She Left the Party: College Students’ Meanings of Sexual Consent

Abstract

At a moment when college sexual assault is described as an epidemic, it is important to understand college students’ implicit meanings of consent. Through 83 interviews, we examine students’ interpretations of a vignette in which neither character asked nor gave consent to sex. Gendered expectations significantly shaped whether students interpreted the male or female character as giving consent. When considering how students indicate interest in kissing or having sex, students interpreted acts such as leaving a party as indications of a man’s sexual interest and a woman’s willingness. That is, college students “expected” and employed implicit, gendered readings of actions that inform their understandings of implicit consent.

Keywords

sexual consent college students gender mixed methods symbolic interactionism

Introduction

In 2006, civil rights activist Tarana Burke coined the phrase “Me Too” to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault (Johnson & Hawbaker, 2018). In the era of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, questions surrounding consent are becoming more visible, especially on college campuses (Muehlenhard et al., 2016). Sexual assault remains a problem on college campuses despite prevention initiatives (Daigle et al., 2008; Fedina et al., 2018; Fisher et al., 2000; Krebs et al., 2007). The rate of sexual assault or coerced sexual activity among college women (Cantor et al., 2015; Poppen & Segal, 1988) is estimated such that 20-25% of women in the United States are raped during college (Fisher et al., 2000). Still, little attention had been paid to the ways that sexual consent is communicated, even though assault—nonconsensual sexual action—is a well-documented social issue (Beres, 2007).

Guided by symbolic interactionism, this article explores students’ interpretations of an ambiguous sexual vignette: a short, constructed description of a situation, representing a systematic combination of characteristics (Atzmüller & Steiner, 2010). Specifically, student respondents were asked to report whether they believed the male character and/or female character gave consent within a given scene. To explain how students’ assumptions translate into real life, college students were then also asked how a typical college student at their university would indicate interest in having sex with a given person. This mixed-methods approach examines the meanings college students attach to ambiguous nonverbal actions on two fronts to investigate how expected patterns of interaction can turn into an acceptance of implied consent.

Literature Review

In the 1970s, research on rape and sexual assault emerged as an important area contributing to debates over the blurred lines of consent and nonconsent (Kelly, 2007). Sexual assault involves various definitions of a lack of consent by considering a victim’s state of mind or a victim acting against their will (Muehlenhard et al., 1992). Yet, scholars also urge work on the ways sexual consent is perceived and understood in interactions (Beres, 2007) and the power of implied consent. If the meanings attached to subtle and nonverbal cues are widely accepted on college campuses, they influence actual practices of sexual consent and sexual assault.

Interactional Consent

Consent often involves an interpretative process in which nonverbal cues play a significant and potentially dangerous role in heterosexual and same-sex relationships (Beres et al., 2004). Humphreys (2007) finds that consent is more likely to be communicated verbally the first time a couple has sex, but that people report that explicit consent is less necessary for a couple with a longer relationship history. Hall (1998) demonstrates that students use nonverbal cues for activities such as kissing, but verbal cues to indicate consent for sexual intercourse. Other scholarship shows that individuals are more likely to use nonverbal cues than verbal consent to show and interpret their partner’s consent (Hickman & Muehlenhard, 1999; Jozkowski et al., 2014; Jozkowski & Peterson, 2014). Applying a symbolic interactionist framework allows us to focus on the ways students actively give meanings to nonverbal cues for kissing or sex and the implications of this practice. Importantly, students may vary in the meanings they attach to the same actions or signaling behaviors, yet misunderstandings of implied consent carry a high cost.

Garfinkel (1967) examines how interactions are based on shared understandings, which are invoked automatically in appropriate situations. In this context, rules that govern social interaction on college campuses, such as the meanings attached to leaving a party with someone, become taken for granted. These meanings, indicative of a cultural script or social heuristic, dictate the interpretation and the sequencing of sexual behaviors (Edgar & Fitzpatrick, 1993; Gagnon, 1990; Gagnon & Simon, 1973, 1984; Simon & Gagnon, 2003). That is, assumptions shape the practices of giving and getting sexual consent. Recent work illustrates how expectations to “have fun” can become problematic when combined with gendered interactional expectations and lead to assault (Armstrong et al., 2006).

Breaches of these taken-for-granted assumptions are linked to gender differences in consent cues and their interpretation (Jozkowski et al., 2014; Humphreys, 2007). Muehlenhard (1988) reports that men and women interpret cues differently, with men more likely to interpret behaviors as indicators of interest. Hickman and Muehlenhard (1999) specifically find that women are more likely than men to use indirect verbal signals of consent, such as asking whether the other person has a condom, while men rely on more indirect nonverbal signals of consent, such as touching or kissing. These differences signal the potential for miscommunication.

Cultural beliefs around women’s “acceptable” behavior figure in, too. These differences might also be attributed to gender differences in rape myth acceptance or rape-supportive attitudes that often blame victims for their own victimization (Burt, 1980; Hayes-Smith & Levett, 2010). Previous scholarship has found that men are more likely to accept rape myths (Hayes et al., 2016; Suarez & Gadalla, 2010) and that rape myths are linked to attitudes toward sexual assault and sexual coercion (Forbes et al., 2006). These cultural ideologies create a gendered sexual script that places men and women in adversarial roles with men expected to initiate and press for sex while women are expected to stop or slow intimacy. This dynamic is especially problematic given that women report struggling to refuse unwanted sex or having difficulty denying men’s advances (Warzak & Page, 1990).

Saying “no” or directly refusing another’s behaviors goes against conversational norms, especially for women (Kitzinger & Frith, 1999), and many women express concern about hurting a man’s feelings and a belief that they should put their partner’s needs ahead of their own (Lewin, 1985). Wanting to avoid hurting someone’s feelings with a direct “no” reflects the expectation that one will go to certain lengths to allow someone to save face (Goffman, 1967). In contrast, men often overestimate women’s interest in sex or misperceive friendliness as seduction (Abbey, 1982; Henningsen, 2004); men may also interpret women’s indirect or faint refusals as a desire to not appear sexually “easy” (O’Byrne et al., 2006). Together, gendered expectations shape how consent is given and not given. We examine sexual consent as a byproduct of students’ interactional expectations and consider how such expectations differ for men and women.

Given research on both gendered sexual scripts and critical differences in how sexual consent cues are employed and interpreted, we propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): Students will be more likely to agree the male vignette character gave consent in the ambiguous scenario compared to the female character.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): Male students will be more likely to agree that the vignette characters gave consent in the ambiguous scenario compared to female students.

Hypothesis 3 (H3): Students will be more likely to agree the male character has been in a similar situation before compared to the female character.

Hypothesis 4 (H4): Students with supportive attitudes about consent and alcohol consumption will be more likely to agree the vignette characters gave consent in the ambiguous situation.

In addition to these hypotheses, this study also qualitatively examines how students rationalized whether consent was given by the vignette characters and the cultural script for kissing and having sex used on their campus.

Method

This study was designed to investigate: (a) whether students believed the vignette characters gave consent and if they had been in a similar situation before, (b) whether students’ gender and their attitudes toward drinking alcohol are associated with their vignette assessments, (c) students’ local scripts of consent regarding how most students would indicate they wanted to kiss and/or were interested in having sex.

To accomplish these aims, students registered in an Introduction to Sociology and Sociology of Family course at a large midwestern university conducted interviews with other undergraduate students. In each interview, respondents read a vignette and answered a series of questions regarding the vignette, questions from the Alcohol and Consent Scale (Ward et al., 2012), and a series of open-ended questions about how students at their university would behave.

Researchers obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board, and all eligible respondents were 18 years or older and currently enrolled as a student at the university. Students conducted a total of 86 peer interviews after being trained through a series of in-class assignments, including completing the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative and conducting an interview with a classmate. Their peer interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, with checks for consistency across interviews. Two interviews were removed for failing to adhere to the interview protocol, and our analyses include only interviews that contained no missing responses (N = 83).

Vignette

Our vignette ends with sexual intercourse and follows a similar scenario used by previous scholarship. For instance, Hickman and Muehlenhard (1999) asked students how they would interpret their date’s signals in hypothetical scenarios and how they communicate consent in heterosexual situations. Our vignette was purposely ambiguous, with neither of two heterosexual characters at a party providing explicit expressions of sexual consent and no information or description regarding the moments leading up to sex.

Staci is a senior in college and attends a public university, where she studies biology. After a particularly stressful week, she decides to go to a house party with a group of friends. Staci has had a couple of shots of vodka when one of her classmates, Tom, comes over and starts talking to her. Staci has had a couple of classes with Tom, and generally likes talking to him. Tom has already had a few mixed drinks, and after talking for about half an hour, he offers to get Staci another drink. Staci follows Tom to the fridge and grabs herself a beer while he makes a mixed drink for himself. After continued conversation, Tom asks Staci if she wants to get out of there and they leave the party together. The two go to Tom’s apartment where they begin to make out and eventually have sex.

After being read the vignette, respondents were asked Was sexual consent given by Tom/Staci? We coded responses for whether Tom and Staci gave consent in the vignette as “Yes,” “No,” “Unsure or Not enough information.” After students responded to the question of whether consent was given by the characters, they were asked How can you tell from the story? Given the ambiguity of the vignette, we would expect most students to be unsure of whether consent was given. However, this follow-up question allowed us to capture which details of the vignette students focused on and provided the opportunity to explore the drivers behind students’ beliefs regarding whether the male or female character gave consent.

To examine the extent to which respondents attributed previous casual sexual encounters to the characters, respondents were also asked How likely is it that Tom/Staci has been involved in this type of situation before? (likely vs. unlikely).

Understanding the role of alcohol consumption is important because characters depicted as consuming alcoholic beverages are often viewed as being more likely to initiate sexual activity and having greater sexual interest, desire, or willingness to engage in sexual activity (Corcoran & Thomas, 1991; George et al., 1988). Thus, students were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with nine statements on attitudes toward sexual consent and alcohol consumption. Based on Ward et al.’s (2012) scale, students’ answers to statements regarding concern over alcohol and consent were given a value on a 5-point scale that ranged from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Conversely, statements supportive of alcohol consumption were reverse-coded so that higher scale scores reflect beliefs that alcohol does not impair a woman’s ability to consent to sex or that drunken sex is harmless.

Finally, respondents were asked How would most [university] students indicate they are interested in having sex with someone? and How would most [university] students indicate they are interested in kissing someone at a party?

Combining vignette responses with students’ open-ended statements about the local script of students at the university outlines sexual consent meanings on two fronts: one through assessments of fictitious characters and the other being a cultural script on their campus. These two approaches refine sexual consent meanings into two broader categories of implicit consent (e.g., asking if they want to leave a party) and explicit consent (e.g., asking for sex explicitly).

To qualitatively code interviews, all co-authors independently read five interviews and defined a set of coding categories. The initial coding focused on whether respondents believed Staci or Tom gave consent and what details of the story the student respondent focused on. Then, we explored themes regarding how most students would indicate they wanted to kiss or have sex with someone. After group discussion, we revised our coding categories. We then went through 43 interviews as a group and agreed upon what codes to apply. These codes were then applied to the 40 additional interviews in Atlas.ti (Muhr & Friese, 2004), an ethnographic software program.

To test for differences between whether students believed consent was given by Staci compared to Tom, we used a chi-square test. To compare the mean of each response category, we created dummy variables for each character and answer (Yes, No, and Unsure), then used t-tests. This allowed us to examine whether the proportion of respondents that said Staci did not give consent differed from the proportion of respondents that said Tom did not give consent. We also used t-tests to determine whether respondents were more likely to use explicit or implicit themes in their explanations of why they believed the vignette characters did or did not give consent. To quantitatively test the association between responses to the Alcohol and Sexual Consent Scale and whether students viewed the vignette characters as giving consent, we used ordered logistic regression analyses.

Results

Respondent demographic information collected included the subject’s gender, college year, and race. Table 1 shows that 59% (49) of the sample were women and 41% (34) men. The majority (82%) of participants were White.

Table 1.

Student Respondent Demographic Characteristics.

Variables	Number	%
Gender
Female	49	59
Male	34	41
Race
White	68	82
Asian	4	5
Pacific Islander	1	1
Black of African American	4	5
Hispanic or Latino	3	4
Other	1	1
Prefer not to answer	2	2
Grade level
Freshman	27	33
Sophomore	19	23
Junior	20	24
Senior	15	18
Prefer not to answer	2	2
Interviewer and respondent
Female respondent and female interviewer	35	42
Male respondent and female interviewer	19	23
Female respondent and male interviewer	14	17
Male respondent and male interviewer	15	18
Observation = 83

Table 1 also shows that 60% of the sample consisted of same-sex dyads (e.g., male interviewer–male respondent; female interviewer–female respondent). We used a simple cross-tabs analysis to examine the relationship between interviewer–respondent dyads and perceptions of consent. Responses for whether students believed the vignette characters gave consent and had been in a similar situation before remained consistent across dyads. The implications of our study design and sample demographics are further discussed in the limitations section.

Vignette Assessment

Results of the chi-square analysis in Table 2 show that assessments of whether consent was given by Tom or by Staci are significantly different, χ² (1, N = 83) 19.9, p < .001. Table 2 displays differences between Tom and Staci’s consent for each response category using t-tests. We find that 40% of students believed Tom gave consent and only 25% believed Staci gave consent, with a statistically significant difference (p < .01). Therefore, we find support for Hypothesis 1. Students will be more likely to agree that the male vignette gave consent in the ambiguous scenario compared to the female character. A higher proportion of respondents reported that Staci did not give consent (57%) than that Tom did not give consent (48%) p < .05. Thus, we find a significant difference between whether students interpreted the male character as giving consent compared to the female character.

Table 2.

Comparisons Between Tom and Staci Vignette Consent (N = 83).

Response Category	Tom, % (N)	Staci, % (N)	Response difference^a	Gender comparisons^b χ²(df)
Sexual consent
Yes	40% (33)	25% (21)	**	45.8 (4)***
No	48% (40)	57% (47)	*	45.8 (4)***
Unsure	12% (10)	18% (15)	N/A
Been involved in this type of situation before
Likely	79.5% (66)	65.1% (54)	***	39.8 (1)***
Unlikely	20.5% (17)	34.9% (29)	***	39.8 (1)***

Note. N/A = not significant.

Response difference based on t-tests. ^bGender comparisons based on chi-square tests.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

We expected to find significant differences in the ways male and female respondents interpreted the vignette because extant research finds that men are more likely to overestimate indictors of interest and consent cues (Jozkowski et al., 2014; Humphreys, 2007; Muehlenhard, 1988). However, we find no statistically significant differences between male and female students’ perceptions of whether the vignette characters gave consent. Thus, we did not find support for our Hypothesis 2 that male students will be more likely to agree that the vignette characters gave consent in the ambiguous scenario than female students.

The majority of students believed that both Staci and Tom were likely to have been in a similar situation before. Table 2 shows that 80% of respondents believed Tom had been in this type of situation before and 65% believed the same for Staci. The difference is statistically significant and suggests that student respondents attributed more casual sexual encounters to Tom than Staci, even though the vignette provided no details on either character’s previous sexual experiences. These results support Hypothesis 3 that students will be more likely to agree the male character has been in a similar situation before compared to the female character.

The following paragraphs explore our final quantitative hypothesis that students with supportive attitudes about consent and alcohol consumption will be more likely to agree the vignette characters gave consent in the ambiguous situation.

Sexual Consent and Alcohol Consumption

Table 3 summarizes the results of students’ attitudes toward sexual consent and alcohol.

Table 3.

Students’ Attitudes Toward Sexual Consent and Alcohol Consumption.

	Male		Female		Gender comparison
Scale Item	Average	SD	Average	SD	χ² (df)
Full scale	19.71	3.85	18.82	3.84	7.57 (16)
Consensual drunk sex is a normal and harmless part of college life^a	3.35	1.04	3.22	1.16	6.82 (4)
A woman who is drinking heavily can still give legal consent to sexual activity^a	2.38	1.04	2.41	1.17	1.97 (4)
As a general rule, alcohol makes sexual situations easier and more enjoyable for men and women^a	3.15	0.96	3.18	1.03	6.76 (4)
When a person is drinking alcohol, he or she is implying interest in engaging in sexual activity^a	1.88	0.95	1.94	0.94	1.60 (3)
When alcohol is involved in a sexual situation, communication signals about sexual consent are easily misinterpreted	1.97	0.83	1.69	0.62	3.39 (3)
Alcohol use makes a person more vulnerable to sexual assault	2.85	0.96	1.69	0.65	0.98 (3)
The more alcohol a person has consumed, the less able he/she is to consent to sexual activity	1.68	0.53	1.67	0.55	0.11 (2)
If a person who has been drinking becomes sleepy or unconscious, he/she cannot give consent to any sexual activity	1.41	0.49	1.37	0.49	0.18 (1)
Sexual assault is a problem on our campus	2.21	0.81	1.63	0.64	12.23 (3)**
Observations	34		49		83

Overall gender comparisons are based on chi-square tests. Statements supportive of alcohol consumption and consent were reverse coded with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree. The full scale ranged from 10–27 with an average of 19.2.

p < .01.

Students appear to strongly agree (1) or agree (2) with statements regarding the potential dangers of alcohol, as it pertains to involvement in a sexual situation: communication signals are likely misinterpreted, alcohol makes individuals more vulnerable to sexual assault, and if a person who has been drinking becomes sleepy or unconscious, they cannot give consent to any sexual activity. We see greater variation when considering consensual drunk sex, the role of alcohol in making sexual situations easier, or whether a woman who is drinking heavily can give consent. In Table 5, a chi-square test reveals a significant difference between males’ and females’ views on the statement Sexual assault is a problem on our campus, χ² (3, N = 83) = 12.23, p < .01, but no significant gender differences for the other statements.

We used ordered logistic regression analyses to examine whether students’ attitude toward sexual consent and alcohol, through the cumulative scale, was associated with whether they believed the vignette characters gave consent (Long & Freese, 2006; StataCorp, 2017). We then computed the discrete change for the score of five, reflecting that respondents strongly agreed to one additional statement supportive of attitudes toward alcohol consumption and sexual consent. Higher scale scores reflect beliefs that alcohol does not impair a woman’s ability to consent to sex or that drunken sex is harmless.

On average, a 25% increase in the scale (4.25 points) is associated with a 0.11 decrease in the probability of viewing that Tom did not give consent and a 0.05 increase in the probability of respondents viewing that Tom gave consent in the ambiguous vignette. (p<.05). However, this discrete change was not associated with a significant difference in the predicted probability of students being unsure of whether Tom gave consent. We find a similar result for the association between students’ attitude toward sexual consent and alcohol and evaluations of Staci’s consent. On average, a 25% change in the Consent and Alcohol Consumption scale is associated with a 0.14 decrease in the probability of viewing that Staci did not give consent (p < .01). On average, this discrete change is also associated with a 0.04 increase in viewing that Staci gave consent and a 0.10 increase in the probability that respondents were unsure if Staci gave consent (p < .05).

Students’ Explanations of Vignette Assessment

To understand why respondents were significantly more likely to view the male vignette character as giving consent and having been in a similar situation before, we turn to students’ explanations. After respondents answered whether consent was given by Tom or Staci, they were asked how they could tell from the story. Several themes emerged from these responses. While explicit meanings often appeared in students’ justifications for consent not being given, implicit meanings of consent were employed when explaining why consent was given, especially when it came to Tom’s consent.

Explicit consent

“Explicit consent” themes include cases in which students said that the character did not express consent verbally, did not say it aloud, did not state it explicitly, or that neither character asked for consent directly. However, themes of explicit or implicit consent must be examined through the lens of each particular vignette character. About 47% of respondents used explicit meanings for Tom compared to 43% of respondents who used explicit meanings when discussing Staci. Overall, respondents noted the importance of verbalizing consent. However, the use of explicit consent changed depending upon whether respondents were discussing Staci or Tom’s consent.

Table 4 shows that students employed explicit meanings when explaining why consent was or was not given for the vignette characters. Roughly equal proportions referenced explicit meanings when discussing why consent was not given: 31% of respondents who said that Staci did not give consent made reference to explicit meanings of consent and 32% of students who argued that Tom did not give consent made reference to explicit meanings. Note, when this theme was used for the male character, it was often in the role of instigator; students often used explicit meanings of consent for Tom in conjunction with other contradictory meanings. For instance, one female sophomore’s discussion of explicit consent quickly veered into the subjective interpretations for Tom’s consent:

Not like a direct yes. But he asked her back to his apartment so . . . I don’t know how to put this, but I think Tom gave more consent than Staci did because he was the one inviting her.

Table 4.

Explicit Meanings by Vignette Consent Category (N = 83).

Sexual consent	Explicit meanings referenced for Tom’s consent, % (N)	Explicit meanings referenced for Staci’s consent, % (N)	Response difference^a
Yes	8% (7)	8% (7)	N/A
No	32% (27)	31% (26)	N/A
Unsure	6% (5)	3% (3)	N/A

Note. N/A not significant difference in means.

Response difference based on t-tests.

An analysis of students’ qualitative responses reveals the nuanced use of explicit meanings of consent. When discussing Staci’s consent, respondents focused on a lack of verbal statement from the female character. For instance, a female sophomore referenced sobriety and explicit consent for the female vignette character: “She didn’t say yes and they were both drinking.” In another case, a male senior commented that: “Staci only agreed to leave the party and go back to Tom’s apartment. She never actually gave consent to having sex. She was also drinking and under the influence of alcohol so consent could not be given.”

When discussing explicit consent for Tom, students often mentioned a lack of Tom asking rather than being asked. A male senior explained, “Sexual consent wasn’t like expressly verbalized by Tom at any point. He didn’t like say like you wanna have sex or I wanna have sex.” Similarly, a male sophomore expressed that “There was never really a question like ‘do you want to have sex?’” Similarly, a female freshman commented “It doesn’t say in the story if he ever asked at the end.” These qualitative responses suggest when students employed explicit meanings of consent for Tom, it was in the role of instigator. When students considered whether the male character gave consent, they were more apt to assume his consent and focus on his role in securing Staci’s. This can be attributed to students holding different interactional expectations for men and women, which leads to their gendered consent meanings.

Implicit consent

Table 5 shows that student respondents were more likely to reference implicit meanings of consent when considering whether consent was given by the vignette characters. Approximately 28% of all respondents employed implicit meanings when discussing whether consent was given by Staci, while 43% of respondents referenced implicit meanings of consent when considering whether Tom consented. Student respondents were significantly more likely to employ explicit meanings of consent for Staci (43%) than implicit meanings for Staci (28%), p < .05.

Table 5.

Implicit Meanings by Vignette Consent Category (N = 83).

Sexual consent	Implicit meanings referenced for Tom’s consent	Implicit meanings referenced for Staci’s consent	Response Difference^a
Yes	37% (31)	18% (15)	***
No	5% (4)	4% (3)	N/A
Unsure	1% (1)	6% (5)	*

Note. N/A not significant difference in means.

Response difference based on t-tests.

p < .05. ***p < .001.

They were also significantly more likely to reference implicit meanings for explaining why Tom gave consent (37%) compared to why Staci gave consent (18%), p < .001. This shows that students were more likely to use implicit meanings of consent as rationale for Tom’s consent compared to Staci’s.

The theme of “implicit consent” was visible in students’ remarks on assumed meanings and understandings of actions or phrases such as “let’s get out of here.” Among the prominent themes was a focus on which character initiated contact, how vignette characters’ actions reflected sexual interest, and that they left the party together. However, students often used multiple meanings at once. Student respondents would mention a lack of explicit consent, for example, but pivot by mentioning a shared implicit meaning of consent. Tracking themes quantitively highlights prominent themes used to explain why consent was given or not given, while qualitative analysis of students’ responses reveals a theoretically important structure. These dual meanings often involved reference to a lack of explicit consent, a but statement, and then a reference to an implicit or cultural meaning of consent.

Several quotes are instructive here. A female sophomore noted that “He asked if she wanted to go back to his apartment so . . . there’s like implied consent but based off of the story there was no like actual like he asked she asked.” A male junior commented that “Not verbally, but if he asked her to come back to his apartment it can pretty much be assumed he gave consent.” In another interview, a male sophomore respondent stated, “They both go back to the apartment . . . it’s implied that the consent is given, but it’s not explicitly given by Staci in a verbal way.” A male junior summed up this pattern stating, “Verbally, NO but physically yes . . . Tom gave consent since they both did it and there were no problems after.”

These quotes show that while students often initially note that explicit consent is not given in the vignette, they pivot by referencing nonverbal cues or behaviors that indicate consent. Sexual consent was not given explicitly, but to the student respondents, consent was implied through the characters’ actions. According to students, the vignette characters indicated their sexual interest by initiating a conversation and by leaving the party together.

Students’ responses often focused on which character initiated the interaction. Roughly 37% of our sample (32 respondents), in fact, referenced Tom’s actions of “initiating” when discussing whether consent was given by Tom. The vast majority of these remarks were used to justify that Tom gave consent. A male junior stated that “He seems into her . . . he approaches her initially, he keeps a conversation going, initiates asking if she wants to leave, so it, it seems he wants to (pause) do what they end up doing.” In this quote, Tom was assigned the role of pursuer. He initiated talking to Staci and asking her to leave, and he is responsible for interactions that led to the sexual encounter. As one female sophomore remarked, “He was the one who initiated the question of if she wants to get out of there, which, for most people, I think they understand that means that they’ll be at least making out.” A female freshman stated that “Tom does ask Staci to go back to his place and uh, he could only assume what would happen there.” In another interview, a male junior commented, “He asked if she wants to get out of here [used air quotes], which is generally a term used when they wanna go hook up.” In these quotes, students viewed Tom’s request to leave the party as indicating his understanding of the meaning attached to “let’s get out of here,” and thus his implicit consent.

Respondents also attributed instigation of physical contact to Tom, whether the story provided that detail or not. For instance, a female senior noted, “He invited her back to his place and initiated making out.” In this case, the student assumed that Tom initiated making out even though the vignette did not include that detail. Other responses suggested that Tom’s consent was a default yes because Staci had given consent. These meanings were classified as Tom’s consent being granted through Staci. While only 13% (11) of respondents fell within this category, these students focused not on Tom and whether he gave consent but rather on Staci. For example, a male freshman explained his logic behind Tom giving consent from the ambiguous vignette by focusing on a lack of coercion:

I believe so because Staci wasn’t coerced to go back with Tom so there was kinda like a mutual agreement between them. (pause) Tom asked her to get out of there and she agreed to, so I feel like everything that Tom did was perfectly sound.

In this example, and others that employed the theme of Tom’s granting consent through Staci, students equated Tom’s consent to a lack of coercion on securing consent from Staci. In these instances, students recast Tom’s actions as not being predatory in their discussion of Tom’s consent.

These assumptions lead to a number of important consequences, such as the belief that Tom gave consent through actions that conveyed interest. As a female junior put it,

It wasn’t explicitly stated that Tom wanted to have sex but it was kind of insinuated by his actions. Because Tom was talking to Staci for a long time and was being really friendly. And they, of course, they made out. I mean, come on.

These assumptions also reinforce the belief that men are naturally sexual initiators while women must serve as sexual gatekeepers.

In our sample, 29 respondents, approximately 33% of the sample, focused on Staci leaving the party. Our qualitative data suggest that respondents used implicit meanings for justifying that Tom and Staci gave consent. While students’ implicit meanings focused on Tom’s action of asking Staci to leave, they fixated on Staci voluntarily complying with his request in discussing whether she gave consent. A male junior noted that “She did go back with him willingly and they do it without any problems. So yeah, kind of.” Comments that interpret Staci leaving the party and voluntarily going to Tom’s apartment as implied indicators of consent reflect a traditional sexual script. For instance, a female sophomore summarized that “Umm, I think so because she said that she, she did agree to go to his apartment. . . . And, she’s not naïve, so . . .” And a female senior interpreted a lack of resistance as evidence of Staci’s consent:

The story doesn’t say that she explicitly said yes this is ok but it also doesn’t say that she was trying to stop it or was opposed to it. So I would say kind of nonverbally she was giving consent . . . she decided to go home with him, which I think is kind of like the first step towards you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into I guess . . .

Both male and female students placed great importance on Staci as understanding the implications behind accepting an offer to “get out of here,” especially given that she was a senior. For instance, a female junior commented that “I guess she voluntarily did leave the party . . . considering she is a senior in college.” That caveat is important: it suggests that students’ implicit meanings of consent are learned. Older, more experienced students are expected to know and understand the tacit assumptions made when signaling sexual consent. A female sophomore noted that Staci

Clearly didn’t show any signs that she was hesitant about . . . it seems like she knows him, and she went with him to get a drink and she got her own beer, so there was nothing that could have been in her drink, and when they left she wanted to leave with him, which meant it would just be them two, so I think that she probably did.

Students’ references to Staci being a senior and not being naïve are important, too. These comments reveal the interactional demands placed upon Staci, and perhaps women in general, when navigating interactions surrounding consent. By focusing on her willingness to leave the party, student respondents again emphasized a lack of resistance as implicit consent.

In summary, students felt that Tom illustrated consent through his initiated contact, starting a conversation or asking Staci to leave. But a lack of hesitancy, Staci’s willingness to leave, or choosing to voluntarily leave a public space is enough to illustrate her expressed interest or lack of coercion and therefore her consent.

But can differences in students’ interpretations of consent for the vignette character be attributed to their beliefs regarding alcohol use? To explore the role of alcohol in students’ explanations of whether they believed consent was given, we tracked references to characters’ sobriety. Approximately 29% of the respondents referenced concern for Staci’s sobriety when discussing her consent. Interestingly, roughly 4% noted that they felt that Staci was sober because she had not consumed enough alcohol to be impaired, despite the vignette describing her as having had a couple of shots of vodka and a beer. When discussing Tom’s consent, 24% of respondents referenced concern for his sobriety and 4% concern for Staci’s sobriety.

Students’ Local Script for Kissing and Sex

Students were asked open-ended questions about how “most students at their University” would indicate their interest in kissing or having sex with someone to examine how consent is communicated on campus.

Interactional cues for kissing

One dominant theme in students’ description regarding kissing was nonverbal communication. Rarely did students describe obtaining explicit consent for kissing. Instead, approximately 38% of the sample said they and other students at their university would rely on nonverbal communication to express interest in kissing.

In this context, nonverbal communication was described as involving bodily gestures or facial expressions. A male junior stated that “It’s usually like, unwarranted touching . . . or maybe they like kind of, do some sort of, nonverbal like mating dance, like somehow indicate to their partner like a head nod or something.” A number of students, including a female junior, emphasized the importance of eye contact, “by getting very close and giving them the eye.” Another female junior stated “It’s in eye contact and body language, with their face towards the person and like genuinely seem interested in what the person has to say.” Gestures are regarded as shorthand for sexual interest.

Corresponding to this nonverbal communication is students’ reference to pushing boundaries. Over half the respondents, 46 students, employed this theme. One female sophomore emphasized that a lack of active resistance reflected how students conveyed they wanted to kiss: “Someone would initiate it and I guess you would push him or her away or not.”

Students stressed that asking to kiss someone directly would be unusual on their campus, where the accepted norm was to press boundaries and see how the other person responds. A female junior commented: “I feel like they should say ‘Hey you wanna kiss?’ But I feel like that’s not the case. I feel most of them are just like balls, balls to the walls. ‘Let’s do it! Let’s see if they accept’.” A male sophomore told the interviewer that students would indicate interest in kissing “usually by physically going forward . . . then you might kinda lean in and say you’re sitting on a couch and just, go for the kill.” Over half the sample, 55%, referenced pushing boundaries when discussing the interactional script for kissing on their campus. In turn, the assumed normalcy of pushing boundaries for kissing produces a reliance on nonverbal cues.

Although this theme did not appear in their discussions of sex and consent, the action of kissing could create a trajectory by which implicit consent is assumed for sexual intercourse. But using pushing boundaries with little resistance as a nonverbal statement of consent is ripe for misunderstandings, as men and women indicate and interpret these cues differently (Abbey et al., 1987; Jozkowski, 2011; Jozkowski et al., 2014; Shotland & Craig, 1988).

Interactional cues for sex

When asked “How would most [university] students indicate they are interested in having sex with someone?” most respondents provided references to implicit meanings. Table 6 displays implicit consent themes from students’ open-ended responses.

Table 6.

Themes of Students’ Local Script for Indicating Interest in Sex.

	Male respondents		Female respondents
Themes	Average (%)	N	Average (%)	N
Nonverbal communication	24	8	12	6
Interest	14.7	5	10.2	5
Sobriety	8.8	3	8.2	4
Kiss	17.7	6	10.2	5
Implicit cues	44.1	15	55.1	27
Explicit	36.4	12	26.5	13
Nonresistance	2.9	1	4.1	2
Seclusion	32.4	11	42.9	21
Observations	34		49

Students were more likely to mention implicit meanings for this question than in questions about the vignette. In fact, 39 respondents, approximately 45% of the sample, cited implicit meanings when explaining how most students would indicate they want to have sex with someone and 28 respondents referenced explicit meanings of consent. In their assessment of the vignette, students focused on themes of interest, which character initiated a conversation, and the act of leaving the party together when evaluating whether Staci or Tom gave consent. Similarly, students’ explanations of how to indicate interest in having sex reflect similar themes: displaying interest, kissing, a natural progression, nonverbal communication, seclusion, and/or leaving a public space took on great import as themes around signaling sexual consent.

Students referenced a progression similar to the process of kissing. One male junior summarized that one indicates interest in having sex by “asking to go somewhere else and then making physical advancements in hopes that one thing leads to another.” A junior male was more direct: “Yeah flirting, dancing, laughing. If they’re dancing and start kissing at the party that can, you know, that can lead to a natural progression of things.” This idea of a natural progression as an interactional sequence outlines a traditional sexual scripting role for men and women (La France, 2010; Werner & LaRussa, 1985). It creates the expectation that the Toms of college life will initiate intimacy and press boundaries, while the Stacis must comply or reject. A male sophomore stated, when it came to giving or getting sexual consent,

Well, you could just tell them, but that’s not exactly the socially accepted thing and, I mean not that it’s not accepted, that it’s just not a norm . . . there’s no real way of telling. You just kind of . . . a lot of people just press their boundaries until they get told no.

In these interactions, students are expected to understand the responsibilities of their gendered roles: it is expected that no one will explicitly ask to kiss someone or to have sex with them. In the sexual script for college students, someone initiates actions such as getting a drink or asking to leave. Males, in particular, are expected to press boundaries. But more importantly, women are supposed to understand men’s expectations as expressed through boundary pushing and orient their actions in response to produce nonverbal or implicit responses of consent or nonconsent:

When Staci says that she’ll go back to Tom’s house I think that she kind of knows that that’s what PROBABLY is going to happen. And I’m not saying it should be that way but I think [it’s] kind of the college culture. I personally, if a guy asks me to go to his house and I did not want to hook up, I wouldn’t go over there because I would feel like that’s what he was expecting or that’s what he wanted. (Female Senior)

Women are meant to manage men’s interactional expectations. If students expect Staci to understand the significance of leaving a party with someone and Tom’s expectations attached to this act, then Staci’s implicit consent is a byproduct of expectation. Students viewed consent not as the overt expression of no or yes, but rather the avoidance or acceptance of a social situation that is part of a “natural progression” toward sex. Mainly, our interviews suggest that leaving a public space with someone is one of the most salient indicators of consent on campus.

A female senior commented that “I would say they probably would say let’s leave, like go somewhere else, and if they comply that would probably be a yes to a lot of people.” Students felt that questions such as “do you want to get out of here,” “do you want to come to my place,” “do you want to go somewhere private or more quiet,” or “do you want to go back to my dorm/house/apartment” all reflected implicit consent. A male freshman commented that if a female agrees to go home with someone, then “I feel like it’s kind of given that they would uh they would be uh okay with having sex with you eventually. So just leaving a party with somebody I feel like that’s consent kind of.” A female junior summarized “If they ask you, ‘Come to my place.’ and you say ‘Yeah.’ And you go home with them, then yeah you’re consenting.” This suggests that students give meaning to subtle cues such as entering a private space with someone and structure their interactions around these expectations.

Limitations

We find that students simultaneously apply dual meanings of implicit and explicit consent in their own descriptions of their fellow students’ behaviors and in their assessment of fictitious characters in a vignette. However, this study has a number of limitations. First, we present college students’ reported perceptions of consent for characters in a hypothetical situation, and this may not reflect actual behavior. Vignette methodology has been criticized for being unable to capture the reality of context and elicit responses that would reflect “real world situations.” Our vignette lays out a specific context in a college setting in which the female character is a senior and the male and female characters are heterosexual. Future work would manipulate a number of variables of interest such as Staci’s college year, the amount of alcohol characters consumed, the prior relationship between characters, and characters’ perceived race as signaled by name. For instance, when vignette victims consume alcohol prior to being assaulted, respondents attribute more blame to victims than they do in scenarios where victims are relatively more sober (Grubb & Turner, 2012; Hammock & Richardson, 1997; Sims et al., 2007; Wall & Schuller, 2000). Other studies could even explore whether attitudes shift when the party is situated within a bar or a fraternity rather than a private house and depending on the sexual orientation of the characters (Brubaker et al., 2017).

Second, a nonrandom sample of students restricts the generalizability of our findings and student interviewers’ characteristics likely influence the quality of the data, especially for interviews where the respondent was the opposite sex. Interviewer demographics might be particularly relevant, given the topic of the study. For instance, Dailey and Claus (2001) find that female interviewers obtain higher reports of sexual abuse than male interviewers. The fact that 23% of our sample consisted of a female researcher interviewing a male respondent could have influenced the results. Other work has found interviewer gender affects results, with, for instance, male respondents reporting more egalitarian gender attitudes to female interviewers (Kane & Macaulay, 1993), though having each student conduct a single interview can help dilute the influence of interviewer gender or a specific interviewer (Stock & Hochstim, 1951). A small sample prevented us from performing traditional significance tests for the effect of interviewer dyads. However, we found that student responses for whether the vignette characters gave consent or had been in a similar situation before remained consistent across interview–respondent dyads. Future work with larger samples might tease out significant differences between same-sex and opposite-sex dyads.

In addition, training students to conduct interviews allowed us to investigate students’ expectations of sexual consent in ways other study designs would not. Student researchers might help to address social desirability bias, since students are unlikely to report undesirable attitudes of sexual consent to a formal interviewer (Tourangeau & Yan, 2007). Additionally, students interviewing their peers can both gain hands-on research experience and produce a rich data set that provides a deeper understanding of course content. Students might be more candid about their attitudes on sensitive topics with another college student than in conversation with an older researcher who is further removed from their social context.

Future studies should also replicate the study using online platforms and at other universities to examine the implicit meanings attached to sexual consent on a larger scale. Additional research is needed to determine the role of interviewer gender on questions over sensitive behaviors such as sexual consent (Davis et al., 2009).

Despite these limitations, exploring students’ meanings of consent can help researchers and policymakers understand how expectations about sexual scripts are taken for granted. Students’ assumptions that sexual partners will understand and properly act upon shared but implicit meanings carry a number of important implications.

What makes this process more problematic is that the interpretive process of learning and modifying meanings of consent do not align with institutional policies to prevent assault. Initially, many sexual assault prevention programs focused on women saying “no” or actively refusing sexual advances (Tannen, 1990). But such “just say no” policies or those that require members of campus to ask for explicit verbal consent each time they engage in sex (Antioch College, 2005) are continually criticized as unrealistic (Humphreys, 2004) and obscuring the complexities of interactions surrounding sex.

Discussion

Using a vignette, alcohol consumption and consent scale survey questions, and open-ended questions, we explore students’ implicit consent meanings as attached to nonverbal actions and the role of students’ expectations in the interactional sequencing of sexual consent. Male and female students held more constrictive standards for Staci’s consent, perhaps because students expect men to press for sex and women to resist it (Frith, 2009). Students expressed greater uncertainty when considering whether Staci gave consent compared to Tom, despite the vignette providing no sexual consent description for either character. Therefore, students’ implicit meanings of consent reflect divergent expectations for men and women. In this way, our findings align with previous work finding that men and women often internalize a sexual script that places men as the sexual initiators (Sweeney, 2014; Werner & LaRussa, 1985) and women as the sexual gatekeepers (Grauerholz & Serpe, 1985; Jozkowski, 2011; Wiederman, 2005).

We examine students’ meanings of consent through their expectations for interactions building to sex. For kissing, students referenced nonverbal communication through proximity, gestures, head nods, touching, and “giving someone the eye.” All these actions are cues to indicate both interest in and consent to kissing, and students believed that their peers did not seek explicit, verbal consent for kissing.

Students, then, are reluctant to seek verbal consent for acts that are depicted as predominantly nonverbal. Yet, nonverbal communication and bodily cues for kissing such as “leaning in,” as referenced by students in this study, are potentially problematic because the act of kissing is also seen as creating a trajectory of implicit cues of consent for sexual intercourse. This is prone to misinterpretation because research shows that alcohol use can impair one’s ability to read subtle cues, such that nonverbal cues are misperceived. In fact, men frequently misperceive or overestimate friendly behavior as a sign of sexual interest or seduction, especially after consuming alcohol (Abbey, 2011; Abbey et al., 1987; Abbey & Melby, 1986; Koenig et al., 2007). A smile or look is mistaken for interest and misinterpreted as consent for kissing. This miscommunication can carry over into subsequent interactions. And whether such gestures communicate a clear yes or no is dependent on students’ understandings of implicit meanings. The assumption that all actors hold the same meanings could be one important explanation for miscommunication and a tendency for victims to view an assault as being their own fault.

Thus, respondents emphasized a sexual script often dependent on nonverbal communication (Muehlenhard et al., 1992) and rarely obtaining explicit consent for kissing. This may be due to the media, where kissing is often depicted as a spontaneous, passionate event. This “romanticization” of kissing also enforces the idea of a “natural progression” that begins with conveying interest by flirting through nonverbal communication and ends with expected physical advancements.

We find that within the social context of the college campus male and female students applied dual meanings of implicit and explicit consent. Students referenced explicit consent such as directly asking while sober and implicit sexual consent through nonverbal signals such as leaving a party with someone. This suggests that while students understand legal definitions of consent, by focusing on issues of alcohol consumption and coercion, they continue to employ a sexual script that runs contradictory to legal definitions in their local sexual scripts.

These scripts often pattern interactions in detrimental ways. Men and women may internalize these scripts for the appropriate behavior with men as the sexual initiators, as part of their masculinity performance (Sweeney, 2014) and women acting as guardians or gatekeepers of sexuality by setting limits for sexual encounters (Grauerholz & Serpe, 1985; La France, 2010; Wiederman, 2005). Students’ references to pushing boundaries, a lack of physical resistance, and seclusion suggest that a traditional sexual script is still prevalent on college campuses. In fact, emphasizing Staci’s lack of resistance can be linked to the historical resistance standards for rape victims (Abarbanel, 1986). While rape cases no longer require that victims show “resistance to the utmost” (Panichas, 2001), the dichotomy between resistance and consent remains culturally salient. Students appeared to hold the expectation that other students would illustrate a “no” through physical and forceful resistance and emphasized a lack of active resistance as implicit consent for kissing and sex.

Conclusion

Our study explores students’ local sexual scripts and their willingness to attribute meanings of sexual consent to characters in an ambiguous vignette. Students know one ought to give explicit, verbal consent, but they also “expect” and employ the use of implicit meanings of consent in ways that are unmistakably gendered. Students were more likely to believe that the male vignette character gave consent and had been involved in this situation before, and these differences were statistically significant. In other words, students were significantly more likely to interpret Tom’s actions or behaviors as consensual than Staci’s.

This gendered expectation is reflected in students’ qualitative responses as to why they believed consent was given or not given. Students emphasized a sexual script that includes the expectation that everyone knows and understands what “let’s get out of here” means. They interpreted the act of leaving a party with someone as indicating a man’s sexual interest and a woman’s willingness (or at least the lack of coercion). These indicators carry implicit meanings of sexual consent. While leaving the party with someone is nowhere in the realm of a legal definition of consent, students assigned great importance to such actions. Our results suggest that sexual scripts shape college students’ implicit meanings and influence their interpretations of innocuous actions such as deciding to leave a public space for a private one in ways that are vitally important for education around sexual consent.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Tim Hallett, Bianca Manago, and the Violence Against Women reviewers for their comments on the manuscript. Special acknowledgment is owed to the dedicated student researchers for helping to collect and analyze the data.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Anne Groggel

Author Biographies

Anne Groggel, PhD, is an assistant professor of Sociology at North Central College. Her work examines the gendered dynamics of intimate partner violence, sexual consent, judicial decision making, and emotional labor.

Maddie Burdick completed her undergraduate career at Indiana University (IU) in 2017. While at IU, she majored in Sociology and minored in Law and Public Policy.

Angel Barraza completed his undergraduate career at Indiana University (IU) in 2018. While at IU, he majored in Applied Health Science, Development and Family Services.

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