Beyond Consent towards Sexual Agency: Queer Insights on Negotiating Sex
“[A] sexual agency framework may be more fruitful in exploring more ethical sexual communication practices beyond consent .…”
Sophie Hindes
University of Melbourne
Bio
Sophie Hindes (they/them) is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne. Sophie’s research investigates sexual, domestic, and gendered violence from queer and feminist theoretical perspectives. Their current PhD research explores sexual consent in queer relationships and looks to expand understandings of sexual consent beyond violence-prevention frameworks. You can follow Sophie on Twitter: @sophiehindes
Abstract
The absence of LGBTQ+ people and the examination of positive experiences of sexual communication is a concerning gap in the literature on consent. I wanted to address some of these critical gaps in my PhD research by exploring, firstly, how queer people understand and negotiate sexual consent. Secondly, how queer people are doing consent well, and what (if anything) we can learn about more ethical ways of negotiating sex from queer people who have been marginalised in research thus far. This paper explores some initial findings from my PhD research through the close examination of one participant’s narrative. Through exploration of their narrative, I suggest that a sexual agency framework may be more fruitful in exploring more ethical sexual communication practices beyond consent.
Keywords
Consent, Queer; LGBT; Consent Culture
Introduction
In recent times there has been a move towards ‘consent culture’ with widespread discourse claiming that sexual consent is the silver bullet for transforming unethical sexual cultures (Angel 2021). This has included changes to standards of sexual consent in law, policies, and education, moving from ‘no means no’ to enthusiastic or affirmative models (see for example: Fileborn and Hindes 2021). These changes seek to recognise and remedy the gendered nature of negotiating sex. They respond to research which has found that heteronormative sexual scripts influence how some people engage in sexual encounters, including how and whether consent is communicated (see for example: Brady et al. 2018; Jozkowski et al. 2017). Changes to standards of sexual consent have also happened in response to social movements such as #MeToo which have brought issues with (hetero)sexual consent communication into the public discourse (Fileborn and Loney-Howes 2019). However, research and movements such as #MeToo have primarily focused on heterosexual experiences of sexual violence between cisgender men and women (Ison 2019). There is an absence of research on sexual consent that is inclusive of LGBTQ+ people, despite research demonstrating that they experience similar, if not greater rates of sexual violence (see for example: Klein et al. 2022; Hill et al. 2020). Sexual consent models have also primarily been developed in response to experiences of sexual violence, rather than through examination of ethical sexual communication practices. Therefore, we know little about whether affirmative and enthusiastic consent frameworks reflect more ethical sexual communication practices beyond whether determining if sex was legally consensual (Fischel 2019).
The absence of LGBTQ+ people and the examination of positive experiences of sexual communication is a concerning gap. I wanted to address some of these critical gaps in my PhD research through exploring, firstly, how queer people understand and negotiate sexual consent. Secondly, how queer people are doing consent well, and what (if anything) we can learn about more ethical ways of negotiating sex from queer people who have been marginalised in research thus far. This paper explores some initial findings from my PhD research through the close examination of one participant’s narrative. Through exploration of their narrative, I suggest that a sexual agency framework may be more fruitful in exploring more ethical sexual communication practices beyond consent.
Literature Review
Sexual violence has largely been understood as gender-based, with heterosexual men perpetrating violence against cis-gender women within the context of heterosexual relationships (Fileborn 2013). Studies have found that sexual consent communication is also deeply gendered and impacted by normative understandings of sex and gender. Namely, that (cis)women bear the onus of sexual communication, choosing whether to acquiesce to (cis)men’s initiations. This means it is often up to (cis)women to say ‘no’, rather than for (cis)men to actively seek consent (Brady et al. 2018; Jozkowski et al. 2017; Beres 2007; Humphreys 2007). Whilst sexual violence and sexual consent communication is undoubtedly a gendered phenomenon, the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from mainstream understandings has limited deeper understandings of these issues beyond heteronormative gendered impacts. Some studies on sexual consent in LGBTIQ+ relationships are emerging which have found that there are unique impacts on sexual communication practices for LGBTQ+ people. For example, de Heer at al. (2021) found that power and control manifest in different ways in LGBTQ+ relationships. They also found that whilst LGBTQ+ people may be less restricted by normative gender roles, the marginalisation and erasure of LGBTQ+ sexualities can make it difficult for some LGBTQ+ people to openly communicate about sex. Indeed, representations of sexual consent that only reflect dominant heterosexual discourses about negotiating sex have also been found to marginalise and exclude LGBTQ+ people, which can work to further oppress their sexuality (de Heer et al. 2021; Richardson 2021).
While research makes it clear that the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from consent frameworks has detrimental impacts (de Heer et al. 2021; Richardson 2021), some scholars argue that we need to move beyond the framework of sexual consent altogether and think about more ethical sex beyond legal parameters (see: Kukla 2021; Angel 2021; Fischel 2019; Cense 2019). These scholars draw attention to the socio-cultural norms about sex and gender and power relationships that impact someone’s ability to clearly express their desires (Angel 2021; Kukla 2021; Fischel 2021). These external factors are always constraining or chipping away at someone’s ability to make fully autonomous choices about sex. For example, the expectation for men to be sexually dominant may make it difficult for men to say ‘no’ to sex or express the desire for other ways of engaging in sexual activity. In another example, women may engage in sex they do not really want because they are unsure whether it is more dangerous to say ‘no’. Sexual consent is unable to grapple with the complexities of external norms and power relationships because consent focuses on voluntary participation and choice (Kukla 2021). Marianne Cense (2019) suggests that rather than focusing on sexual consent as an expression of autonomy, we need to help young people develop their sexual agency so they can navigate the social structures and power relations that influence their sexual decision making. Overall, this body of literature shows there are critical gaps in both having a deeper understanding of sexual communication practices in LGBTQ+ relationships and understanding whether sexual consent frameworks reflect ethical sexual communication in practice.
Methods and Participants
A queer methodology was central to the formation and execution of this research project. Rather than an “add queer people and stir” approach to research which retrospectively includes gender and sexuality as a variable in pre-established understandings of research problems (Buist and Lenning 2016: 22), a queer methodology challenges and destabilises normative knowledge production (Buist and Lenning 2016; Ball 2016). Therefore, the direction and foundations of this research was formulated in collaboration with queer participants, allowing me to challenge the heterosexist assumptions of sexual consent scholarship. This collaborative approach involved initially running three exploratory focus groups (with 2-6 participants in each). In these focus groups I observed the language participants were using and the themes that they thought were important. This then informed the research direction. From there, I undertook individual interviews to better understand the themes raised in the focus groups through participants’ personal narratives (33 interviews in total). Interviews were semi-structured and the questions were open ended, allowing participants to describe their experiences of negotiating sex in their own words and to tell the stories they thought were important.
Participants were people who had sexual experiences with people of multiple genders (e.g. bisexual+, queer and pansexual people — though not all people identified with those labels). I chose these participants because I thought they would have unique insights into the impact of gender and sexuality on negotiating sex due to their diverse experiences. Participants were recruited through online advertising and snowball sampling. The focus groups were run in-person in Melbourne and the interviews were all done online over Zoom. Participants were aged between 20-49 years old and were located in metropolitan regions around Australia. Participants were able to self-identify their gender and sexuality. The focus group and interview data were analysed with both thematic (Braun and Clarke 2019) and narrative (Miller 2017) analysis.
More than consent: the gendered and contextual nature of sexual agency
When participants described situations and relationships where sexual communication was done well, it was not just about whether consent conversations and actions happened – but how fully participants could participate in the process of negotiating sex. In other words, participants did not describe experiences in a binary sense where they either could or could not communicate consent, but they described having varying levels of agency in different situations to communicate during sex. This variation in agency was deeply connected to participants’ gender and sexuality journeys and the gendered relationship between them and different partners. To demonstrate what I mean by this, I focus on an in-depth narrative analysis of one participants’ interview. Niamh is 25, uses they/them pronouns, is non-binary and identifies their sexuality as queer. Niamh’s story was particularly rich and demonstrated the complexities of sexual agency including how it varied over time and in different contexts, and how this impacted their sexual communication practices.
Niamh began their early sexual life having sexual relationships with cis-men and at the time they identified as a woman. They described struggling to initiate sex, let alone what they wanted to do during sex saying: “whenever I have had sex or a relationship with a cis-male partner, I’ve let them lead the negotiation and let them set the terms of the negotiation”. They describe this difficulty as being tied to normative gender roles between men and women where women are expected to be passive while men are the active initiators of sex. This certainly reflects the research on consent in heterosexual relationships (see for example: Brady et al. 2018; Jozkowski et al. 2017; Beres 2007; Humphreys 2007). They also described that they were seeking validation as sexually attractive from cis-men and this was often why they engaged in sex, rather than sex being about their sexual pleasure. Due to these factors, they described having constrained sexual agency where sexual communication was limited to saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and they did not feel they had much scope to negotiate sex beyond this. So, Niamh is describing having a constrained or limited sexual agency in relationships with cis-men due to heteronormative ideas around gender roles during sex and women’s bodies as objects of men’s desire.
Niamh later began to explore sex in the kink community where they learnt more skills around negotiating consent. They said the kink scene emphasised the need to negotiate consent for each type of sexual activity. During this time Niamh felt they had more agency to negotiate specific acts that they wanted to try, rather than just saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to sex. However, they were still exploring kink with cis-men and they said they still only saw possibilities for themself to negotiate sex from a more submissive role, with their sexual agency still constrained by heteronormative gender roles where women are expected to be in the submissive or passive position.
Niamh then described beginning to explore their queer sexual identity and having sexual experiences with partners other than cis-men. They said exploring sex with partners of other genders made them realise that they had been following a heteronormative script with cis-men. They reflected on the difference in sexual communication saying: “when I’ve partnered or had sex with anyone who doesn’t fit the cis-male label — so cis-women and trans and non-binary folk — it’s more of a collaboration rather than a dictation”. In other words, when heteronormative gendered expectations were removed they felt they had more agency for sexual communication to be collaborative. Further, Niamh described that exploring sex with a diversity of genders meant that sex became expanded to a wider variety of activities, no longer focused on “penis in vagina sex”. Niamh describes how this allowed them to reflect on what they actually wanted during sex, and encouraged them to explore what felt good, rather than just having sex in ways that were normatively expected of them. So, with queer sexual partners, Niamh had more agency to explore different types of sex as the constraints of the ‘coital imperative’ (that only penis-in-vagina sex is ‘real sex’) (see: McPhillips et al. 2001) were loosened.
Niamh then described that they began to explore their non-binary gender identity, and this further loosened the constraints on how they understood sex. They said: “accepting that I was non-binary meant I could say, ‘I don’t want to be perceived as a woman when I’m having sex’. Like even though I have boobies and a vagina, that doesn’t mean that I resonate with those parts of my body and that those parts of my body define what sex looks like”. So, through exploring a different way of embodying gender, Niamh described having more agency to negotiate sex outside of the normative expectations of a cis-woman’s body.
As Niamh’s narrative demonstrates, sexual agency is highly contextual and interpersonal, connected to the structural conditions and social norms that sex is being negotiated within, and is shaped by ones gendered and sexual identity (see also: Cense 2019). For Niamh, it was clear that whilst the sex that they were having earlier on in their life was consensual, they had less space to negotiate sex beyond saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ due to the constraints on their sexual agency. However, as the constraints of heteronormativity and cisnormativity were loosened through their exploration of queer gender and sexuality, Niamh was able negotiate sex in more agentic ways.
Conclusion: From Consent to a Queering of Sexual Agency
Whilst participants narratives were all unique, and Niamh is just one example, the process of having constraints on sexual agency loosened through unpacking normativities around sex, gender, and sexuality was a common thread. Whilst some participants did describe that learning about consent helped them better negotiate sex, most participants instead described a more complex and slow process of unpacking normativities about sex that was deeply connected to their gender and sexual identity journeys. Indeed, this research suggests that there are limitations in what the concept of consent can offer in fostering more ethical sexual interactions. Whilst sexual consent focuses on the idea that everyone should be able to make free, autonomous, and voluntary decisions about sex, there are structural impacts including heteronormativity and cisnormativity that can limit sexual agency. Considering this, I propose that a ‘queering of sexual agency’ might be a useful framework for thinking through more ethical sex and sexual communication. A queering of sexual agency recognises that loosening heteronormative and cisnormative constraints on sexual decision making, through unpacking normative understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality, can have a positive impact on some people’s ability to negotiate sex. It recognises that sexual communication is more complex than making choices and that there is a need to look beyond existing heteronormative consent frameworks in working towards more ethical sexual communication practices.
References
Angel, Katherine. 2021. Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent. New York: Verso.
Ball, Matthew. 2016. Criminology and queer theory: dangerous bedfellows? London, Palgrave Macmillan.
Beres, Melanie. 2007 “’Spontaneous” sexual consent: An analysis of sexual consent literature”, Feminism & Psychology 17 no. 1: 93–108.
Brady, Geraldine, Pam Lowe, Geraldine Brown, Jane Osmond and Michelle Newman. 2018. ‘“All in all it is just a judgement call”: issues surrounding sexual consent in young people’s heterosexual encounters” Journal of Youth Studies 21, no. 1: 35-50.
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2019. “Reflecting on Reflexive Thematic Analysis.” Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 11, no. 4: 589–97.
Buist, Carrie L. and Lenning, Emily. 2016. Queer Criminology. London, Routledge.
Cense, Marianne. 2019. “Navigating a bumpy road. Developing sexuality education that supports young people’s sexual agency”. Sex Education, 19, no. 3: 263-276.
Fileborn, Bianca and Hindes, Sophie. 2021. “How to get consent for sex (and no, it doesn’t have to spoil the mood)”. The Conversation, November 24.
Fileborn, Bianca and Loney-Howes, Rachel. 2019. #MeToo and the Politics of Social Change. London, Palgrave MacMillan.
Fileborn, Bianca. 2013. “Accounting for Space, Place and Identity: GLBTIQ Young Adults’ Experiences and Understandings of Unwanted Sexual Attention in Clubs and Pubs”. Critical Criminology, 22, no. 1: 81-97.
Fischel, Joseph. 2019. Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice. California Scholarship Online.
Griner, Stacey B., Nolan Kline, Edward Monroy, and Erika L. Thompson. 2021. “Sexual Consent Communication among Sexual and Gender Minority College Students.” The Journal of Sex Research. 58 (4): 462–68.
Heer, Brooke de, Meredith Brown, and Julianna Cheney. 2021. “Sexual Consent and Communication Among the Sexual Minoritized: The Role of Heteronormative Sex Education, Trauma, and Dual Identities.” Feminist Criminology, Online First.
Hill, Adam, O., Bourne, Adam, McNair, Ruth, Carman, Marina and Lyons, Anthony. 2020. Private Lives 3: The health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ people in Australia. ARCSHS Monograph Series No. 122. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University.
Humphreys, Terry. 2007. “Perceptions of Sexual Consent: The Impact of Relationship History and Gender”, Journal of Sex Research 44 no. 4: 307-315.
Ison, Jess. 2021. “’It’s Not Just Men and Women’: LGBTQIA People and #MeToo”. In #MeToo and the Politics of Social Change, edited by Fileborn, Bianca and Loney-Howes, Rachel, 151-167. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Jozkowski, Kristen, Zoe D Peterson, Stephanie A Sanders, Barbara Dennis and Michael Reece. 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, no. 8: 904-916.
Klein, L.B, Dawes, Greeshma James, William J. Hall, Cynthia Fraga Rizo, Sharyn J. Potter, Sandra L. Martin, and Rebecca J. Macy. 2022. “Sexual and Relationship Violence Among LGBTQ+ College Students: A Scoping Review.” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. Online First.
Kukla, Quill. 2021. “A Nonideal Theory of Sexual Consent” Ethics, 131 no. 2: 270–292.
McKenna, John L., Lizabeth Roemer, and Susan M. Orsillo. 2021. “Predictors of Sexual Consent Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors Among Sexual Minority Cisgender and Nonbinary Young Adult”s. Sex Roles. 85 (7–8): 391–404.
McPhillips, Kathryn, Braun, Virginia and Gavey, Nicola .2001. “Defining (hetero)sex: how imperative is the “coital imperative”. Women’s Studies International Forum 24 no. 2: 229–240.
Miller, Tina. 2017. “Doing Narrative Research? Thinking Through the Narrative Process.” In Feminist Narrative Research, edited by Jo Woodiwiss, Kate Smith, and Kelly Lockwood, 39–63. London, Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Richardson, Jacob. 2021. ‘“It doesn’t include us”: Heterosexual bias and gay men’s struggle to see themselves in affirmative consent policies”, Sexuality, Gender & Policy, 5: 69-86.