“It’s Too Hard to Take Back Consent”: Withdrawing Sexual Consent at the Intersection of on and Offline Spaces

This article investigated the ways teenagers and young adults navigated both on and offline consent. Drawing on focus group data with 48 individuals aged between 16 and 25 years old, in Aotearoa New Zealand, I sought to understand how dominant discourses constructed (and constrained) the withdrawal of consent in on and offline spaces. I found that consent remains gendered and withdrawing sexual consent is fraught with difficulty, bound by traditional sexual scripts. Participants noted that discussions around consent were “awkward” and “unsexy” and some women shared or continued to share intimate images due to a mix of interpersonal and social/structural forces. In terms of consenting to sex after sexting, individuals voiced concerns around being labeled with gendered slurs such as slut, tease and bitch if they withdrew consent. I argue that there is a need for consent education to critically deconstruct gendered power and increase knowledge of consent withdrawal, and to consider the interplay between on and offline spaces, particularly as sexual cultures become increasingly mediated. In doing so there is an opportunity to limit gendered sexual compliance.