Sexual consent amongst young men who have sex with women: how it can be conceptualised, practised and influenced

Harle, Emily Charlotte ORCID: 0000-0003-4067-3608 (2025). Sexual consent amongst young men who have sex with women: how it can be conceptualised, practised and influenced. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This research explores how young men who have sex with women, aged 18-25, conceptualise consent, narrate their experiences of practising consent and the personal and contextual factors which influence these two things. Explicit, affirmative consent is widely considered to be ideal; however, it is a theoretical conceptualisation of consent involving a simplistic communicative exchange. Previous research has shown that most adults will define consent as following the affirmative model, but their consent communication in practice does not often follow this model and is more complex, nuanced and fluidly influenced by context. Thus, there is a need to consider how consent is practised in a real-world context when individuals are seeking positive, consensual sexual experiences. This study foregrounds young men’s real-world consent communication experiences, how that communication functions, their feelings about consent and the influence of different contexts.

The research is an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study which centres experience. The qualitative methods involved two in-depth interviews and six weeks of diary entries. During the six weeks, participants were given a sample set of pornography which showcased explicit consent to aid their reflections. When discussions about consent can be highly theoretical, an audio-visual vignette can be a useful resource to ground conversations in a sexual context and aid reflection; and this was the case for the participants.

The key finding was that the participants used mostly physical communication strategies in the moment to navigate consent throughout evolving sexual experiences. However, the participants also engaged in verbal communication with their partners outside of the moment in the form of ongoing conversations about boundaries and desires, which aided their physical communication during sex. The major contribution to the field is the production of a new model for understanding consent communication during sexual experiences: Coordinated Management of Consent (CMC). CMC should not be interpreted as an ideal way to communicate consent but is instead a descriptive model which outlines the participants' processes of communication; how this sample of people approached and enacted consent. In other words, it is a means of describing how the participants practiced consent and what guided their practice.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):