Dissertation, BA (Psych) Hons, University of Waikato, 2015

Sexual consent is a topical and valuable issue to research because acquaintance sexual violence remains a stubborn problem on university campuses as well as elsewhere. Sexual consent is defined in many ways within the literature and in public discourses. Most campaigns to address acquaintance sexual violence and consent draw on the miscommunication hypothesis in assuming that women need to communicate more clearly and men need to listen more carefully; however, some research has shown that men are quite capable of interpreting even the subtlest of consent cues and that verbal direct consent or non-consent is not normative sexual behaviour for young people. Empirical and theoretical research lends support to the role that gendered discourses play in consent understandings and behaviours. This study used a qualitative approach to contribute to the growing research into what has shaped young women's understandings of consent to heterosex and how young women normatively communicate and interpret consent in their own heterosexual relationships. Six young women attended one of two group discussions focusing on consent. Discussions were recorded and transcribed and the data was analysed for research-consistent and novel themes using inductive thematic analysis. Three themes were interpreted verbatim from the data, all consistent with previous research: (a) ‘Consent just seems like a more female thing’, (b) ‘If you want them to, you let them’, and (c) ‘It’s complicated, cos it just depends really’. Recommendations for future research are made. (Author's abstract). Record #4957