To my knowledge, this is the first study to use Q methodology to explore college students’ subjective viewpoints on sexual consent. Factor analysis revealed two groups of college students who conceptualize consent in different ways. Whereas one group envisions consent as a mutual agreement made by individuals of equal power, the other defines consent according to what it prevents, rape. However, 33% of participants’ data failed to load on either of these two factors suggesting the possibility of additional shared understandings of consent
among college students. Most likely, the Q-sample in this study, though intended to be
representative, failed to include all communicable perspectives on consent. Participants excluded from the final factor solution may conceptualize consent in ways not represented in the Q-
sample. To capture a more representative population of statements about consent, future research should sample a more diverse group of participants (i.e., not just college students). Doing so will likely provide additional perspectives, less common among college students, but still
representative of some.
Participants were asked to arrange statements about consent in a quasi-normal distribution. However, the average size of participants’ three piles (illustrated in Figure 7.1) suggests they did so only because they were forced. The positively skewed, slightly bipolar, distribution can be interpreted in several ways. First, the Q-sample itself may have been skewed such that it contained more positive than negative statements about consent. Second, college students may not conceptualize consent as a normally distributed construct. Third, the shape of the distribution may be an artifact of the instructions participants followed to sort the statements. I told participants to place each statement into one of three piles; the middle pile represented
those statements that were “irrelevant” to how participants thought about consent. A more neutral midpoint such as “somewhat” or “sort of” may have facilitated a normal distribution.
In this study, I did not ask participants to explain the purpose of establishing consent. Yet, Factors 1 and 2 suggest different reasons for doing so. For college students who
conceptualize consent as promoting sexual health, consent may be used to begin a dialogue between partners about their sexuality, boundaries, past experiences, and HIV/STD testing status. College students who think about consent as rape prevention may negotiate consent simply to avoid sexual violence. These social perspectives are certainly related, as consensual sex is a part of healthy sexuality; however, for Factor 1, consent is a means to an end. For Factor 2, consent itself is the end. In the remainder of this document, I use the terms “healthy sexuality” and “sexual health” interchangeably, though I recognize they convey quite different meanings. I prefer “healthy sexuality,” but realize it is a loaded term than can make some people
uncomfortable. I think “sexual health” is palatable to most people and actually situates sexual violence prevention within a general health framework, which I believe, is advantageous.
Both factors are examples of what Cohen (1991) refers to as a two-pronged approach to prevention. According to Cohen (1991), prevention requires the simultaneous pursuit of risk reduction and health promotion, as health in any domain is more than the absence of disease. From this perspective, working to ensure that every single sexual experience is consensual is the bare minimum. If a healthy sexual experience is more than just one without violence, we need to promote a model of healthy sexuality, as it is insufficient to tell individuals what not to do without telling them what they should do. Promoting the skills you want others to adopt is a prerequisite for lasting change (Perry, 2005).
However, healthy sexuality is rarely a component of college and university sexual violence prevention programming. In fact, after summarizing key findings from a 1999 National Institute of Justice report on post-secondary institutional responses to sexual assault, Karjane, Fisher, and Cullen (2005) conclude:
A campus sexual assault education program should include comprehensive education about rape myths, common circumstances under which the crime occurs, rapist
characteristics, prevention strategies, rape trauma responses and the healing process, and campus policies and support services (p. 12).
Nowhere do they mention the need to promote a positive image of sexuality. Yet, this is not unusual, as sexual violence prevention programs often focus exclusively on reducing women’s risk for victimization (Reppucci, Woolard, & Fried, 1999). A content analysis of sexual violence policies from 54 two- and four-year public and private colleges and universities revealed
institutions rely most heavily on criminal sanctions and fear of punishment to prevent sexual violence on campus (Potter et al., 2000). Second most commonly reported were policies consistent with a risk-reduction approach. Only a handful of institutions aligned their response with a public health perspective that focuses on prevention through health promotion.
Preliminary evidence tentatively suggests healthy sexuality education contributes to sexual violence prevention. Borges et al. (2008) evaluated the utility of a brief, one time only, sexual assault prevention education program focused on teaching college students about the importance of consent to healthy sexual relationships. Among a convenience sample of 220 college women and men, treatment participants were significantly less likely than control participants to infer consent from ambiguous non-verbal behaviors. For example, participants in the treatment condition were less likely to think that sexual consent is implied when you invite
someone back to your room. Similarly, recent efforts to reduce teen dating violence have integrated dating violence prevention with lessons on healthy relationships and sexual health (Wolfe et al. 2009). Results from a randomized trial revealed participants in the intervention group reported less physical dating violence two and a half years post-intervention than control participants (Wolfe et al. 2009).
Individuals who believe sexual violence is perpetrated for power, not sex, will likely oppose framing consent as a sexual health rather than sexual violence issue (MacKinnon, 1989). However, results from this study suggest not doing so limits the effectiveness of sexual violence preventive interventions, as the ‘consent prevents rape’ message may not resonate with some college students. In addition to potentially reaching a broader target audience, situating consent within a sexual health domain makes more people responsible for preventing sexual violence. If consent is about health not sex, doctors, nurses, health educators, teachers, and parents may be more likely to talk to their patients, students and children about consent. In addition, situating consent within a larger frame of sexual health normalizes talking about sex. If it is difficult to discuss sex in general, it will be impossible to talk about sexual violence.
Future research is needed to validate the factors of consent discovered in this study. Factor validation could be accomplished in several ways; the first and most simple would be to replicate this study. Traditional factor analysis could also be used. By creating a questionnaire that includes all 52 statements about consent used in this study, participants could indicate the extent to which they agree with each on a Likert-type scale. Correlating and factor analyzing
items would determine if consent is a multidimensional construct by revealing underlying latent components. These components could be compared to the factors found in this study. Finally, traditional methods of demonstrating construct validity could be employed to highlight
convergent and divergent relationships between consent factors and other constructs theoretically related. The key is figuring out where to expect similarities and differences between college students on each factor.
9 STUDY III METHOD