Saying It, Showing It, and Just Going with It: Examining Individual and Situational Correlates of Sexual Consent Communication Among College Students

Consent is a critical component of healthy and pleasurable sexual experiences. Individual-level (e.g. gender) and situational-level (e.g. type of sexual behavior, relationship to partner) factors have been associated with sexual consent communication. However, few studies have examined a broad range of personal and situational characteristics within the same models, despite these being potentially important influences on sexual behavior during college. The current study extended prior work by examining multiple correlates of consent communication during individuals' most recent sexual encounter. College students from a predominately White university in the Midwest (N = 238; 58% women; 10.1% lesbian, gay, or bisexual [LGBTQ+]) completed an online cross-sectional survey assessing demographics, types of sexual behavior engaged in, relationship to last sexual partner, alcohol use, and use of different consent cues. A series of ordinal logistic regressions examined associations between individual and situational factors and five consent communication cues: indirect verbal, indirect nonverbal, direct verbal, direct nonverbal, and passive. LGBTQ+ identity and Greek life affiliation emerged as important individual correlates of more direct forms of sexual consent communication, while sex act and relationship to partner were important situational correlates. Receipt of oral sex was unexpectedly associated with both direct verbal and passive consent, while sexual behavior with a friend was associated with less passive consent. These findings highlight ways that consent education programming may be dismantling traditional sexual scripts for some subgroups of students. Future research should explore students' motivations for using specific communication tactics and how partners interpret these cues.