'Stories of Consent': A digital feminist project rooted in ethical erotics


Meaghan Furlano, Western University

Sexual violence is a pressing international issue that has grown increasingly prevalent since 2017 following the explosion of the #MeToo movement, where people, primarily women, began to digitally disclose their experiences of sexual harassment and assault. Simultaneously, these individuals started to situate their personal experiences of sexual violence within a broader rape culture that encourages masculine aggression and positions violence against women as sexy and desirable. To date, most research on digital feminist responses to rape culture has explored activist campaigns characterized by negative affect, including the disclosure and publishing of survivor stories of sexual violence. Launched in February 2023, Stories of Consent is a digital project spearheaded by two young adult activists that aims to make conversations about consent and safety during sex more visible, accessible, and actionable. Unlike most of the digital feminist projects previously explored by scholars, Stories of Consent is uniquely characterized by positive affect. Rather than encouraging people to submit their stories of sexual violence, the creators behind Stories of Consent ask individuals to share their definitions of and positive experiences with sexual consent. Further, the creators promote the affirmative model of consent, which has been slowly transforming the 1990s’ ‘no means no’ discourse into one that states only ‘yes means yes.’ At the same time, prior research finds that young people frequently have a hard time translating abstract definitions of affirmative consent into practical sexual scripts and that young people tend to view affirmative consent as an awkward and embarrassing process and, accordingly, express little motivation to give and get affirmative consent in their sexual encounters. Perhaps this is because young people are not exposed to practical sexual scripts involving affirmative consent, and are not seeing it practiced among other young people. Hence, I am interested in exploring what messages are most frequently disseminated through the Stories of Consent contributions and the demographic characteristics of the contributors themselves. I am guided by the following research question: What are the recurring themes in the Stories of Consent submissions? To answer this question, I performed a qualitative content and thematic analysis of a sample of 52 submissions from the Stories of Consent website (https://storiesofconsent.online/ [1]). Answering this question allows me to understand better the most popular themes under investigation and in practice and thus theorize about the potential value of engaging with Stories of Consent submissions, particularly for young people. Early results indicate that Stories of Consent contributors are young people, most often under 25. Their young age is likely significant, given that prior research has found that young people tend to replicate the sexual scripts of their peers. Hence, Stories of Consent can be a valuable tool for young people to learn about and see affirmative sexual consent enacted concretely by similar others. Theoretically, they are more likely to uptake and model these behaviours after being exposed to them through peers. Moreover, the contributors frequently discussed the following themes: that consent must be repeatedly asked for and acquired, that being in a relationship does not equal consent, that one must verbally ask for consent, that one must support verbal communication by paying attention to non-verbal signals of (non)consent, that consent must be asked for regardless of gender, and that consent is sexy and leads to safe, supportive, and pleasurable sexual experiences. Many contributors also noted how past experiences with sexual violence informed their attitudes towards sexual activity, and that being in a sexual relationship characterized by affirmative consent led to feelings of safety and comfort. After discussing the results, I move to situate the project within a framework of ethical erotics, which insists that sexuality should not be addressed, framed, or taught in a solely positive or negative light. Instead, ethical erotics involve highlighting both pleasure and danger discourses to reflect the realities of sexuality. In educational spaces, danger discourses either dominate or entirely frame teachings of sexuality. Hence, I argue that Stories of Consent, involving both pleasure and danger discourses, is an excellent tool to include in spaces concerned with sexuality education, especially schools. Further research should test and evaluate (young) people’s responses to Stories of Consent submissions to see if these predictions hold true.

Non-presenting author: Kaitlynn Mendes, Western University

This paper will be presented at the following session: