Contesting the terms of consent
how university students (dis)align with institutional policy on sexual consent
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34939Keywords:
sexuality, sexual consent, conversation analysis, higher educationAbstract
Universities’ sexual consent policies remain the focus of national media and government attention in the United States. Affirmative consent (i.e. physical and verbal consent) is increasingly the norm for institutional definitions of consent; yet these policies remain at odds with how students report consenting to sexual activity. In this paper, we examine how students formulate their understanding of sexual consent in ways that either resist or align with their university’s policies on sexual assault. Using conversation analysis, we analyse interviews in which students make explicit references to university policy when defining personal definitions of consent. We show that interviewees who do not align with university policy orient to this position as problematic and accountable, and conduct significantly more interactional work when defining consent. These findings illustrate the complex challenges that university students may face in articulating personal understandings of sexual consent, which may have consequences for policy and sexual consent programs.
References
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Cameron, D. (1994) Degrees of consent: the Antioch sexual consent policy. Trouble and Strife 28: 32–5.
Chronicle of Higher Education. (2019) Title IX: tracking sexual assault investigations. Retrieved 5 September 2019 from http://projects.chronicle.com/titleix.
Chun, E. and Podesva, R. J. (2010) Voice quality and indetermancies of social meaning in constructed dialogue. Paper presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium 18, Southampton, UK.
Department of Education (2018) Secretary DeVos: Proposed Title IX rule provides clarity for schools, support for survivors, and due process rights for all. Press release, 16 November. Retrieved 22 December 2018 from www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/secretary-devos-proposed-title-ix-rule-provides-clarity-schools-support-survivors-and-due-process-rights-all
Ehrlich, S. (1998) The discursive reconstruction of sexual consent. Discourse and Society 9(2): 149–71.
Ehrlich, S. L. (2001) Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. Abingdon: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1986) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern.
Gronert, N. M. (2013) The ‘grey area:’ college students’ perceptions of sexual consent in popular television programs. Unpublished manuscript.
Heinemann, T. (2005) Where grammar and interaction meet: the preference for matched polarity in responsive turns in Danish. In A. Hakulinen and M. Selting (eds) Syntax and lexis in conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk 375–402. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.17.18hei
Hepburn, A. and Bolden, G. B. (2012) The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis 57–76. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch4
Heritage, J. (2004) Conversation analysis and institutional talk. In K. L. Fitch and R. E. Sanders (eds) Handbook of Language and Social Interaction 103–47. New York: Psychology Press.
Heritage, J. and Watson, D. R. (1979) Formulations as conversational objects. In G. Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology 123–62. New York: Irvington Press.
Hickman, S. E. and Muehlenhard, C. L. (1999) ‘By the semi-mystical appearance of a condom’: how young women and men communicate sexual consent in heterosexual situations. The Journal of Sex Research 36(3): 258–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499909551996
Hoey, E. M. (2014) Sighing in interaction: somatic, semiotic, and social. Research on Language and Social Interaction 47(2): 175–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2014.900229
Humphreys, T. P. (2007) Perceptions of sexual consent: the impact of relationship history and gender. Journal of Sex Research 44(4): 307–15.
Johnson, A. and Hoover, S. (2015) The potential of sexual consent interventions on college campuses: a literature review on the barriers to establishing affirmative sexual consent. PURE Insights 4(1). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.wou.edu/pure/vol4/iss1/5
Jozkowski, K. N. (2015) Beyond the dyad: an assessment of sexual assault prevention education focused on social determinants of sexual assault among college students. Violence Against Women 21(7): 848–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215584069
Jozkowski, K. N., Peterson, Z. D., Sanders, S. A., Dennis, B. and Reece, M. (2014) Gender differences in heterosexual college students’ conceptualizations and indicators of sexual consent: implications for contemporary sexual assault prevention education. The Journal of Sex Research 51(8): 904–16. ttps://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2013.792326
Kamio, A. (1997) Territory of Information. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Kirkpatrick, C. and Kanin, E. (1957) Male sex aggression on a university campus. American Sociological Review 22(1): 52–8. https://doi.org/10.2307/2088765
Kitzinger, C. and Frith, H. (1999) Just say no? The use of conversation analysis in developing a feminist perspective on sexual refusal. Discourse and Society 10(3): 293–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926599010003002
Koshik, I. (2002) A conversation analytic study of yes/no questions which convey reversed polarity assertions. Journal of Pragmatics 34(12): 1851–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-2166(02)00057-7
Maynard, D. W. (2013) Defensive mechanisms: I-mean-prefaced utterances in complaint and other conversational sequences. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond and J. Sidnell (eds) Conversational Repair and Human Understanding 198–233. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511757464.007
McMahon, S., Wood, L., Cusano, J. and Macri, L. M. (2018) Campus sexual assault: future directions for research. Sexual Abuse 1079063217750864. https://doi.org/10.1177/1079063217750864
Mellins, C. A., Walsh, K., Sarvet, A. L., Wall, M., Gilbert, L., Santelli, J. S., … Hirsch, J. S. (2017) Sexual assault incidents among college undergraduates: prevalence and factors associated with risk. PLOS ONE 12(11): e0186471. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471
Muehlenhard, C. L., Humphreys, T. P., Jozkowski, K. N. and Peterson, Z. D. (2016) The Complexities of sexual consent among college students: a conceptual and empirical review. The Journal of Sex Research 53(4–5): 457–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1146651
Ogden, R. (2013) Clicks and percussives in English conversation. Journal of the International Phonetics Association 43(3): 299–320. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025100313000224
Pomerantz, A. (1984a) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shaped. Retrieved from http://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cas_communication_scholar/3
Pomerantz, A. (1984b) Giving a source or basis: the practice in conversation of telling ‘how I know’. Journal of Pragmatics 8(5–6): 607–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(84)90002-x
Pomerantz, A. and Heritage, J. (2012) Preference. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis 210–28. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch11
Rapley, T. J. (2001) The art(fulness) of open-ended interviewing: some considerations on analysing interviews. Qualitative Research 1(3): 303–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/146879410100100303
Raymond, G. (2003) Grammar and social organization: yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review 68(6): 939. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519752
Robinson, J. D. and Kevoe-Feldman, H. (2010) Using full repeats to initiate repair on others’ questions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(3): 232–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2010.497990
Sanday, P. R. (1992) Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus. New York: NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/2073740
Saul, S. and Taylor, K. (2017) Betsy DeVos reverses Obama-era policy on campus sexual assault investigations. The New York Times (22 December). Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/devos-colleges-sex-assault.html
Schegloff, E. A. (2010) Some other ‘uh(m)’s. Discourse Processes 10(2): 130–74.
Shaw, C., Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2013) Having the last laugh: on post-completion laughter particles. In P. Glenn and E. Holt (eds) Studies of Laughter in Interaction 91–106. London: Bloomsbury.
Somanader, T. (2014). President Obama launches the ‘it’s on us’ campaign to end sexual assault on campus. Retrieved 7 March 2016 from www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/09/19/president-obama-launches-its-us-campaign-end-sexual-assault-campus
Stivers, T. and Hayashi, M. (2010) Transformative answers: one way to resist a question’s constraints. Language in Society 39(1): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404509990637
Stokoe, E. H. and Smithson, J. (2001) Making gender relevant: conversation analysis and gender categories in interaction. Discourse and Society 12(2): 217–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926501012002005
Suran, E. (2014) Title IX and social media: going beyond the Law. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 21: 273–309.
Tainio, L. (2003) ‘When shall we go for a ride?’ A case of the sexual harassment of a young girl. Discourse and Society 14(2): 173–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926503014002754
Wade, L. (2017) American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus. New York: W. W. Norton.
Cameron, D. (1994) Degrees of consent: the Antioch sexual consent policy. Trouble and Strife 28: 32–5.
Chronicle of Higher Education. (2019) Title IX: tracking sexual assault investigations. Retrieved 5 September 2019 from http://projects.chronicle.com/titleix.
Chun, E. and Podesva, R. J. (2010) Voice quality and indetermancies of social meaning in constructed dialogue. Paper presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium 18, Southampton, UK.
Department of Education (2018) Secretary DeVos: Proposed Title IX rule provides clarity for schools, support for survivors, and due process rights for all. Press release, 16 November. Retrieved 22 December 2018 from www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/secretary-devos-proposed-title-ix-rule-provides-clarity-schools-support-survivors-and-due-process-rights-all
Ehrlich, S. (1998) The discursive reconstruction of sexual consent. Discourse and Society 9(2): 149–71.
Ehrlich, S. L. (2001) Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. Abingdon: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1986) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern.
Gronert, N. M. (2013) The ‘grey area:’ college students’ perceptions of sexual consent in popular television programs. Unpublished manuscript.
Heinemann, T. (2005) Where grammar and interaction meet: the preference for matched polarity in responsive turns in Danish. In A. Hakulinen and M. Selting (eds) Syntax and lexis in conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk 375–402. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.17.18hei
Hepburn, A. and Bolden, G. B. (2012) The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis 57–76. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch4
Heritage, J. (2004) Conversation analysis and institutional talk. In K. L. Fitch and R. E. Sanders (eds) Handbook of Language and Social Interaction 103–47. New York: Psychology Press.
Heritage, J. and Watson, D. R. (1979) Formulations as conversational objects. In G. Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology 123–62. New York: Irvington Press.
Hickman, S. E. and Muehlenhard, C. L. (1999) ‘By the semi-mystical appearance of a condom’: how young women and men communicate sexual consent in heterosexual situations. The Journal of Sex Research 36(3): 258–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499909551996
Hoey, E. M. (2014) Sighing in interaction: somatic, semiotic, and social. Research on Language and Social Interaction 47(2): 175–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2014.900229
Humphreys, T. P. (2007) Perceptions of sexual consent: the impact of relationship history and gender. Journal of Sex Research 44(4): 307–15.
Johnson, A. and Hoover, S. (2015) The potential of sexual consent interventions on college campuses: a literature review on the barriers to establishing affirmative sexual consent. PURE Insights 4(1). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.wou.edu/pure/vol4/iss1/5
Jozkowski, K. N. (2015) Beyond the dyad: an assessment of sexual assault prevention education focused on social determinants of sexual assault among college students. Violence Against Women 21(7): 848–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215584069
Jozkowski, K. N., Peterson, Z. D., Sanders, S. A., Dennis, B. and Reece, M. (2014) Gender differences in heterosexual college students’ conceptualizations and indicators of sexual consent: implications for contemporary sexual assault prevention education. The Journal of Sex Research 51(8): 904–16. ttps://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2013.792326
Kamio, A. (1997) Territory of Information. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Kirkpatrick, C. and Kanin, E. (1957) Male sex aggression on a university campus. American Sociological Review 22(1): 52–8. https://doi.org/10.2307/2088765
Kitzinger, C. and Frith, H. (1999) Just say no? The use of conversation analysis in developing a feminist perspective on sexual refusal. Discourse and Society 10(3): 293–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926599010003002
Koshik, I. (2002) A conversation analytic study of yes/no questions which convey reversed polarity assertions. Journal of Pragmatics 34(12): 1851–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-2166(02)00057-7
Maynard, D. W. (2013) Defensive mechanisms: I-mean-prefaced utterances in complaint and other conversational sequences. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond and J. Sidnell (eds) Conversational Repair and Human Understanding 198–233. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511757464.007
McMahon, S., Wood, L., Cusano, J. and Macri, L. M. (2018) Campus sexual assault: future directions for research. Sexual Abuse 1079063217750864. https://doi.org/10.1177/1079063217750864
Mellins, C. A., Walsh, K., Sarvet, A. L., Wall, M., Gilbert, L., Santelli, J. S., … Hirsch, J. S. (2017) Sexual assault incidents among college undergraduates: prevalence and factors associated with risk. PLOS ONE 12(11): e0186471. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471
Muehlenhard, C. L., Humphreys, T. P., Jozkowski, K. N. and Peterson, Z. D. (2016) The Complexities of sexual consent among college students: a conceptual and empirical review. The Journal of Sex Research 53(4–5): 457–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1146651
Ogden, R. (2013) Clicks and percussives in English conversation. Journal of the International Phonetics Association 43(3): 299–320. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025100313000224
Pomerantz, A. (1984a) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shaped. Retrieved from http://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cas_communication_scholar/3
Pomerantz, A. (1984b) Giving a source or basis: the practice in conversation of telling ‘how I know’. Journal of Pragmatics 8(5–6): 607–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(84)90002-x
Pomerantz, A. and Heritage, J. (2012) Preference. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis 210–28. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch11
Rapley, T. J. (2001) The art(fulness) of open-ended interviewing: some considerations on analysing interviews. Qualitative Research 1(3): 303–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/146879410100100303
Raymond, G. (2003) Grammar and social organization: yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review 68(6): 939. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519752
Robinson, J. D. and Kevoe-Feldman, H. (2010) Using full repeats to initiate repair on others’ questions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(3): 232–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2010.497990
Sanday, P. R. (1992) Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus. New York: NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/2073740
Saul, S. and Taylor, K. (2017) Betsy DeVos reverses Obama-era policy on campus sexual assault investigations. The New York Times (22 December). Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/devos-colleges-sex-assault.html
Schegloff, E. A. (2010) Some other ‘uh(m)’s. Discourse Processes 10(2): 130–74.
Shaw, C., Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2013) Having the last laugh: on post-completion laughter particles. In P. Glenn and E. Holt (eds) Studies of Laughter in Interaction 91–106. London: Bloomsbury.
Somanader, T. (2014). President Obama launches the ‘it’s on us’ campaign to end sexual assault on campus. Retrieved 7 March 2016 from www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/09/19/president-obama-launches-its-us-campaign-end-sexual-assault-campus
Stivers, T. and Hayashi, M. (2010) Transformative answers: one way to resist a question’s constraints. Language in Society 39(1): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404509990637
Stokoe, E. H. and Smithson, J. (2001) Making gender relevant: conversation analysis and gender categories in interaction. Discourse and Society 12(2): 217–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926501012002005
Suran, E. (2014) Title IX and social media: going beyond the Law. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 21: 273–309.
Tainio, L. (2003) ‘When shall we go for a ride?’ A case of the sexual harassment of a young girl. Discourse and Society 14(2): 173–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926503014002754
Wade, L. (2017) American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus. New York: W. W. Norton.
Published
2019-10-17
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Gronert, N. M., & Raclaw, J. (2019). Contesting the terms of consent: how university students (dis)align with institutional policy on sexual consent. Gender and Language, 13(3), 291–313. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34939
