Influence of Relationship Type

Personal sexual experience, particularly discrepancies between partners’ levels of sexual experience, and feelings about a potential sexual partner influenced consent negotiations more

than relationship type (i.e., first consensual sexual experience ever, first consensual sexual experience with a new dating partner, a consensual sexual experience in a long-term

relationship). Sexual inexperience influenced consent negotiations in opposite ways. For some, it was associated with considerable discussion about consent. For others, sexual inexperience led to an absence of verbal communication. Hameed, a 19-year old Indian man, described his very first consensual sexual experience ever with a girlfriend who was also a virgin. Though he was “kind of nervous” and “worried,” Hameed reported continually obtaining his girlfriend’s consent during the experience. Hameed said, “I actually asked her if you are ok with this, is this ok, let’s slow down and talk about this for a second.” For Catherine, a 23-year old Caucasian woman, consent was not established in the moment preceding her first consensual sexual experience, but was established through joking, flirting, and talking about sex in the days, weeks, and months preceding intercourse with her then boyfriend. Catherine recalled, “I guess like through flirting…we had hinted, like in the past we wanted to, but prior to like the actual time that we did, … we hadn’t actually said ‘do you want to have sex’ or ‘how would you feel about that,’ nothing like that.”

While Hameed and Catherine reported using language to negotiate consent, Jamal did not. In fact, Jamal recalled his very first consensual sexual experience as being entirely nonverbal. Jamal’s only mention of verbal communication occurred when I asked him what made his first sexual experience consensual. Unexpectedly, Jamal said, “I guess it was coercion. I coerced her into it, but I don’t believe it was aggressive to where I intimidated her into doing it. It was more whining and begging than anything else.” Jamal used language, not to negotiation consent, but to coerce his girlfriend into performing oral sex. Catherine similarly described how her current boyfriend “begs” for sex. She said that her boyfriend is not “very good at taking no

for an answer. He’s never been like physically like hey let’s do this, but he kind of like begs and I tell him all the time, ‘like that’s a really big turn off when you’re just for an hour straight, can we please have sex please, please?’”

Discrepancies between partners’ levels of sexual experience also impacted consent. Nadia spoke about her decision to remain a virgin until marriage and expressed concern about how her decision could threaten the longevity of her current romantic relationship of five months. In contrast to her relative inexperience, her boyfriend has had two prior sexual

relationships. Nadia described how their consent negotiations focus on her boundaries. She said, “all I want to do is make out and that’s about it, but with him because he’s a guy, guys usually have like other things in mind. Usually I have to tell him that I want to slow things down.” While Nadia’s boyfriend has been content with her decision for the past five months, she worries that things might change.

I feel like … that now we’re reaching our like next month is going to be our sixth month and so I’ve never had a relationship last more than six months. So I’m not sure what to expect, but like I feel like because most of my friends like they always say like people usually get more sexually active.

As a result of their different expectations for sex, Nadia reported avoiding discussions of consent with her boyfriend, only raising the issue “if it seems necessary, because it’s kind of like I don’t want to talk about it all the time.”

Jamal’s description of two different sexual experiences highlighted the influence of feelings for a potential sexual partner on consent negotiations. In the passage below, Jamal describes how he encouraged his current girlfriend to wait to have sex early in their relationship because he cared about her.

She told me that she was a virgin and she told me that she wanted to have sex. She told me she was ready and I was like no you want to think about it. We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend and I told her you want your first time to be with somebody who loves you. Like…I cared about her, she was my friend, but I didn’t love her. You know. But I cared about her enough to turn it down and tell her that she deserved something better.

In this passage, Jamal’s feelings for his girlfriend override his desire to engage in sexual behavior. In contrast to this experience, Jamal described, “messing around” with a woman with whom he had a “little fling.” Jamal said, “I didn’t want anything to do with her because she got like real serious real quick;” however, he found himself “in the heat of the moment” having sex with her because “like I know she’s there and I can.” Of note is Jamal’s reported use of alcohol precipitating this sexual experience.