Using Communication Stories to Explore How Young People Draw on Sexual Scripts When Making Sense of Sexual Consent

Our research explores how secondary school students draw on commonly recognised sexual scripts to account for the consent practices of young people. We constructed three vignette variations which described a real-life ‘hook-up’ scenario using ‘status-quo’ scripts related to gender roles, gendered power dynamics, and alcohol consumption. Young people aged 14–17-years were recruited from five secondary schools across the Republic of Ireland. Participants (N = 613) rated their dis/agreement as to whether the vignette variation they were presented with demonstrated sexual consent, and provided written comments to explain their decision. Our findings from this research show that young people have complex, nuanced, and varied understandings of sexual consent. When accounting for sexual consent negotiation, youth drew on sexual scripts that both upheld and troubled a heteronormative binary that responsibilises women and absolves men. We highlight instances where youth responses illuminate possibilities for future pedagogical practices on the topic of sexual consent.