to define her experience as sexual assault, which helped her recover.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over one-third of American women have experiences with sexual violence and almost one in five have survived rape or attempted rape. Yet in research conducted before the visibility of the #MeToo movement and published in 2018 in the journal Violence Against Women, Donde and collaborators reported that over half of survivors did not acknowledge their experiences as either rape or sexual assault, especially when the circumstances were not characterized as violent stranger attacks assumed in stereotypical “rape scripts.”

Our study documents the shifting understandings and perspectives illustrated by Maram’s experiences. In fact, we find that widespread cultural transformations have taken place in people’s everyday lives. To understand this topic, we conducted in-person focus groups (both gender-mixed and gender-similar) with 74 participants between October 2018 and February 2019. Interviewees were recruited through a random sample of a list of enrolled students. Interviewees consisted of 40 men, 33 women, and one non-binary person. In contrast to prior research, our sample is not based on students at elite colleges; nor is it largely homogeneous in terms of racial background or age: 27% (n=20) were white, non-Hispanic and non-Middle Eastern; nearly 40% (n=29) were first-generation college students; ages ranged from 18 to 58, with the average age 24.5.

Like Maram, many interviewees are not only redefining their experiences, but are creating new expectations of sexual consent. We call these people “innovators,” as they are generating a new language that reflects women’s agency and sense of empowerment. At the same time, these perspectives are contested, and we label people who resist changes to traditional definitions as “resisters.” While these social transformations are still unfolding, our research suggests that a more equal and just society has the potential to emerge.

Innovators: Transformations in Sexual Consent and Assault

In traditional heterosexual scripts, men initiate sexual activity and women act as gatekeepers. This approach to consent has been codified into a legal and policy standard focused on women’s refusal to engage in sexual activity (e.g., “no means no”). In 2018, Pugh and Becker wrote in the journal Behavioral Sciences that as a result of power dynamics and traditional gender roles, one-third to two-thirds of women (depending on the study) report to “consenting” as a result of verbal sexual coercion, such as pressure or manipulation. Conducted right before the #MeToo era and published in 2020, Hirsch and Khan’s book Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus found that both men and women college students articulated a commonly understood ideal of affirmative verbal sexual consent that was rarely practiced, as they relied on indirect language or interpretation of body language as indicators of consent.

Yet shifts are taking place in how people view sexual consent, harassment and assault. These changes are becoming codified in university policies and laws, and are increasingly made public as a result of the #MeToo movement. California’s law, the first of its kind, states that “Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent. Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time.”

Our study finds that innovators push cultural change forward, as new standards of consent become expected among women and non-binary interviewees, as well as a handful of the men. For example, Jada said: “As a woman, you know what consent is. If you want to do something, you say you want to do it.” This perception of women as agents of their own sexuality who affirmatively state what they want conflicts with traditional views of women’s passivity and subservience to men. However, Jada recognized that men view consent in stereotypical ways: “With dudes, it’s like, ’yes is yes, but then yes equals no.’ And ’she’s playing hard to get. She just wants me to try harder.’ And then men try harder, and it just escalates really quickly.” Here, an “escalation” in men’s coercive behaviors involves both a misunderstanding (men perceiving women as playing “hard to get”), and a fundamental difference in how men and women view the words “yes” and “no.” Alex, who is non-binary, stated their view in simple terms: “It’s not just because you say yes, all yes to everything. You have the right to say no in between and say no to certain things or be unsure about it.” Rima agreed: “It doesn’t have to be in the workplace or with strangers, it could literally be with your husband.”

“As a woman, you know what consent is. If you want to do something, you say you want to do it.” This perception of women as agents of their own sexuality who affirmatively state what they want conflicts with traditional views of women’s passivity and subservience to men.

Shifts are taking place in how people view sexual consent, harassment and assault.

Element5 Digital

Some interviewees went even further to argue that body language that conveys fear or lack of interest indicates non-consent. Nadine said that women’s body language and verbal cues are ignored by men, who use the “excuse” of confusion as a justification for sexual assault. Emphasizing gender divisions by adversarially calling men “you,” she said: “Yes is yes. No is no. And there’s phrases in between that may not mean exactly what you are hoping for, but it means no. People use that as an excuse like, ’Oh, I thought she wanted it.’ Like, no.’ Don’t think. Listen. People will give you all the information you need.” She argued that any ambiguous behaviors outside of an enthusiastic “yes,” represent non-consent. Nadine thought that men feign confusion and are actually committing sexual assault: “No, you know very well what happened.”

Although transformations happen slowly, unevenly, and often with resistance, the social and cultural changes that have already taken place in everyday life suggest that a better future has the potential to emerge. Innovators of all genders are creating new demands surrounding affirmative consent, while resisters are increasingly being held accountable and are aware of rising accountability.

Norma Gabriela Galvan

A small but not inconsequential number of focus group men agreed with these ideas about consent. For example, Adnan pointed out that even “in the eyes of the law, you can never be 100% objective” in determining whether or not someone consented. As a result, the definition should be left up to those who are vulnerable: “A part of it is still subjective. It’s how you feel. If you are uncomfortable, if you feel violated, the story ends there. It should stop. It should be understood that this is not what’s going to happen. This should not happen.” Thus, in a context in which public redefinitions of the boundaries are rapidly shifting, innovators of all genders view affirmative consent as the standard.

Coinciding with the #MeToo movement, which has altered public visibility of sexual assault, the “innovators” we interviewed emphasized the importance of women’s agency through sexual self-determination. Although we did not ask participants about experiences of sexual assault, many women shared them freely, illustrating an era of greater willingness to speak out. For example, Alyssa contrasted her experiences with what is displayed in movies and books: “I thought of sexual assault and harassment or rape as something that was forcibly done, where someone’s actually pinning you down and forcing themselves on you. In my situation, it wasn’t really like that. They just kind of did it, but I didn’t say ’no.’ I didn’t say ’stop.’ But I knew at that point that I felt very uncomfortable and that I didn’t want it to happen.” Rather than blaming herself, as was common in previous eras, Alyssa thought that sexual assault should be “defined as however you may feel. If you feel that you were violated, if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel some sort of uneasiness about it, then it is what it is. You can absolutely define it how you want to define it.”

This emphasis on survivors’ definitions of sexual assault is transforming public discourse. Angel, who survived rape as a teenager in the 1980s, felt invisible at the time despite reporting it to the police: “I never talked about it. There was nothing else said about it to this day.” The #MeToo Movement, nearly 40 years later, helped her healing process. Angel said that survivors “need a platform in order to be able to discuss these things that happened to them with other women who understand.”

For the innovators we interviewed, sexual assault was not viewed as an individual experience, but a broad-scale social problem. Alyssa said: “We have normalized rape. We’ve normalized sexual assault. It is a very huge, huge problem.” Christina thought that progress would happen when men start to “see our issues as their issues.” She hopes that men will “become part of the change.” In the current era, one of the ways that this has been happening is by holding perpetrators accountable for their actions.

Resisters: “False” Accusations and Contesting Accountability

In another focus group, we asked: “How big of a problem are sexual assault and harassment?” Harper, an innovator, responded first, emphasizing that they are “a huge problem.” The responses that followed Harper’s comment revealed sharp resistance to the social and cultural changes that are underway.

Ahmad first responded by acknowledging that sexual assault “is a really big problem.” However, like most of the other men who participated in the focus group interviews, Ahmad then swiftly contradicted Harper, transitioning to an opposing point of view: “But this is where I’m coming from. I have family members and friends who have been accused of sexual assault, but they never did anything. One of my friends has a pending court case right now against him. I believe him that he didn’t do it.” Ahmad took aim at the #MeToo movement, which he believes some women use to “get back at other people” through “false” accusations. Calling women “they” in a way that highlights an adversarial relationship, Ahmad pointed out that women are in an advantageous position of power when they accuse men of sexual assault: “They’re at an advantage when something doesn’t go their way.” Noah quickly agreed: “That’s true. I’ve experienced that too.” Noah described an incident when he felt wrongly accused of workplace sexual harassment; the incident was investigated and resulted in his relocation to a different job.

In contrast to these views about the commonality of “false” allegations, research indicates that its prevalence is extremely low. One review of research, conducted by Lisak and collaborators in 2010 and published in the journal Violence Against Women, found that false allegations constituted somewhere between 2 and 10% of reported sexual assault or rape cases. As Fielding argues in a 2018 article in the Minnesota Law Review, since a minority of cases are actually reported to the police (around 10%), the proportion of false reports to police in comparison to the total number of rapes and sexual assaults is even lower, around .002 to .008%, according to one researcher. That is, far less than one percent of reports are false.

Yet many of the men expressed worries about “false” accusations, using words such as “fear,” “danger,” and “scary” to describe their potential career-ruining consequences. Beneath this fearful language, however, lies a struggle for power. As women are increasingly rejecting abuses, some men are pushing to maintain power. Claims that men are being “falsely” accused reassert men’s power to define sexual assault and harassment in gender traditional ways. This appeared in our focus groups, as men emphasized a difference between clear-cut cases of rape and more subtle types of coercion. They used phrases such as “extreme variants,” “black and white,” “textbook definition,” and “hardline yes and no,” to describe cases of rape. Conversely, men utilized phrases like “lower level situations,” “lower level things,” “gray areas,” “stepping stones,” and “smaller things,” to describe what they considered to be “lesser” and ambiguous situations. But as the women emphasized repeatedly, defining consent as “flexible” suggests that these men are legitimating forms of coercion.

Far less than one percent of reports are false. Yet many of the men expressed worries about “false” accusations, using words such as “fear,” “danger,” and “scary” to describe their potential career-ruining consequences. Beneath this fearful language, however, lies a struggle for power.….

For some men, public accountability has instilled a deep-seated fear that they will be accused. William worried: “There’s an accusation and there’s immediate consequences, and that’s it. There’s no trial, there’s no evaluation.” Carter expressed concern about his own vulnerability: “If my ex-girlfriend just went to court right now and said, ’he sexually assaulted me,’ everyone would believe her. Why would she lie? But there will be nothing I could do, nothing I could say to disprove her.” In such a “he-said, she-said” situation, William thought that people would automatically side with the woman, even if she was lying in order to “hurt” a man: “Such an easy thing to do, such an easy lie. If you want to hurt somebody, you can definitely hurt someone with that lie, because no one’s going to believe” the man. Accordingly, some men, including William’s friends, avoid relationships with women altogether: “That’s something that I see in my peers a lot, is fear to even enter into a relationship for fear of that happening at one point. Because of how public the #MeToo movement is.”

Innovators of all genders are creating new demands surrounding affirmative consent, while resisters are increasingly being held accountable.

Git Stephen Giteau

Research indicates that the Republican party strategically deployed the language of “false” accusations during the 2018 U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (who was accused of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford when they were teenagers). Specialists in digital research tracked the Republican messaging that was pushed out to the public through Twitter during the confirmation hearings. As Rosenblatt and Lake found in their 2018 article in The Nation, Republicans first emphasized “the core American value of the ’presumption of innocence’: that a person is innocent until proven guilty,” which effectively “mobilized men.” This standard is utilized by the criminal justice system, although the confirmation hearings were not a criminal proceeding. When retweets of these messages slowed down, Republicans shifted to a different narrative that personalized the problem by claiming that all men are vulnerable to “false” accusations. To reinforce what Rosenblatt and Lake call a “coherent and deliberate” Republican social media campaign, Diamond, a journalist, quoted Trump in an article in CNN in 2018 as declaring that it is “a very scary time for young men in America.” Thus, through a media and social media blast aimed at supporting Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Republicans effectively advanced a “false” accusation narrative that appealed to young men and has had lasting reverberations.

Yet not all of the focus group men took this approach. Caleb said: “There’s a lot of men who try to point to these things and say, ’Oh look, anybody can be accused.’ There’s a lot of men who really exaggerate these things and say, ’Oh, I can’t talk to any woman now because I’m afraid that I’m going to be accused of this, this and this.’” Caleb disagreed: “Those are the men that should be the most concerned anyways. If you have that attitude, that your normal actions can be construed as sexual harassment and that you can be accused while innocent, you might want to examine the way that you treat the opposite sex. You might want to examine the way that you, yourself behave.” Thus, fear of, and anger about, “false” accusations reflects new forms of accountability and public reckoning.

How the #Metoo Movement Will Transform the Future

Although transformations happen slowly, unevenly, and often with resistance, the social and cultural changes that have already taken place in everyday life suggest that a better future has the potential to emerge. Innovators of all genders are creating new demands surrounding affirmative consent, while resisters are increasingly being held accountable and are aware of rising accountability. To create deeper and lasting changes over the next 30 to 50 years, transformations in laws and policies are important to solidify the cultural transformations that are underway.

On the legal front, we hope to see significant changes in the future. In the United States, more states may adopt an affirmative consent legal standard and place limits on nondisclosure agreements, which have silenced survivors. Legislation has already been enacted to improve rape kit testing and extend the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits. Although many survivors continue to lose in court, some high profile cases, such as Nassar and Weinstein’s, have altered public discourse and expectations for criminal prosecution. Additionally, in June 2021, the International Labour Organization Convention on Violence and Harassment Treaty went into legal effect under international law, codifying some of the demands of the #MeToo movement.

We hope that workplaces and educational settings will continue to transform. In workplaces around the country, we have already witnessed the development of expanded sexual harassment policies, trainings, and personnel consequences for violations. Although recent studies, including one written by Banner and collaborators in 2021 in Feminist Criminology, suggest that mandatory training is not always effective, it represents a step in the right direction that we hope will be expanded and improved over time. It will be especially important to approach these issues within an intersectional framework in the future, as recent efforts to “believe” survivors are uneven. That is, women of color are less likely to be believed than white women, and false accusations have a racialized history in which Black men have been accused of raping white women.

As boys and men continue to be held accountable for their actions, they will continue to learn that such behaviors will not be tolerated. Although there are clear signs of contestation and resistance, including not only “false” accusation discourses, but also bitter fights over abortion and LGBTQ rights, we hope that the our society and culture will move further toward gender and sexual self-determination. We close with the words of one of our innovators: “One person comes forward. That brings the courage of all the other women.”