It’s more complicated than it seems: understanding nonverbal indicators of sexual consent among college students

Abstract

A movement in higher education policy within the United States is being made to require affirmative consent: a verbal ‘yes’ or some form of clear nonverbal communication that means yes. As a means to address nonverbal communication in sexual situations, the authors focused this study around the question of what do traditionally-aged college students believe constitutes nonverbal consent? Participants included 27 undergraduate students, ages ranging from 18 to 24 years. Findings revealed a series of 12 nonverbal behaviours that exhibited different forms of what the participants saw as constituting affirmative sexual consent. These behaviours included sex noises and/or heavy breathing, nodding, display or use of a contraceptive, arousal, and removing another individual’s clothing, among others. The authors utilise Sexual Scripts Theory and previous literature to analyse the findings. The main key implication from this study is that without a contextual setting, nonverbal indicators of sexual consent are difficult to interpret and highly conditional.