Major Themes Of Communicating Consent

Communicating Consent Another major theme was communicating consent. All respondents mentioned the importance of communicating consent and believe there is a verbal component. Without consent each student believes any following sexual act is considered to be sexual assault. Tom and Don focused more so on the verbal aspects while Xo made mention of non-verbal communication. However, even with the similarities between two of the respondents, each individual had a different idea of how to recognize true consent. Although Don and Tom both mentioned the importance of verbal communication for consent, their thoughts were still dissimilar. Don focused more on the importance of “equal and fair” communication. He does not think there is an absence of communication but rather a lack of proper verbal communication, because “partner A may speak to B and B may speak to A it might be A is speaking 80% of the time and B is speaking 20% of the time”. The unbalanced communication could lead to one individual having more influence

Comforting them, making them feel comfortable coming out.” There is the combination of “shame” and “embarrassment” that prevents a person from reporting and that is why the social support is important. These responses suggests that identifying a victim is not based on the time elapsed between the assault and reporting, if a report is made, but more so on behavioral changes that a victim may experience after the assault. Although, whether it be reporting or behavioral changes, identifying a victim seems to be dependent on the person feeling safe enough to disclose. Understanding how the students are identifying victims is important in understanding students’ reactions towards victims after their disclosure, because those social reactions have a significant effect on post assault