Centering Issues of Identity in Consent: A Critical Sexuality Review of U.S. History and Research on Identity and Consent

Abstract

Sexual violence is a serious public health problem that affects about half of women and almost a third of men. This high prevalence demands more research on understanding sexual violence and its victims and perpetrators. However, at the crux of understanding sexual violence is understanding consent. Past research and advocacy work for consent have traditionally focused on communication and perceptions of consent, but other research has argued that this focus overlooks the numerous ways power, privilege, and marginalization affect the context of consent. Proponents of critical sexuality studies argue for a deeper understanding of consent through an examination of identity and the larger systemic contexts wherein consent takes places. This article seeks to examine how these contextual factors manifest in identity-related issues of consent through a critical sexuality lens. What follows then is a brief historical review of the psycholegal history of consent in the United States, and how that history connects to modern issues of sexual violence. Then a review of consent research highlights the gap between historical understanding and scientific understanding of consent. Finally, the article concludes with recommendations for future research.

Centering Issues of Identity in Consent: A Critical Sexuality Review of Consent Literature and the History of Consent in the United States

Sexual violence is a widespread and long-standing problem in the United States, which affects about half of women and almost a third of men over their lifetimes (Basile et al., 2022). Despite the ubiquity of the problem, sexual violence remains poorly understood in societal and legal contexts. Although several definitions of sexual assault include many of the same elements, there remains considerable variation between definitions and across jurisdictions that vary in how broad or narrow they ascribe specific behaviors to fall under the category of sexual violence (Bouffard and Goodson, 2017). For example, while broader definitions of sexual violence may include forms of sexual harassment such as sending unsolicited nude pictures, more narrow definitions of sexual violence may instead consider sexual harassment as a separate, but related category of behaviors (Basile et al., 2014).

Despite these variations in definitions of sexual violence, the standard elements of sexual violence definitions typically revolve around some description of nonconsensual sexual activity (McKee et al., 2010)—but this definition then raises questions of what is consent and how does one distinguish consensual activity from nonconsensual sexual activity.

Problems with typical consent definitions and research

Although there are many different definitions of consent from legal, sociological, and psychological perspectives (Beres, 2007), the common aspects of sexual consent are: (1) it is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity; (2) it cannot be given by people who are incapacitated in any way; and (3) it must be given freely without coercion (RAINN, 2022). Such definitions coincide with broad legal and philosophical definitions of consent that emphasize competent and knowledgeable freedom of choice; however, legal scholars have criticized such definitions as too ambiguous and nonrepresentative of lay understanding of consent, resulting in uneven application of consent within legal settings (Sommers, 2019). Advocates have then tried to improve upon this definition by emphasizing affirmative or enthusiastic consent.

Affirmative consent is a form of consent that focuses on positive, active, affirmative expressions of consent to discourage traditional, passive definitions of consent that conceptualized the absence of a no or lack of resistance as an assumption of consent (RAINN, 2022). Studies have then shown that affirmative consent policies related to increased accuracy of sexual assault judgments, increased positive attitudes toward consent, and at times led to self-reported behavioral changes—although the perceived effectiveness of these policies was much larger than changes to actual sexual behavior (Hovick et al., 2019; Miller, 2020; Miller, 2021; Ortiz, 2019; Youstin, 2022).

Although promising and an overall positive, albeit small, improvement to sexual behavior, these underwhelming results have led some to criticize the utility of affirmative consent and sexual violence codes more broadly as being more symbolic than practicable policies (Hardesty et al., 2021). In addition, despite widespread agreement that affirmative consent represents a positive and important improvement over previous passive consent definitions, some have criticized affirmative consent for being unrealistic and unrepresentative of how most people actually practice consent and for failing to account for cultural differences in consent communication (Baldwin-White, 2021; Beres, 2014; Fenner, 2018; Levand, 2020; Shumlich and Fisher, 2018). Furthermore, some researchers have criticized affirmative consent's underlying miscommunication theory of sexual violence, which posits that issues of communication and perception largely drive instances of sexual violence (Beres, 2014; Harris, 2018).

This theory has been criticized for minimizing sexual violence as an issue of communication and for inadvertently reinforcing gender essentialism and victim-blaming rape myths, while having little effect on decreasing sexual violence perpetration (Beres, 2020; Fanghanel, 2020; Metz et al., 2021). In addition, miscommunication theory conforms more to legal conceptualizations of consent, which tend to focus more on consent as a single yes/no question and reinforce understanding consent as a way to avoid punishment, while failing to recognize the dynamic and nonverbal nuance inherent within consent (Heyes, 2019; Hirsch et al., 2019; Tinkler et al., 2018).

The prevalence of this miscommunication theory perspective then influences most research on consent. Past consent reviews have largely categorized consent research into two main areas of consent: (1) acts and beliefs and (2) influencing factors (Kubota and Nakazawa, 2022). The largest area of research falls under the first category, acts and beliefs, with a heavy focus on the action, communication, and perception of consent, which oftentimes supports and affirms the miscommunication theory of consent (Beres, 2014). Although this area includes the influence of beliefs on these miscommunications, this research still interprets these data through the lens of miscommunication theory by asserting belief factors as moderators or mediators of miscommunication, instead of directly leading to perceived miscommunication (Brown et al., 2018; Guéguen, 2011; Johnson et al., 2016).

For instance, pervasive victim-blaming beliefs related to degree of nudity and type of dress of women have been found to moderate consent perceptions, particularly in cis-heterosexual men, wherein those with these beliefs are more likely to misperceive and assume sexual interest or consent of women (Guéguen, 2011; Johnson et al., 2016). However, the gendered bias of these findings calls into question the purely perceptional effects of this type of research. Such misperceptions only make sense if gendered biases and belief systems toward sex lead to misperceptions rather than misperceptions themselves being the source of nonfactual understanding of consent and biases merely moderating them. That is not to say that misperceptions do not happen, but rather that by focusing on perception of consent there is an assumption of no malicious intent, which then minimizes the real role that discriminatory beliefs play in that perception.

Influencing factors do a better job at addressing issues of consent beyond perception. Unlike proximal situational factors, these factors tend to reflect the larger context of the relationship within which a sexual encounter occurs and the different power dynamics that can influence people's ability to consent freely (Brubaker, 2009; Mengeling et al., 2014). However, this research has focused on very narrow aspects of power within relationships by mainly focusing on relationship intimacy or the potential of abuse due to professional status (Cooke et al., 2019; Darden et al., 2019; Jaffe et al., 2021; Marcantonio et al., 2018; Willis and Jozkowski, 2019). This research then conveys the important influence that power and context have on understanding consent beyond simple perception, but still fails to capture any larger macro-system effects that may influence consent and consent understanding.

Alternative approaches to consent

Beyond affirmative consent and miscommunication theory, there are also several approaches to improve sexual interactions in practice. The first, which has the most immediate, practical implications are data-driven, harm reduction approaches to consent. This approach does not necessarily contradict current legal conceptualizations of consent, but rather sidesteps the issue by focusing on direct, observable harm with the utilitarian assumption that questions of consent and nonconsent relate most to actual harm done. Although the legal system already considers harm and damage done during criminal proceedings, this approach pushes that consideration further by centering the conversation on base rates of harm and victim perspectives. In addition, a data-driven, harm reduction approach would also help avoid the pitfalls of moral reform tendencies, which often reinforce identity-based disparities.

One example of the potential of this type of research is some research on age of consent, which has historically been derived arbitrarily and oscillated between protecting youth from sexual abuse and controlling youth sexuality (Strange, 2010). A study in Canada found that the majority of 14- and 15-year olds, who engaged in sexual activities, had partners who were within a 2-year age range, while majority of minors 13 years old and younger, who engaged in sexual activities, had significantly older partners and were more likely to experience forced sex (Miller et al., 2010).

This type of study could then better inform current age of consent laws, although the data would suggest a lower age cutoff for age of consent laws than most states or countries currently have enacted. However, this approach, as with all data on base rates, runs the risk of state actors misrepresenting such data to derive rigid contours of statute, instead of nuanced guideposts that inform the likelihood of a given interaction being experienced as violent. In this way, although this approach could help maximize the protective potential of laws, while minimizing the controlling potential, it still fails to fundamentally challenge systems of power and assumes such systems interpret data and enact policies and laws in good faith.

A second approach that several scholars have proposed as an alternative is a greater focus on ethical sex rather than legal sex (Beres, 2014; Fanghanel, 2020). Similar in spirit to affirmative consent, ethical sex promotes positive sexual experiences that minimize potential harm, but unlike with affirmative consent, ethical sex focuses less on specific circumscribed communicative actions and more on nuanced exploration of a sexual relationship (Carmody, 2005). Ethical sex challenges consent conceptualizations by placing consent, specifically the communication of consent, as one part of a larger sexual experience that may or may not contribute to a person's experience of that event as violent or nonviolent. This expansion of understanding consent then allows for greater ability to include analysis on the impact of power within the sexual relationship.

Not much research has examined the educational potential of ethical sex, but one study that examined an ethical sex education program in Australia and New Zealand found that it did produce behavioral change and improvements in participants' conceptualizations of gender and gender relationships (Carmody and Ovenden, 2013). These results are promising and provide support for continued research on the transformative potential of ethical sex education, but were also limited to considering only heterosexual power dynamics in dyadic couples. In addition, this analysis of power dynamics still remains largely focused on specific sexual interactions rather than an analysis of how those power dynamics fit into larger more complex systems.

Another approach toward consent would be to focus on reducing discriminatory beliefs connected to consent. Such an approach would not necessarily directly challenge institutional support of discrimination within consent, but it would center oppression and discrimination within its conceptualization of consent. Despite near universal agreement that problematic, heteronormative beliefs interrelate to issues of consent (Beres, 2020), that acknowledgment of discrimination's role alone does not translate to effective intervention and does little to guide communities on how to combat discriminatory beliefs. Indeed, despite strong evidence for the need for general discrimination interventions, there remains little guidance on how to implement such effective interventions in most settings (FitzGerald et al., 2019).

Because clinical psychology has traditionally shied away from directly addressing discriminatory beliefs, there are few interventions that exist, and the ones that do exist provide mixed evidence of effectiveness (Jorm, 2020). Some community and outreach efforts have attempted to offer group-level programs to address discrimination, but many of these attempts have mixed results at best (Parker et al., 2018). This limited guidance then highlights the difficulty in implementing such interventions. In addition, although this approach would focus on person-level and cultural interventions, larger systemic sources of oppression would remain secondary considerations.

Moving toward a critical sexuality view of consent

Given these limitations in definitions and research on consent on addressing systemic issues, it is then reasonable to revisit this more general question about the appropriateness of various models of consent and their ability to address mechanisms of sexual violence. Some more recent literature has pushed back on these restricted models of consent and has called for a more fundamental analysis of the subjective experiences of consent, with an emphasis on why individuals feel as if consent is or is not competent, knowledgeable, or voluntary (Bohns, 2022).

What this type of model alludes to, but does not explicitly name, and what affirmative consent and miscommunication theory fail to address is the underlying influence of power in the experience of consent. Because power dictates who can and cannot make decisions and whose decisions are respected by others (Kim et al., 2019), it is a critical and central component of consent. However, despite its importance, even when other approaches allow for the consideration of power, that conceptualization of power is still limited to narrow, specific individual circumstances that fail to truly account for broad systemic influences (Carmody and Ovenden, 2013; Jorm, 2020).

It is important to emphasize how critical systemic-level analysis is to the development of a comprehensive analysis of power in consent and the promotion of a more radical, abolitionist potential to research. This type of research is probably the most important, but most difficult research area to effectively implement. At the core of this difficulty lies a fundamental misunderstanding about the difference between reform and abolition. Researchers and advocates harbor a long history of implementing institutional changes at the policy level, which can and has yielded important, positive benefits, as seen with marked improvements in consent laws and reduction in sexual violence, particularly over the last half of the 20th century (RAINN, 2022).

At the same time, these changes fall majority within the reformist side of improvement and, as is the case with affirmative consent, typically lead to small changes that fail to challenge systems of power, which encourage sexual violence in the first place, and can even inadvertently reinforce hegemonic belief systems or make larger reforms more difficult to pass (Beres, 2020; Metz et al., 2021). This statement is not to say that reformist approaches in terms of public policy are useless, but a myopic focus on policy reform at the expense of abolitionist considerations allows the legal system to contort psychological research into upholding legal institutions instead of challenging them. Research needs to address not just current harm reduction needs but also an analysis of the deeper structural and conceptual problems of the legal system and which of these structures inherently prevent better understanding of consent from being achieved.

One potential framework for analyzing consent issues within this systemic context that better addresses this question of the role of power is through the lens of critical sexuality studies (Campo-Engelstein, 2016). Critical sexuality studies derive from other critical theories such as critical race theory and critical psychology, and like these other theories, it seeks to understand issues of power, privilege, and marginalization, both historically and currently, which influence issues related to sexuality (Fahs and McClelland, 2016). This historically grounded analysis is novel to traditional ahistorical scientific practices, but principal to any discussion on power.

The dangers of nonhistorical scientific analysis of power are that it may reify current problems as endemic to human nature and ignore the ways that so many of these problems have roots in century-lasting patterns of oppression that reproduce themselves in predictable ways in modern society. Within consent research, critical sexuality studies would then specifically examine historical patterns of power, privilege, and marginalization inherent both in the practice of consent and within consent research. This power, privilege, and marginalization manifest in many ways, but one of the most salient manifestations that also lends itself to practical study of these concepts is identity. Therefore, to build this critical sexuality conceptualization of consent, it is first necessary to understand how these constructs of power, privilege, and marginalization manifest in identity and what role identity plays in consent.

Current Review

This review applies a critical sexuality approach by analyzing the role identity has played in understanding consent. In keeping with a critical sexuality approach, the first section of this review provides a brief analysis and overview of the historical role identity and subsequent systems of power have played in understandings of consent in the United States. Then, a brief review of current inequities in sexual violence victimization, perpetration, and prosecution follows and highlights how many of these historical sources of inequity persist, despite attempts at reform.

These historical patterns are then compared to a review of identity-related consent research to demonstrate both how this research is better understood through this historical identity perspective and to identify the many gaps in the research and areas of identity that have been overlooked. By demonstrating the important historical role identity has played in conceptualizations of consent and sex throughout history and the relative lack of identity-based research on consent, this review aims to push understanding of consent and sexual violence as both existing within and resulting from intersectional systems of identity-based discrimination and exploitation. From this understanding then, new critical sexuality research on consent can better analyze how those systems of power operate in consent settings.

Historical Context of Consent

As confusing as the current understanding of sexual violence and consent is, this confusion is not new to the United States or to much of Western history. Historian Freedman (2011) described the history of rape as about “tracking the changing cultural narratives that define which women may charge which men with the crime of forceful, unwanted sex and whose accounts will be believed,” (p.1870). As this quote illustrates, the legal system does not apply consent equally—even the quote makes heterosexual and gendered assumptions about sexual violence—and depends on the identity and privilege of the actors involved. Throughout U.S. history, the definition of consent has changed depending on race, gender, class, and multiple other identities (Freedman, 2011). Definitions of consent, particularly in the legal system, then reflect views on the validity of individuals' personhood and the larger systems of oppression that permeate all aspects of society.

Victim qualifications

Because most of the legal system in the United States was made by and for white persons, sexual assault and consent laws that did exist throughout history mostly applied to sexual violence, as perpetrated by white, Protestant men victimizing white, Protestant women (Iglesias, 1996). Although these identity-based differences and discriminatory practices were rarely codified into statutes, various examinations of case law reveal that oftentimes for non-white persons, sexual violence was the norm and typically legally permitted through assumptions of consent (Block, 2006; Robertson, 2006). For instance, Europeans viewed Indigenous peoples as objects incapable of thought or consent upon which European men could openly enact any brutality with no consequence—a stark contrast for a culture where sexual violence was so rare, many native languages did not have a word for rape (Deer, 2004; Poupart, 2003; Smith, 2003).

Similarly, for black Americans, due to the literal legal status as property during slavery, sexual assault was often viewed as mere property use (Block, 2006). White Americans viewed black women as “easy” and “natural breeders,” justifying sexual assault through the suggestion that black women inherently wanted sex and would naturally consent to any invitation (King, 2014). It would not be until 1861 that freed black women would even be allowed to file rape charges against white men underscoring the nonexistence of even superficial legal protection like those afforded to white women (Stevenson, 2013).

Relatedly, this view of innate hypersexuality in black persons when applied to black men—who also experienced high rates of sexual violence by white men—reinforced fears of black men's sexual aggression and dangerousness, which in turn led to the weaponization of criminal law and lynchings allowing for cruel, unrestrained violence toward black men and boys (Pinar, 2001). Such discriminatory views also contributed to the criminalization of consensual interracial sex throughout the country as anti-miscegenation sentiment rose after the Civil War, making it even more difficult to legally differentiate between consensual and nonconsensual sex for people of color (Cruz and Berson, 2001).

Even for white victims, who could qualify as a credible victim was extremely limited. Many colonials did not believe men and young boys could be raped regardless of the identity of the perpetrator, erasing the many men victims of sexual violence (Robertson, 2006). The only instances when legal action would take place would be specifically when young boys were raped by older men, and even in these instances, charges were often related to sodomy and homosexual “perversions,” not to actual sexual violence or nonconsent (Robertson, 2006).

Beliefs about hypersexuality and assumed consent also extended to poor, working-class and immigrant white women, and anti-sodomy laws did not differentiate between consensual and nonconsensual queer sex, even when all persons involved were adults (Robertson, 2006; Robertson, 2002). Because of these and many other instances of institutionalized nonconsent, much of U.S. history of consent revolved mainly around the narrow and specific heterosexual sexual violence of white, cisgender women victims of white, cisgender men perpetrators.^*

Changing understandings of consent

For white women victims, changes to psycholegal definitions of consent often reflected and reinforced larger cultural views about the autonomy of white women generally. The initial basis for early U.S. sexual violence criminal law relied on old English common law dating back to the 1200s, which defined rape as the “forcible carnal knowledge” of women 10 years of age or older (Blackstone, 1753; Strange, 2010). Within civil law settings, “seduction” charges were often used to seek compensation from rape perpetrators without the burden of proof required for criminal courts (Robertson, 2002). Despite these surface-level legal protections, the practice of these laws made it difficult for rape victims to pursue criminal prosecution due to prevailing beliefs that the act of sex itself was evidence of consent (Bourke, 2014).

In addition, other problematic beliefs, also based on older English cultural standards, such as that spousal rape was “forced love,” lack of resistance was evidence of consent, and only child sexual assault victims were credible, created cultural barriers to any pursuit of rape allegations (Blackstone, 1753; Bourke, 2014; Edwards et al., 2011).

These cultural barriers were then reinforced by legal barriers such as the fact that women often had to rely on male family members to testify for them, restrictions on who was even allowed to make a rape charge and who was allowed to be charged, judges and juries that only consisted of white men, and the fact that spousal rape was not illegal in all states until 1993 (Blackstone, 1753; Hasday, 2000). Courts also feared false rape allegations so greatly, that judges would issue what were called Hale warnings (Table 1) during trial to warn jurors of the potential of false accusations—jury warnings that persisted as recently as 1975 in states like California (Edwards et al., 2011; People v. Rincon-Pineda, 1975).

Table 1.

Comparison of Hale Warning and 1970 California Jury Instructions

California Jury Instructions (1970)

“A charge such as that made against the defendant in this case is one which is easily made and, once made, difficult to defend against, even if the person accused is innocent.
Therefore, the law requires that you examine the testimony of the female person named in the information with caution.”

Sir Matthew Hale Comments on Rape (1736)

“It is true rape is a most detestable crime, and therefore ought severely and impartially to be punished with death; but it must be remembered, that it is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho[sic] never so innocent…. I only mention these instances, that we may be the more cautious upon trials of offenses of this nature, wherein the court and jury may with so much ease be imposed upon without great care and vigilance; the heinousness of the offense many times transporting the judge and jury with so much indignation, that they are over hastily carried to the conviction of the person accused thereof, by the confident testimony sometimes of malicious and false witnesses.”

The first quoted text comes from California jury instructions from 1970 (No. 10.22), which were required in California rape cases until they were overturned in 1975 (People v. Rincon-Pineda, 1975). The second quoted text comes from comments from Sir Matthew Hale found in “History of the Pleas of the Crown,” which was originally written in the 1600s and published posthumously in 1736.

The 1900s saw continued changes to beliefs in women autonomy and understandings of consent as the rise of industrialization and early forms of contraception meant more women entered the workforce, were less financially dependent on men, and were less fearful of illegitimate children from sex (Bourke, 2014; Rupp, 1989). During the sexual revolution in the 1960s, larger segments of society began viewing sex as a positive psychological event, as much as a physical act of reproduction—increasing acceptability of women sexual identities and the idea that women could be active participants in sex capable of enthusiastic consent (Bourke, 2014).

This cultural shift also corresponded with important legal changes over the 20th century. Broadening definitions of rape included spousal and date rape, and Nebraska became the first state to criminalize marital rape in 1976, with all states criminalizing it by 1993—although loopholes in several states persist and limit which spousal rape cases the authorities can prosecute (Hasday, 2000; Rupp, 1989). Multiple states in the 1970s and 1980s also adopted rape shield laws, which prevented examinations of victims' sexual history during criminal investigations (Call et al., 1991). By 1984, majority of states had eliminated witness corroboration requirements for rape victims' testimonies (Spohn, 1999).

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which increased services for rape and domestic violence victims and increased penalties for sex offenses, passed the U.S. Congress in 1994 and was most recently reauthorized and expanded in 2022 (VAWA, 2022). In addition, the current rise of affirmative consent standards, particularly on university campuses, marks an important shift in discussions about consent and sexual violence (Metz et al., 2021; Tinkler et al., 2018). These and other changes represent significant improvements over the forcible carnal knowledge and seduction laws of the 18th and 19th centuries, which are reflected in the fact that over the past 30 years, the rate of sexual violence against women fell by more than half—although this downward trend has leveled off in more recent years (Planty et al., 2016).

Moral reform laws

Even with these advancements in psycholegal definitions of consent and sexual violence laws, a simultaneous rise of sex negativity and “moral reform” law caused various other problems to arise around laws regulating sexual behavior, often at the detriment of various marginalized groups (Kemeny, 2014). Moral reform, which had roots in religious movements from the 1600s in England and continued throughout the 20th century, advocated for a culture of control over women's sexuality, often disguised as “social hygiene,” protection against sexual violence, and first-wave feminism (Bourke, 2014; Dabhoiwala, 2007; Shaver, 2011).

In this way, sexual violence laws tended to represent violations of societal and moral norms, which only sometimes overlapped with true sexual assault (Dabhoiwala, 2007). Such ideology then replicated itself through legislature in laws such as the Chamberlain-Kahn act of 1918, which allowed the indefinite quarantine and the involuntary screening and treatment of venereal disease in women suspected of sex work, the Temperance Movement and the 18th Amendment, the rise of public order crimes, including criminalization of sex work and various pornographic media, and later anti-abortion laws (Clarke, 1987; Luker, 1998; Sherkat and Ellison, 1997).

In the past few decades, other conservative sexual laws and rulings such as obscenity laws, attacks on reproductive health, and criminalization of online sex work have similarly been criticized for increasing policing of consensual sexual behavior of marginalized groups, while offering little protection against sexual assault or child abuse—despite espousing protection as the main goal of these laws (Rubin, 1999; Vanwesenbeeck, 2017). The existence of these moral reform movements, which simultaneously overlapped and conflicted with feminist movements, underscores the tension between protection and control that permeates throughout much of modern U.S. history and laws.

Continuing problems and disparities

The past 300 years of American history have demonstrated stark changes in the legal system's conceptualization of consent and sexual violence, which have largely led to positive improvements in terms of both increased prosecution of sexual violence and decreased incidence of sexual violence. However, despite these notable and important improvements, the legal definitions and conceptualizations of consent remain riddled with weaknesses and lack of standardization. Definitions of consent are not uniform across states nor are they uniformly applied to all cases (RAINN, 2022).

Not every state explicitly defines consent with some implying consent through the inclusion of coercion in their state sexual offense statutes, and of the ones that do define consent, definitions vary considerably (see Table 2, for examples). Definitions of who is capable or incapable to consent also vary by state, as evidenced by the many differences between age of consent, mental or physical incapacitation, and appropriate or inappropriate sexual relationships based on professional statuses (see Table 3, for examples). Problems such as child marriage loopholes, fear of defamation and other legal retaliation for victims, and criminalization of consensual sex work persist (Dee, 2021; Ochieng, 2020; Vanwesenbeeck, 2017). In addition, most laws fail to account for more subtle forms of manipulation and coercion such as fear or fraudulent misrepresentation (Rubenfeld, 2013).

Table 2.

Comparison of Alabama, California, and Georgia State Law Definitions of Consent

Alabama	California	Georgia
Passive consent	Affirmative consent	Implied consent definition
Consent has been interpreted to mean “acquiescence or compliance [with the proposition of another].” Lack of consent then results from either forcible compulsion (meaning use or threatened use) or being incapable of consent. “Existence of forcible compulsion is conclusive presumptive evidence of lack of consent, but lack of consent can also exist without forcible compulsion.” In addition, “consent…may be communicated by words or actions. The existence of a current or previous marital, dating, social, or sexual relationship with the defendant is not sufficient to constitute consent. Evidence that the victim suggested, requested, or otherwise communicated to the defendant that the defendant use a condom or other birth control device or sexually transmitted disease protection, without additional evidence of consent, is not sufficient to constitute consent.”	Consent is defined to mean “positive cooperation in act or attitude pursuant to the exercise of free will. The person must act freely and voluntarily and have knowledge of the nature of the act or transaction involved.”	The State of Georgia does not define consent in reference to sexual activity. The offense of rape occurs when it is against “a female forcibly and against her ill.” The phrase “against her will” means without consent.

The above table depicts examples of three different ways that consent may be legally defined across three different states.

Table 2 was created using the RAINN (2020) State Law database, which compiles information on consent laws through an examination of multiple statutes, as well as case law. The displayed information is based on the most current form of the database, which was last updated in March of 2020, which means it is possible some of this information may have changed since then.

For Table 2, the author has also further edited the information presented above for length and clarity. Quotes then represent language present in RAINN's database and may or may not reflect the exact wording of statutes or case law.

Table 3.

Comparison of Alabama, California, and Georgia State Law Definitions of Incapacitation

Type of incapacitation	Alabama	California	Georgia
Age of consent	16 years old, but there are exemptions if the victim is at least 12 and the defendant is <2 years older than the younger minor.	18 years old, but punishments may vary based on the size of the age difference.	16 years old, but statutory rape is mitigated from a felony to a misdemeanor when the victim is at least 14 years old, but <16 years old and the accused is 18 years of age or younger and no more than 4 years older than the victim.
Developmental disability	Incapacitation includes a person who suffers from a mental or developmental disease or disability, which “renders the person incapable of appraising the nature of his or her conduct.”	A person can be incapable of giving legal consent because of a physical disability, mental disorder, or developmental disability.	A victim who has a developmental disability or lacks the mental capacity to make “ordinary judgments on his or her own” is unable to give consent to sexual acts.
Physical disability	Incapacitation includes a person who is otherwise “physically limited or unable to communicate.”	A person can be incapable of giving legal consent because of a physical disability.	Georgia state law does not explicitly refer to physical disability, except in cases where it relates to other mental or developmental incapacitation.
Lack of consciousness	Incapacitation includes a person who is “unable to give consent or unable to communicate an unwillingness to an act because the person is unconscious or asleep.”	The accused is guilty of rape if the other person at the time is “unconscious of the nature of the act and it is known to the accused.” Unconscious of the nature of the act may include the victim being asleep, unconscious, or otherwise unaware.	A victim whose “will is temporarily lost due to unconsciousness arising from use of drugs or other cause, or sleep” is unable to consent to sexual activity.
Intoxication	Incapacitation includes a person who is “temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling his or her conduct due to the influence of a narcotic, anesthetic, or intoxicating substance and the condition was known or should have been reasonably known to the offender.”	The accused is guilty of rape if “the other person is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known, by the accused.”	A victim whose “will is temporarily lost from intoxication, arising from use of drugs or other cause,” is unable to consent to sexual activity.

The above table includes typical examples of incapacitation, as defined by three states. These examples are not an exhaustive list of all possible forms of incapacitation, but demonstrate differences in language and approach to different questions of incapacitation.

Table 3 was also created using the RAINN (2020) State Law database, which compiles information on consent laws through an examination of multiple statutes, as well as case law. The displayed information is based on the most current form of the database, which was last updated in March of 2020, which means it is possible some of this information may have changed since then.

For Table 3, the author has also further edited the information presented above for length and clarity. Quotes then represent language present in RAINN's database and may or may not reflect the exact wording of statutes or case law.

These continuing problems with legal definitions of consent also manifest in the disparities between rates of sexual violence and rates of prosecution and enforcement. Despite high rates of sexual violence victimization, only about a third of sexual assault cases are reported to police and only about 9% of reported cases (3% of total cases) lead to a conviction (RAINN, 2022). Furthermore, marginalized people remain disproportionately affected by sexual violence in ways that mirror their historical oppression.

Over half of Indigenous women will suffer sexual violence in their lifetimes—the highest of any demographic in the United States—over 90% of which are perpetrated by non-native persons (Rosay, 2016). In addition, due to the Major Crimes Act of 1885 and a later Supreme Court decision in 1978 (Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 1978), tribal legal systems lacked the ability to prosecute sex crimes themselves until the recent reauthorization of the VAWA (2022), which overturned these previous rulings.

Similarly, black women have some of the lowest rates of sexual violence reporting with only 1 in 16 doing so, while also experiencing the highest rate of police-perpetrated sexual violence (Jacobs, 2017). For transgender persons, about half of transgender people have been sexually assaulted within their lifetimes with rates even higher for those who are non-white, sex workers, homeless, and/or disabled (James et al., 2016). Men victims and victims of nonheterosexual violence also continue to face substantial victim blaming and myths questioning the validity of their victim status corresponding to sizeable obstacles to legal redress of sexual violence (Bullock and Beckson, 2011).

In addition to inequalities in sexual violence risk for potential victims and the subsequent lack of legal protection, there are also inequalities in terms of perpetrator prosecution. Despite evidence that sexual violence as a whole is severely underprosecuted, at the same time, there exists overprosecution of sexual crimes within specific communities (Shaw and Lee, 2019). In addition to the numerous criticisms toward sex offender registration laws and related sexually violent predator laws for being overly punitive and at times counter-intuitively increasing risk for sexual violence (Cohen and Jeglic, 2007), men of color are more likely to be charged with sexual assault and more likely to face more serious charges than their white counterparts (Shaw and Lee, 2019).

In accordance with historical patterns of violent weaponization of criminal law, black men, specifically, are also more likely to be wrongfully convicted of sexual crimes, face longer sentences when convicted, and to be sent to state penitentiaries, particularly when their victims were white, compared to white perpetrators (Mogavero et al., 2022; Spohn et al., 2014). Also, despite the Supreme Court ruling that anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), news articles as recently as 2021 still reported instances of states requiring gay men convicted under anti-sodomy laws before the Supreme Court ruling to continue to register as sex offenders (Avery, 2021). Furthermore, people convicted of sex offenses with a history of mental illness face harsher punishments in the form of sexually violent predator laws, despite limited evidence that mental illness increases sexual violence recidivism, perpetuating myths about mental illness equating to high violence risk (Kingston et al., 2015).

Summary

Taken together then, as Freedman (2011) suggested in her feminist work, these disparate data points suggest that sexual violence and lack of sexual consent have been and continue to be a crime when a certain type of person commits sexual violence against a certain type of victim. In this way, sexual violence prosecution is weaponized against marginalized communities, while remaining largely ineffective for the majority of sexual offences.

These patterns of weaponization closely adhere to their historical counterparts, making it impossible to separate modern day issues from their historical context. In these ways and many more, despite the many recent improvements, current U.S. sex laws still reflect a 300-year-old trend of sexual violence directed at the marginalized and vulnerable. Even when sexual violence prosecution does take place, that prosecution is directed at other marginalized groups and rarely toward those who hold actual power and privilege. Such a deeply entrenched societal aspect then requires an examination of not just individual and micro-level influences on sexual violence but also the larger sociopolitical and cultural forces manifested in identity differences that shape and reinforce patterns of sexual violence.

Research on Consent and Identity Factors

Despite these historical trends indicating the important role of cultural beliefs and systems of discrimination on psycholegal conceptualizations of consent, little research has directly examined the macro-level effects of Western hierarchies and cultures of power on consent. Instead, most research on consent has examined the many factors that both make up and interact with consent and perceptions of consent with only some newer research examining issues of identity, which indirectly addresses cultural beliefs or systemic effects on consent. Part of the reason for this lack of identity-based research comes from the difficulty in conducting such research.

Because identity is a multifaceted construct that includes both an internal self-descriptor that conveys cultural values and an external societal label that conveys power, privilege, vulnerability, and marginalization, research on this construct must also incorporate a multifaceted approach (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000). Adding further complication to identity research, these two aspects of identity can also interact to create internalized discriminatory beliefs directed at the self (Nadal et al., 2021). Because of this difficulty, most research on consent does not fully capture any of these aspects of identity and tends to focus on small or indirect identity aspects. What follows then is the research that does exist on identity and consent, how it compares to historical patterns of oppression, and the many areas that require more study.

Cisgender, heterosexual identities

The most obvious and well-documented of these disparities is research on cisgender, heterosexual gender differences in perceptions and enaction of consent. This area more closely embraces and acknowledges the historical and systemic power inherent in issues of sexual violence.

In keeping with historical patterns, research has consistently found that misogynistic attitudes, essentialist beliefs about gender and gender roles, hostile/hypermasculinity, and rape myth acceptance—all of which fall under the larger umbrella of patriarchal values and discriminatory beliefs toward women—are associated with a higher likelihood of assumptions of women's sexual consent across contexts and scenarios, which in turn increase risk for sexual violence perpetration (Hermann et al., 2018; Javidi et al., 2020; Lofgreen et al., 2021; Salazar et al., 2018; Zinzow and Thompson, 2019). In contexts where masculine norms are encouraged such as in military settings, this association between men's rape-supportive beliefs and assumption of implied consent is even more pronounced, highlighting the importance of socialization in the development of men's beliefs about consent (Berry-Cabán et al., 2020).

Other studies also show that many men generally have more narrow understandings of consent and overly rely on legal conceptualizations of consent (Marg, 2020; Siegel et al., 2021). At the same time, the vast majority of men, even those who have perpetrated sexual assault, are not wholly ignorant of consent and still understand what behaviors constitute rape (Siegel et al., 2021). One qualitative online study of college-aged Canadian men found that men who had perpetrated sexual violence justified their behavior with essentialist beliefs about male sex drive and retroactively described their experiences as normative and nonviolent (Jeffrey and Barata, 2019). The men in this study also demonstrated understanding of the potential harm they committed against their partners and understood nonconsent when applied to their own experiences of denying sex.

In addition, even when men conceptualize affirmative consent through a feminist lens of bodily autonomy, this understanding still conforms to gendered expectations of male sexual entitlement and protection from sexual assault allegations (Metz et al., 2021). Such findings suggest that even men who perpetrate sexual violence generally understand consent, but may use more limited definitions of consent to justify their own behaviors and tend to be more concerned with legal rather than ethical consequences.

Women were also not immune from the effects of societal misogyny on their own perceptions of consent. One online study of 222 cis-heterosexual women found that women with lower levels of beliefs about their own sexual agency were more likely to feel pressure to conform to women gender roles and more likely to search for reasons to consent to unwanted sexual pressure (Quinn-Nilas and Kennett, 2018). At the same time, other studies have found that women who were high in individualist beliefs about their own self-sufficiency and agency, high in beliefs of a just world, and high in need to control their environment were more likely to engage in victim blaming and less likely to want to support or help victims (Culda et al., 2018; Katz et al., 2018). Similarly, a study comparing women athletes to nonathletes found that, although women athletes were as likely as nonathletes to have experienced pressure to consent to sex, they were more likely to criticize women victims of sexual assault for any passivity and lack of resistance and less likely to support victims reporting sexual assault incidences (McGovern, 2021).

Furthermore, a qualitative study examining women sexual negotiation behaviors found that women who believe in gendered expectations surrounding male sexual entitlement described frequent experiences of partner pressure for sex, greater emotional labor during sex, and no expectation for sexual reciprocity (Fahs and Swank, 2021). Complicating these findings, another study found that women with dyspareunia, a physical pain condition that limits sexual contact, experienced sexual acquiescence and beliefs about sexual obligations as a positive way to increase intimacy and care for a partner, suggesting sexual acquiescence is not always experienced negatively (Braksmajer, 2017). Together, these studies then illustrate a nuanced and complex relationship between women, internalized misogyny, gender essentialist attitudes toward sex, and women's actual practice of sex, requiring more extensive research.

Interestingly, these misogynistic beliefs also affect perceptions toward male sexual violence victims. It is commonly believed that adult men cannot be victims of sexual assault and if they are, there are minimal negative effects on male victims (Peterson et al., 2011). Although not as obvious in alignment with systems of oppression, given men's position of power within misogynistic hierarchies, such disregard for male sexual assault victims aligns with historical beliefs that men could not be raped (Robertson, 2006).

Feminist theories best explain this seeming contradiction by asserting that victimization is inherently feminizing and that male victims, despite themselves being men, are then viewed through this feminizing lens and treated as if they were women (Marcus, 1992). In support of this feminizing explanation, one study found that male victims of sexual assault were described with similar feminine traits as female victims of sexual assault (Mulder et al., 2020). Furthermore, as with women, these beliefs can become internalized, resulting in lower reporting of sexual violence by male victims (Hlavka, 2017). Although less studied than female victims, such effects on male victims then highlight the far-reaching effects of misogynistic beliefs and power systems.

Race and ethnic identities

Despite the clear differences in sexual assault rates between white victims and non-white victims, there remains little research on differences in consent or consent perceptions based on race and even less on ethnicity. One study that looked at 332 white and Asian college students found that those students who held more racist believes were more likely to engage in victim-blaming when presented with interracial sexual violence vignettes, wherein victims were black, and perpetrators were white (George and Martinez, 2002).

Another study specifically examined white women college students' bystander intent (Katz et al., 2017). This study found that when presented with potential victims who were black, white women college students reported less intent to intervene, less personality responsibility to intervene, and higher likelihood of perceiving potential black victims as experiencing more pleasure compared to a neutral control. Interestingly, white women college students with higher levels of symbolic racism did not differ in response between victim race and reported overall less intent to intervene and more victim-blaming beliefs regardless of the race of the potential victim. Another study conducted in Sweden found a similar main effect of racist beliefs on victim-blaming beliefs, suggesting that those who hold racist beliefs are likely to hold other discriminatory beliefs (Sjöberg and Sarwar, 2022).

Although these results appear to generally conform to historical patterns of sexual violence discrimination as they apply to black women, the effects of other race or ethnic identities are still unclear. In addition, the small pool of literature provides little examination of populations beyond college samples with only Sjöberg and Sarwar's (2022) study examining a community sample in Sweden. Therefore, it is not established whether these patterns would apply to a larger population or if they also apply to non-white participants.

Also, more specific ethnicities have rarely been examined. The few studies examining ethnicity and consent in the United States tend to focus on specific, often intersectional, populations and are primarily qualitative studies with small samples focusing on participants' cultural values toward sex with no comparative analysis (Dhar et al., 2017; De Santis et al., 2018; Gutzmer et al., 2016; Stephens et al., 2017). These studies then point toward the importance of race and ethnicity as important factors that can affect perceptions and beliefs toward consent, but there remains a massive dearth of research in this area.

Disability

Disability identities are an incredibly diverse category of marginalization that range from physical to developmental disabilities to mental disorders with differing levels of permanence and visibility. Such diversity makes it difficult to study the effects of disability discrimination, leading to research often focused on specific disabled groups. In terms of sexual behavior research specifically, research on this heterogenous population is further complicated by a history of discrimination through sterilization laws and longstanding beliefs that persons with disabilities are either asexual or hypersexual (Gil-Llario et al., 2018; Kramers-Olen, 2016; Stein and Dillenburger, 2017).

As such, research on sexual consent and disability is limited to specific subsets of disability revolving primarily around legal questions of consent, the main areas of focus being dementia and intellectual/developmental disabilities with some additional focus on other disabilities such as traumatic brain injury, learning disabilities, and general mental health inpatient populations (Arango-Lasprilla et al., 2017; Ledger et al., 2016; Maylea, 2019; Wiskerke and Manthorpe, 2019). These few studies on consent and disability also mainly focus on either service provider perceptions of capacity to consent among disability populations or are case studies or general theoretical articles on questions of consent competence and ethics of facilitated sex (Brassolotto et al., 2021; Levine, 2016; Onstot, 2019; Tugut et al., 2016).

Several writings and studies have also noted specific issues with consent in autistic populations due to difficulties discerning others' perspectives; however, these conclusions are complicated due to notable gender differences within the autism community, high rates of sexual trauma in this population, and an overall lack of sexual education or advocacy, which may also explain difficulties understanding consent (Cheak-Zamora et al., 2019; Higgs and Carter, 2015; Holmes et al., 2016; Reuben et al., 2021). Only two studies actually examined perspectives from people with disabilities (Anderson et al., 2021; Bonder et al., 2021). One of the studies analyzed qualitative responses from five adolescents with disabilities (two mental health-related disabilities and three pain or mobility-related disabilities) and mainly focused on themes about lack of sex education and information on consent available to adolescents with disabilities (Bonder et al., 2021).

The second study analyzed responses about consent from a larger study on campus sexual violence and included 51 students who indicated having physical, sensory, neurodevelopmental, learning, or psychiatric disorders (Anderson et al., 2021). This study found that students with disabilities defined consent as ambiguous and more dependent on relationship context and general open communication about the relationship, while also being more wary of disclosures of any issue to service providers. Although these studies provide important information on the actual experience of consent for persons with disabilities that is not tied solely to third-party legal analysis of and comfortability with disability sex, there remains considerable need for more research on the experience and culture of consent within disability populations.

LGBTQIA+ identities

Like other minority identities, despite the diversity within queer and trans communities, research on LGBTQIA+ identities tends to collapse these differences into a single category or focuses on specific subpopulations such as queer men. Despite this limited research, there is evidence that LGBTQIA+ individuals generally are less likely to hold rape supportive and gender essentialist attitudes and more likely to hold more accurate and nuanced understanding of consent compared to cisgendered, heterosexual counterparts (Glace and Kaufman, 2020; McKenna et al., 2021). Because LGBTQIA+ identities inherently challenge gender normative beliefs, it makes sense that LGBTQIA+ individuals would hold a better understanding of gender and sexuality issues, including consent.

A qualitative study on queer participants' understanding of consent found that, although many queer individuals view verbal consent as important, they also viewed it as not always necessary or sufficient to fully understand consent, and that a full understanding of a partner's comfort and discomfort was necessary to truly understand consent—further highlighting the limitations of miscommunication theory to capture minority experiences of consent (Beres, 2022). However, although LGBTQIA+ individuals may better understand and support healthy consent, they also tend to feel less institutional support when seeking help for instances of sexual violence, emphasizing the systemic vulnerability this population experiences (Mennicke et al., 2020).

Although most studies mainly focus on college institutions, there is also evidence that lack of institutional support extends to other institutions such as police and correctional institutions (Jenness et al., 2019; Murphy-Oikonen and Egan, 2022). Possibly as a response to this lack of institutional support, LGBTQIA+ individuals are also more likely to take steps to mitigate this risk by engaging in bystander intervention strategies and offering peer support—although this support is complicated by additional support for risky sexual behaviors and a reliance on traditional heterosexual gender scripts in casual sex settings (Lamont et al., 2018; Tilley et al., 2020).

This tension between sexual liberty and sexual riskiness has also been captured in studies specifically on queer men. A qualitative study was conducted on 24 gay, bisexual, queer, and men who have sex with men from Toronto, Canada, wherein gay men believed unwanted sex to be unavoidable due to gay sex being inherently risky (Gaspar et al., 2021). Individuals in this study described this riskiness due to not just issues of homophobia and HIV prevention but also due to resistance to heteronormativity and a desire for sexual liberation.

Among gay and bisexual men specifically, many also believe that sexual assault is a normative experience, highlighting a complicated relationship between masculinity and victimization within gay and bisexual men communities (Jackson et al., 2017; McKie et al., 2020). Together, this limited research highlights that, although LGBTQIA+ communities may better understand consent than nonqueer communities, this understanding is nuanced and influenced by multiple institutional and cultural factors, which likely also vary within and between different queer and trans identities.

Other marginalized identities

Although less examined, historical trends would suggest other marginalized identities such as immigration status, household income, and class status would also potentially affect differences in consent conceptualizations within these groups, as well as differences in other groups' perceptions and beliefs about sex and consent in these populations. However, research has either not examined the effect of these identities on consent or has only examined these effects in the context of other intersectional identities.

Although there is some general evidence that people in rural areas experience more sexual violence, while receiving less sex education, and that high socioeconomic status (SES) status defendants accused of rape are viewed less harshly than low SES defendants (black and Gold, 2008; Katz et al., 2019; Shannon et al., 2016), how income level or class status affects understanding of consent remains unclear. Similarly, although one study examined conceptualizations of consent in a refugee population (Dhar et al., 2017), no research has examined how that translates to actual practice of consent or how institutional barriers and discrimination contribute to that practice and understanding. Research on these identities is sorely needed to better understand how consent practice differs by these and other overlooked identities.

Gap in Research and Future Directions

Most research on consent fails to directly address consent as it relates to larger systemic problems or issues related to identity with most identities under-researched or not researched at all. Most identity research for consent that does exist primarily revolves around cisgender, heteronormative contexts with evidence for a large main effect of heteronormativity, sexism, and gender essentialism on negative and inaccurate appraisals of consent across contexts (Hermann et al., 2018; Javidi et al., 2020; Lofgreen et al., 2021; Salazar et al., 2018; Zinzow and Thompson, 2019). These biases also appear to affirm gendered historical views of sexual violence, suggesting that many current problems of consent are rooted in historical misogynistic beliefs, adding support to a critical sexuality approach that examines identity-based differences in consent through a historical lens.

Although this evidence heavily supports the stance that issues of consent largely fall along gendered issues of discrimination, there remains a large gap in research on whether other forms of discrimination similarly inform understanding of consent and potentially interact with heteronormative biases. The limited research on other identities that does exist suggests the potential influence for internalized discriminatory beliefs that appear to map onto other historical systems of discrimination (Glace and Kaufman, 2020; Gil-Llario et al., 2018; Kramers-Olen, 2016; McKenna et al., 2021; Stein and Dillenburger, 2017), but ultimately none of this research directly examines how and to what extent historical inequities may affect consent. However, this evidence does support research approaches that ground their questions about different populations and identities in the specific histories of discrimination that affect said populations.

Critical sexuality is then a helpful framework for recontextualizing and reconciling current consent research with this historical background, while also offering multiple opportunities for new research directions, particularly in the many under-researched areas of identity. Such research would need to parse differences in consent understanding due to cultural differences versus differences due to systemic discrimination as a result of marginalized status—both of which are equally important to developing a critical and culturally competent view of consent.

This research would also need to build toward an intersectional model to understand how these different identities may interact and affect consent understanding. In addition, future research would also seek to understand how these systems of oppression are psychologically reproduced, maintained, and encouraged in individual understanding of identity with the hopes of offering solutions on how to dismantle these systems and their psychological correlates. Through this refocusing, psychological research can begin to adopt a critical sexuality framework for consent.

Summary

As this dearth of research on the relationship between identity and consent highlight, there are large gaps in identity research on consent and sexual violence largely driven by limitations in psychological conceptualizations of consent. These conceptual limitations tend to derive from psychology's history of conforming to legal concepts of consent (Bourke, 2014). Despite real improvements over time, the U.S. legal system still upholds many forms of dehumanization and discrimination and has remained a major source and perpetrator of that oppression; so reliance on legal frameworks for psychological constructs runs the risk of similarly upholding such tenets. Even when the field has attempted to push more progressive conceptualizations of consent, monocultural, heteronormative biases still pervade and unintentionally uphold the very systems that encourage or permit sexual violence (Beres, 2020; Fanghanel, 2020; Metz et al., 2021).

Because of the risk of falling into historical legal biases, psychological research on consent should take on a critical sexuality study approach, which intentionally and critically examines the specific definition of consent used in each study, as well as the historical implications of those definitions (Fahs and McClelland, 2016). Because psychological research has long ignored these systemic, historical framings, there is little guidance on how exactly to approach such goals. Consent cannot exist without the acknowledgment and appreciation for another human's personhood. Therefore, an area where this research should start is an examination of the central role of identity within consent. Utilizing this historically mindful, identity-based conceptualization of consent, the field can offer an exploration of consent beyond current legal limitations, which can then lead to true radical, abolitionist solutions that begin to aim at the heart of oppressive dynamics in consent.

Footnotes

Authors' Contributions

The original idea for this article came from A.B., who also performed the primary literature search, wrote, and edited the article. The author has read and approved the final article.

Author Disclosure Statement

The author certifies that she has no affiliation with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or nonfinancial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this article.

Funding Information

No funding was received for this article.

References

Anderson

, Richter

, Hawk

, et al. Exploring definitions of consent and healthy relationships among college students with disabilities: ‘I think it's fuzzy’. J Fam Violence, 2021; 37(2022):1353–1366; doi: 10.1007/s10896-021-00322-0

Arango-Lasprilla

, Olabarrieta-Landa

, Ertl

, et al. Survey on international health professional training and attitudes on sexuality after traumatic brain injury. Sex Disabil, 2017; 35(4):473–484; doi: 10.1007/s11195-017-9503-y

Avery

NBC News. Sodomy laws that labeled gay people sex offenders challenged in court; 2021. Available from: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/sodomy-laws-labeled-gay-people-sex-offenders-challenged-court-n1263225 [Last accesed: April 4, 2023].

Baldwin-White

“When a girl says no, you should be persistent until she says yes”: College students and their beliefs about consent. J Interpers Violence, 2021; 36(19–20):NP10619–NP10644; doi: 10.1177/0886260519875552

Basile

, Smith

, Breiding

, et al. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sexual violence surveillance: Uniform definitions and recommended data elements, Version 2.0. Atlanta, GA; 2014. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/sv_surveillance_definitionsl-2009-a.pdf [Last accessed: April 4, 2023].

Basile

, Smith

, Kresnow

, et al. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2016/2017 Report on Sexual Violence. Atlanta, GA; 2022. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs/nisvsReportonSexualViolence.pdf [Last accessed: April 4, 2023].

Beres

MA.

‘Spontaneous' sexual consent: An analysis of sexual consent literature. Fem Psychol, 2007; 17(1):93–108; doi: 10.1177/0959353507072914

Beres

MA.

Rethinking the concept of consent for anti-sexual violence activism and education. Fem Psychol, 2014; 24(3):373–389; doi: 10.1177/0959353514539652

Beres

Perspectives of rape-prevention educators on the role of consent in sexual violence prevention. Sex Educ, 2020:20(2):227–238; doi: 10.1080/14681811.2019.1621744

10.

Beres

MA.

From ignorance to knowledge: Sexual consent and queer stories. Fem Psychol, 2022; 32(2):137–155; doi: 10.1177/09593535211059003

11.

Berry-Cabán

, Orchowski

, Wimsatt

, et al. Perceived and collective norms associated with sexual violence among male soldiers. J Fam Violence, 2020; 35(4):339–347; doi: 10.1007/s10896-019-00096-6

12.

Black

, Gold

. Gender differences and socioeconomic status biases in judgments about blame in date rape scenarios. Violence Vict, 2008; 23(1):115–128; doi: 10.1891/0886-6708.23.1.115

13.

Blackstone

Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, vol. 2; 1753. Available from: https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/sharswood-commentaries-on-the-laws-of-england-in-four-books-vol-2 [Last accessed: February 26, 2023].

14.

Block

Rape and Sexual Power in Early America. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, NC; 2006.

15.

Bohns

VK.

Toward a psychology of consent. Perspect Psychol Sci, 2022; 17(4):1093–1100; doi: 10.1177/17456916211040807

16.

Bonder

, Wincentak

, Gan

, et al. ‘They assume that you're not having sex’: A qualitative exploration of how paediatric healthcare providers can have positive sexuality-related conversations with youth with disabilities. Sex Disabil, 2021; 39(2021):579–594; doi: 10.1007/s11195-021-09686-z

17.

Bouffard

, Goodson

. Sexual coercion, sexual aggression, or sexual assault: How measurement impacts our understanding of sexual violence. J Aggress Confl Peace Res, 2017; 9(4):269–278; doi: 10.1108/JACPR-05-2017-0292

18.

Bourke

Sexual violence, bodily pain, and trauma: A history. Theory Cult Soc, 2014; 29(3):25–31; doi: 10.1177/0263276412439406

19.

Braksmajer

‘That's kind of one of our jobs’: Sexual activity as a form of care work among women with sexual difficulties. Arch Sex Behav, 2017; 46(7):2085–2095; doi: 10.1007/s10508-017-0945-1

20.

Brassolotto

, Howard

, Manduca-Barone

. Sexual expression in Alberta's continuing care homes: Capacity, consent, and co-decision-making. Can J Aging, 2021; 40(1):156–165; doi: 10.1017/S0714980819000813

21.

Brown

, Horton

, Guillory

. The impact of victim alcohol consumption and perpetrator use of force on perceptions in an acquaintance rape vignette. Violence Vict, 2018; 33(1):40–52; doi: 10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-16-00099.

22.

Brubaker

, Cooper

Beyond “Identity.”. Theory Soc, 2000; 29(1):1–47.

23.

Brubaker

SJ.

Sexual assault prevalence, reporting and policies: Comparing college and university campuses and military service academies. Secur J, 2009; 22(1):56–72; doi: 10.1057/sj.2008.10

24.

Bullock

, Beckson

. Male victims of sexual assault: Phenomenology psychology, physiology. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 2011; 39(2):197–205.

25.

California Jury Instructions, Criminal (CALJIC) No. 10.22, 3d ed.; 1970.

26.

Call

, Nice

, Talarico

. Analysis of state rape shield laws. Soc Sci Q, 1991; 72(4):774–788; NCJ: 136934

27.

Campo-Engelstein

Rape as a hate crime: An analysis of New York law. Hypatia, 2016; 31(1):91–106.

28.

Carmody

Ethical erotics: Reconceptualizing anti-rape education. Sexualities, 2005; 8(4):465–480; doi: 10.1177/1363460705056621

29.

Carmody

, Ovenden

. Putting ethical sex into practice: Sexual negotiation, gender and citizenship in the lives of young women and men. J Youth Stud, 2013; 16(6):792–807; doi : 10.1080/13676261.2013.763916.

30.

Cheak-Zamora

, Teti

, Maurer-Batjer

, et al. Sexual and relationship interest, knowledge, and experiences among adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder. Arch Sex Behav, 2019; 48(8):2605–2615; doi: 10.1007/s10508-019-1445-2.

31.

Clarke

Moral reform and the anti-abortion movement. Sociol Rev, 1987; 35(1):123–149; doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.1987.tb00006.x

32.

Cohen

, Jeglic

. Sex offender legislation in the United States: What do we know?. Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol, 2007; 51(4):369–383; doi: 10.1177/0306624X06296235

33.

Cooke

, Hall

RCW

, Friedman

, et al. Professional boundaries in corrections. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 2019; 47(1):91–98; doi: 10.29158/JAAPL.003825-19

34.

Cruz

, Berson

. The American melting pot? Miscegenation laws in the United States. OAH Mag Hist, 2001; 15(4):80–84.

35.

Culda

, Opre

, Dobrin

. Victim blaming by women and men who believe the world is a just place. Cogn Brain Behav Interdiscip J, 2018; 22(2):99–110; doi: 10.24193/cbb.2018.22.07

36.

Dabhoiwala

Sex and societies for moral reform, 1688–1800. J Br Stud, 2007; 46(2):290–319; doi: 10.1086/510889

37.

Darden

, Ehman

, Lair

, et al. Sexual compliance: Examining the relationships among sexual want, sexual consent, and sexual assertiveness. Sex Cult, 2019; 23(1):220–235; doi: 10.1007/s12119-018-9551-1

38.

Dee

Fighting back: Is defamation law a double-edged sword for #MeToo victims?. First Amend Stud, 2021; 55(2):148–174; doi: 10.1080/21689725.2021.1977160

39.

Deer

Toward an Indigenous jurisprudence of rape. Kans J law Public Policy, 2004; 14(121):121–154.

40.

De Santis

, Quidley-Rodriguez

, Valdes

, et al. Contemplating co-occurring cultures: A grounded theory study of sexual decision making among Hispanic men who have sex with men. Hisp Health Care Int, 2018; 16(2):85–98; doi: 10.1177/1540415318790554

41.

Dhar

, Kaflay

, Dowshen

, et al. Attitudes and beliefs pertaining to sexual and reproductive health among unmarried, female Bhutanese refugee youth in Philadelphia. J Adolesc Health, 2017; 61(6):791–794; doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.06.011

42.

Edwards

, Turchik

, Dardis

, et al. Rape myths: History, individual and institutional-level presence, and implications for change. Sex Roles, 2011; 65(2011):761–773; doi: 10.1007/s11199-011-9943-2

43.

Fahs

, McClelland

. When sex and power collide: An argument for critical sexuality studies. J Sex Res, 2016; 53(4–5):392–416; doi: 10.1080/00224499.2016.1152454

44.

Fahs

, Swank

. Reciprocity, partner pressure, and emotional labor: Women discuss negotiations around oral and anal sex. Sex Cult, 2021; 25(1):217–234; doi: 10.1007/s12119-020-09766-w

45.

Fanghanel

Asking for it: BDSM sexual practice and the trouble of consent. Sexualities, 2020; 23(3):269–286; doi: 10.1177/1363460719828933

46.

Fenner

Sexual consent as a scientific subject: A literature review. Am J Sex, 2018; 12(4):451–471; doi: 10.1080/15546128.2017.1393646

47.

FitzGerald

, Martin

, Berner

, et al. Interventions designed to reduce implicit prejudices and implicit stereotypes in real world contexts: A systematic review. BMC Psychol, 2019; 7(1):29; doi: 10.1186/s40359-019-0299-7.

48.

Freedman

“Crimes which startle and horrify”: Gender, age, and the racialization of sexual violence in White American newspapers, 1870–1900. J Hist Sex, 2011; 20(3):465–497.

49.

Gaspar

, Skakoon-Sparling

, Adam

, et al. ‘You're gay, it's just what happens’: Sexual minority men recounting experiences of unwanted sex in the era of MeToo. J Sex Res, 2021; 58(9):1205–1214; doi: 10.1080/00224499.2021.1962236

50.

George

, Martinez

. Victim blaming in rape: Effects of victim and perpetrator race, types of rape, and participation racism. Psychol Women Q, 2002; 26(2):110–119; doi: 10.1111/1471-6402.00049

51.

Gil-Llario

, Morell-Mengual

, Ballester-Arnal

, et al. The experience of sexuality in adults with intellectual disability. J Intellect Disabil Res, 2018; 62(1):72–80; doi: 10.1111/jir.12455

52.

Glace

, Kaufman

. Sexual consent attitudes and rape-supportive norms among gender and sexual minority students. Anal Soc Issues Public Policy, 2020; 20(1):657–675; doi: 10.1111/asap.12221

53.

Guéguen

The effect of women's suggestive clothing on men's behavior and judgement: A field study. Psychol Rep, 2011; 109(2):635–638; doi: 10.2466/07.17.PR0.109.5.635-638

54.

Gutzmer

, Ludwig-Barron

, Wyatt

, et al. “Come on baby You know I love you”: African American women's experiences of communication with male partners and disclosure in the context of unwanted sex. Arch Sex Behav, 2016; 45(4):807–819; doi: 10.1007/s10508-015-0688-9

55.

Hale

Historia Placitorum Coronæ: The History of the Pleas of the Crown, by Sir Matthew Hale Knt. Sometime Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench. Now first published from his Lordship's original manuscript, and the several references to the records examined by the originals, with large notes. By Sollom Emlyn of Lincoln's-Inn Esq. to which is added a table of the principal matters. In two volumes. (1st ed., Vol. 1). Printed by E. and R. Nutt, and R. Gosling (assigns of Edward Sayer, Esq.), for F. Gyles, T. Woodward, and C. Davis. London, England; 1736. Available from: https://lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/library/HaleHistoryOfThePleasOfTheCrown1736Vol1.pdf [Last accessed: February 26, 2023].

56.

Hardesty

, Young

, McKinnon

, et al. Indiscrete: How typical college student sexual behavior troubles affirmative consent's demand for clear communication. Sex Res Soc Policy, 2021; 19(2022):1114–1129; doi: 10.1007/s13178-021-00611-9

57.

Harris

KL.

Yes means yes and no means no, but both these mantras need to go: Communication myths in consent education and anti-rape activism. J Appl Commun Res, 2018; 46(2):155–178; doi: 10.1080/00909882.2018.1435900

58.

Hasday

Contest and consent: A legal history of marital rape. Calif Law Rev, 2000; 88(5):1373–1505; doi: 10.2307/3481263

59.

Hermann

, Liang

CTH

, DeSipio

. Exploring sexual consent and hostile masculine norms using the theory of planned behavior. Psychol Men Masc, 2018; 19(4):491–499; doi: 10.1037/men0000127

60.

Heyes

JM.

Towards a virtue ethical approach to relationships and sex education. J Moral Educ, 2019; 48(2):165–178; doi: 10.1080/03057240.2018.1450232

61.

Higgs

, Carter

. Autism spectrum disorder and sexual offending: Responsivity in forensic interventions. Aggress Violent Behav, 2015; 22:112–119; doi: 10.1016/j.avb.2015.04.003.

62.

Hirsch

, Khan

, Wamboldt

, et al. Social dimensions of sexual consent among cisgender heterosexual college students: Insights from ethnographic research. J Adolesc Health, 2019; 64(1):26–35; doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.06.011

63.

Hlavka

HR.

Speaking of stigma and the silence of shame: Young men and sexual victimization. Men Masc, 2017; 20(4):482–505; doi: 10.1177/1097184X16652656

64.

Holmes

, Himle

, Strassberg

. Parental sexuality-related concerns for adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and average or above IQ. Res Autism Spectr Disord, 2016; 21:84–93; doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2015.10.001.

65.

Hovick

, Silver

. “Consent is sexy”: A poster campaign using sex-positive images and messages to increase dyadic sexual communication. J Am Coll Health, 2019; 67(8):817–824; doi: 10.1080/07448481.2018.1515746

66.

Iglesias

EM.

Rape, race, and representation: The power of discourse, discourses of power, and the reconstruction of heterosexuality. Vanderbilt Law Rev, 1996; 49(4):869.

67.

Jackson

, Valentine

, Woodward

, et al. Secondary victimization of sexual minority men following disclosure of sexual assault: “Victimizing me all over again ….”. Sex Res Soc Policy, 2017; 14(3):275–288; doi: 10.1007/s13178-016-0249-6

68.

Jacobs

MS.

The violent state: Black women's invisible struggle against police violence. Wm Mary J Women Law, 2017; 24(2017):39–100.

69.

Jaffe

, Steel

, DiLillo

, et al. Characterizing sexual violence in intimate relationships: An examination of blame attributions and rape acknowledgment. J Interpers Violence, 2021; 36(1–2):469–490; doi: 10.1177/0886260517726972

70.

James

, Herman

, Rankin

, et al. National Center for Transgender Equality. The report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey; 2016. Available from: https://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/USTS-Full-Report-FINAL.PDF [Last accessed: April 4, 2023].

71.

Javidi

, Maheux

, Widman

, et al. Understanding adolescents' attitudes toward affirmative consent. J Sex Res, 2020; 57(9):1100–1107; doi: 10.1080/00224499.2019.1711009

72.

Jeffrey

, Barata

. ‘She didn't want to…and i'd obviously insist’: Canadian university men's normalization of their sexual violence against intimate partners. J Aggress Maltreat Trauma, 2019; 28(1):85–105; doi: 10.1080/10926771.2018.1500406

73.

Jenness

, Sexton

, Sumner

. Sexual victimization against transgender women in prison: Consent and coercion in context. Criminology, 2019; 57(4):603–631; doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12221

74.

Johnson

KKP

, Ju

, Wu

. Young adults' inferences surrounding an alleged sexual assault: Alcohol consumption, gender, dress, and appearance schematicity. Cloth Text Res J, 2016; 34(2):127–142; doi: 10.1177/0887302X15624550

75.

Jorm

AF.

Effect of contact-based interventions on stigma and discrimination: A critical examination of the evidence. Psychiatr Serv, 2020; 71(7):735–737; doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201900587.

76.

Katz

, Hensel

, Hunt

, et al. Only yes means yes: Sexual coercion in rural adolescent relationships. J Adolesc Health, 2019; 65(3):423–425; doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.04.004

77.

Katz

, Gravelin

, O'Brien

. Neoliberal beliefs and perceptions of unintended adolescent pregnancy after consensual or forced sex. Sex Roles, 2018; 78(11–12):810–821; doi: 10.1007/s11199-017-0842-z

78.

Katz

, Merrilees

, Hoxmeier

. White female bystanders' responses to a black woman at risk for incapacitated sexual assault. Psychol Women Q, 2017; 41(2):273–285; doi: 10.1177/361684316689367

79.

Kemeny

PC.

Protestant moral reformers and the campaign to suppress prostitution during World War I. J Presbyt Hist, 2014; 92(2):52–72.

80.

Kim

, Visserman

, Impett

. Power in Close Intimate Relationships. In: Power in Close Relationships. (Agnew CR, Harman JJ. eds.) Cambridge University Press: New York, NY; 2019; pp. 192–224.

81.

King

“Prematurely knowing of evil things”: The sexual abuse of African American girls and young women in slavery and freedom. Afr Am Hist, 2014; 99(3):173–196; doi: 10.5323/jafriamerhist.99.3.0173

82.

Kingston

, Olver

, Harris

, et al. The relationship between mental disorder and recidivism in sexual offenders. Int J Forensic Ment Health, 2015; 14(1):10–22; doi: 10.1080/14999013.2014.974088

83.

Kramers-Olen

Sexuality, intellectual disability, and human rights legislation. S Afr J Psychol, 2016; 46(4):504–516; doi: 10.1177/0081246316678154

84.

Kubota

, Nakazawa

Concept and implications of sexual consent for education: A systematic review of empirical studies. Sex Relatsh Ther, 2022. [Epub ahead of print]; doi: 10.1080/14681994.2022.2039617

85.

Lamont

, Roach

, Kahn

. Navigating campus hookup culture: LGBTQ students and college hookups. Sociol Forum, 2018; 33(4):1000–1022; doi: 10.1111/socf.12458

86.

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558; 2003.

87.

Ledger

, Earle

, Tilley

, et al. Contraceptive decision-making and women with learning disabilities. Sexualities, 2016; 19(5–6):698–724; doi: 10.1177/1363460715620576

88.

Levand

MA.

Consent as cross-cultural communication: Navigating consent in a multicultural world. Sex Cult, 2020; 24(3):835–847; doi: 10.1007/s12119-019-09667-7

89.

Levine

Sex and the nursing home. Am J Orthopsychiatry, 2016; 86(3):355–359; doi: 10.1037/ort0000168

90.

Lofgreen

, Mattson

, Wagner

, et al. Situational and dispositional determinants of college men's perception of women's sexual desire and consent to sex: A factorial vignette analysis. J Interpers Violence, 2021; 36(1–2):NP1064–NP1097; doi: 10.1177/0886260517738777

91.

Luker

Sex, social hygiene, and the state: The double-edged sword of social reform. Theory Soc, 1998; 27(5):601–634.

92.

Marcantonio

, Jozkowski

, Wiersma-Mosley

. The influence of partner status and sexual behavior on college women's consent communication and feelings. J Sex Marital Ther, 2018; 44(8):776–786; doi: 10.1080/0092623X.2018.1474410

93.

Marcus

Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention. In: Feminists Theorize the Political (Butler J, Scott J. eds.) Routledge: New York; 1992; pp. 385–403.

94.

Marg

LZ.

College men's conceptualization of sexual consent at a large, racially/ethnically diverse Southern California university. Am J Sex Educ, 2020; 15(3):371–408; doi: 10.1080/15546128.2020.1737291

95.

Maylea

The capacity to consent to sex in mental health inpatient units. Aust N Z J Psychiatry, 2019; 53(11):1070–1079; doi: 10.1177/0004867419850320

96.

McGovern

Strong women never mumble: Female athlete attitudes about sexual consent. J Interpers Violence, 2021; 36(1–2):751–780; doi: 10.1177/0886260517730022

97.

McKee

, Albury

, Dunne

, et al. Healthy sexual development: An interdisciplinary framework for research. Int J Sex Health, 2010; 22:14–19; doi: 10.1080/19317610903393043

98.

McKenna

, Roemer

, Orsillo

. Predictors of sexual consent attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among sexual minority cisgender and nonbinary young adults. Sex Roles, 2021; 85(7–8):391–404; doi: 10.1007/s11199-021-01226-5

99.

McKie

, Skakoon-Sparling

, Levere

, et al. Is there space for our stories? An examination of North American and Western European gay, bi, and other men who have sex with men's non-consensual sexual experiences. J Sex Res, 2020; 57(8):1014–1025; doi: 10.1080/00224499.2020.1767023

100.

Mengeling

, Booth

, Torner

, et al. Reporting sexual assault in the military: Who reports and why most servicewomen don't. Am J Prev Med, 2014; 47(1):17–25; doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2014.03.001

101.

Mennicke

, Geiger

, Brewster

. Interpersonal violence prevention considerations for sexual minority college students: Lower campus connection, worse perceptions of institutional support, and more accurate understandings of sexual consent. J Fam Violence, 2020; 35(6):589–601; doi: 10.1007/s10896-019-00089-5

102.

Metz

, Myers

, Wallace

. ‘Rape is a man's issue:’ Gender and power in the era of affirmative sexual consent. J Gend Stud, 2021; 30(1):52–65; doi: 10.1080/09589236.2020.1834367

103.

Miller

, Cox

, Saewyc

. Age of sexual consent law in Canada: Population-based evidence for law and policy. Can J Hum Sex, 2010; 19(3):105–119.

104.

Miller

Variations in community sentiment toward affirmative consent policies. Crim Justice Stud, 2021; 34(2):173–183; doi: 10.1080/1478601X.2020.1824430

105.

Miller

MK.

Judgments about sexual assault vary depending on whether an affirmative consent policy or a “no means no” policy is applied. J Aggress Confl Peace Res, 2020; 12(3):163–175; doi: 10.1108/JACPR-03-2020-0485

106.

Mogavero

, Hsu

, Bolger

. A conjunctive analysis of false accusations, official misconduct, and race in violent and sexual exonerations cases. Behav Sci Law, 2022; 40(6):756–786; doi: 10.1002/bsl.2587

107.

Mulder

, Pemberton

, Vingerhoets

AJJM

. The feminizing effect of sexual violence in third-party perceptions of male and female victims. Sex Roles, 2020; 82(1–2):13–27; doi: 10.1007/s11199-019-01036-w

108.

Murphy-Oikonen

, Egan

. Sexual and gender minorities: Reporting sexual assault to the police. J Homosex, 2022; 69(5):773–795; doi: 10.1080/00918369.2021.1892402

109.

Nadal

, King

, Sissoko

DRG

, et al. The legacies of systemic and internalized oppression: Experiences of microaggressions, imposter phenomenon, and stereotype threat on historically marginalized groups. New Ideas Psychol, 2021; 63:100895; doi: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2021.100895

110.

Ochieng

Child marriage in the U.S.: Loopholes in state marriage laws perpetuate child marriage. Immig Hum Rights Law Rev, 2020; 2(1):1–23.

111.

Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191; 1978.

112.

Onstot

Capacity to consent: Policies and practices that limit sexual consent for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities. Sex Disabil, 2019; 37(4):633–644; doi: 10.1007/s11195-019-09580-9

113.

Ortiz

Explicit, voluntary, and conscious: Assessment of the importance of adopting an affirmative consent definition for sexual assault prevention programming on college campuses. J Health Commun, 2019; 24(9):728–735; doi: 10.1080/10810730.2019.1666939

114.

Parker

, Hirsch

, Philbin

, et al. The urgent need for research and interventions to address family-based stigma and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth. J Adolesc Health, 2018; 63(4):383–393; doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.05.018

115.

Pinar

WF.

“Black men: You don't even know who I am.”. Counterpoints, 2001; 163:855–938.

116.

Planty

, Langton

, Krebs

, et al. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Female victims of sexual violence, 1994–2010. 2016; Available from: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvsv9410.pdf [Last accessed: April 4, 2023].

117.

People v. Rincon-Pineda, 14 Cal. 3d 864; 1975.

118.

Peterson

, Voller

, Polusny

, et al. Prevalence and consequences of adult sexual assault of men: Review of empirical findings and state of the literature. Clin Psychol Rev, 2011; 31(1):1–24; doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2010.08.006

119.

Poupart

LM.

The familiar face of genocide: Internalized oppression among American Indians. Hypatia, 2003; 18(2):86–100.

120.

Quinn-Nilas

, Kennett

. Reasons why undergraduate women comply with unwanted, non-coercive sexual advances: A serial indirect effect model integrating sexual script theory and sexual self-control perspectives. J Soc Psychol, 2018; 158(5):603–615; doi: 10.1080/00224545.2018.1427039

121.

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). State law database; 2020. Available from: https://apps.rainn.org/policy/index.cfm [Last accessed: March 20, 2023].

122.

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). What consent looks like; 2022. Available from: https://www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent [Last accessed: March 20, 2023].

123.

Reuben

, Stanzione

, Singleton

. Interpersonal trauma and posttraumatic stress in autistic adults. Autism Adulthood, 2021; 3(3):247–256; doi: 10.1089/aut.2020.0073.

124.

Robertson

Making right a girl's ruin: Working-class legal cultures and forced marriage in New York City, 1890–1950. J Am Stud, 2002; 36(2):199–230.

125.

Robertson

‘Boys, of course, cannot be raped’: Age, homosexuality and the redefinition of sexual violence in New York City, 1880–1955. Gend Hist, 2006; 18(2):357–379; doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2006.00433.x/

126.

Rosay

AB.

National Institute of Justice. Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and Men; 2016. Available from: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/violence-against-american-indian-and-alaska-native-women-and-men [Last accessed: February 7, 2023].

127.

Rubenfeld

The riddle of rape-by-deception and the myth of sexual autonomy. Yale Law J, 2013; 122(6):1372–1443.

128.

Rubin

Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality. In Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader. (Aggleton P, Parker R. eds.) Taylor & Francis Group: United Kingdom; 1999; pp. 143–178.

129.

Rupp

Feminism and the sexual revolution in the early Twentieth Century: The case of Doris Stevens. Fem Stud, 1989; 15(2):289–309; doi: 10.2307/3177789

130.

Salazar

, Swartout

, Swahn

, et al. Precollege sexual violence perpetration and associated risk and protective factors among male college freshmen in Georgia. J Adolesc Health, 2018; 62(3 Suppl):S51–S57; doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.09.028

131.

Shannon

, Nash

, Jackson

. Examining intimate partner violence and health factors among rural Appalachian pregnant women. J Interpers Violence, 2016; 31(15):2622–2640; doi: 10.1177/0886260515579508

132.

Shaver

“Serpents,” “fiends,” and “libertines”: Inscribing an Evangelical rhetoric of rage in the “Advocate of moral reform.” Rhetoric Rev, 2011; 30(1):1–18.

133.

Shaw

, Lee

. Race and the criminal justice system response to sexual assault: A systematic review. Am J Community Psychol, 2019; 64(1–2):256–278; doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12334

134.

Sherkat

, Ellison

. The cognitive structure of a moral crusade: Conservative Protestantism and opposition to pornography. Soc Forces, 1997; 75(3):957–980; doi: 10.1093/sf/75.3.957

135.

Shumlich

, Fisher

. Affirmative sexual consent? Direct and unambiguous consent is rarely included in discussions of recent sexual interactions. Can J Hum Sex, 2018; 27(3):248–260; doi: 10.3138/cjhs.2017-0040

136.

Siegel

, Anderson

, Silver

, et al. Yes, (most) men know what rape is: A mixed-methods investigation into college men's definitions of rape. Psychol Men Masc, 2021; 22(2):401–411; doi: 10.1037/men0000337

137.

Sjöberg

, Sarwar

. Two sides of the same coin: The relationship between modern racism and rape blaming attitudes among Swedish students and community members. Psychol Rep, 2022; 125(1):545–564; doi: 10.1177/0033294120978158

138.

Smith

Not an Indian tradition: The sexual colonization of Native peoples. Hypatia, 2003; 18(2):70–85.

139.

Sommers

Commonsense consent. Yale Law J, 2019; 129(8):2232–2324.

140.

Spohn

, White

, Tellis

. Unfounding sexual assault: Examining the decision to unfound and identifying false reports. Law Soc Rev, 2014; 48:161–192; doi: 10.1111/lasr.12060

141.

Spohn

CC.

The rape reform movement: The traditional common law and rape law reforms. Jurimetrics, 1999; 39(2):119–130.

142.

Stein

, Dillenburger

. Ethics in sexual behavior assessment and support for people with intellectual disability. Int J Disabil Hum Dev, 2017; 16(1):11–17; doi: 10.1515/ijdhd-2016-0023

143.

Stephens

, Eaton

, Boyd

. Hispanic college men's perceptions of appropriate strategies for initiating sexual intercourse with women. Sex Roles, 2017; 77(3–4):239–253; doi: 10.1007/s11199-016-0709-8

144.

Stevenson

BE.

What's love got to do with it? Concubinage and enslaved women and girls in the Antebellum South. J Afr Am Hist, 2013; 98(1):99–125; doi: 10.5323/jafriamerhist.98.1.0099

145.

Strange

LS.

Fiction and feminism: Women's voices in the nineteenth-century temperance movement. Rev Commun, 2010; 3(1):4–6; doi: 10.1080/1835859032000084089

146.

Tilley

, Kolodetsky

, Cottrell

, et al. Correlates to increased risk of sexual assault and sexual harassment among LGBT+ university students. J Forensic Nurs, 2020; 16(2):63–72; doi: 10.1097/JFN.0000000000000284

147.

Tinkler

, Clay-Warner

, Alinor

. Communicating about affirmative consent: How the threat of punishment affects policy support and gender stereotypes. J Interpers Violence, 2018; 33(21):3344–3366; doi: 10.1177/0886260518798356

148.

Tugut

, Golbasi

, Erenel

, et al. A multicenter study of nursing students' perspectives on the sexuality of people with disabilities. Sex Disabil, 2016; 34(4):433–442; doi: 10.1007/s11195-016-9455-7

149.

Vanwesenbeeck

Sex work criminalization is barking up the wrong tree. Arch Sex Behav, 2017; 46(2017):1631–1640; doi: 10.1007/s10508-017-1008-3

150.

Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA), S. 3623, 117th Congress, 2021–2022; 2022.

151.

Willis

, Jozkowski

. Sexual precedent's effect on sexual consent communication. Arch Sex Behav, 2019; 48(6):1723–1734; doi: 10.1007/s10508-018-1348-7

152.

Wiskerke

, Manthorpe

. Intimacy between care home residents with dementia: Findings from a review of the literature. Dementia, 2019; 18(1):94–107; doi: 10.1177/1471301216659771

153.

Youstin

Affirmative consent on campus: Student understanding, perceptions of effectiveness, and behavioral change. Crim Justice Stud, 2022; 35(2):162–181; doi: 10.1080/1478601X.2022.2051703

154.

Zinzow

, Thompson

. Beliefs about consent and sexual assault perpetration in a longitudinal study of college men. Violence Vict, 2019; 34(3):548–565; doi: 10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-18-00014