+- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com)
+-- Forum: Science (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-61.html)
+--- Forum: General Science (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-81.html)
+--- Thread: Research When consent meets reality: How young men navigate intimacy (/thread-19778.html)
When consent meets reality: How young men navigate intimacy - C C - Feb 13, 2026
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1116454
INTRO: A new study suggests that young men overwhelmingly support affirmative sexual consent in principle—yet often find its verbal implementation difficult in practice.
The research, led by scholars at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Melbourne University’s Department of General Practice and Primary Care, explores how young heterosexual men interpret and navigate consent during real-world sexual encounters. The findings were published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
In recent years, laws and school programs across many countries have emphasized affirmative or enthusiastic consent, requiring an explicit and ongoing agreement before sexual activity progresses. While these models have established a strong normative standard, sexual encounters themselves often unfold in more fluid and ambiguous ways.
“Because sexual activity without consent is sexual violence, understanding how young men interpret and enact consent remains crucial for reducing sexual harm,” said senior author Jessie Ford, PhD, assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences. “We found that young men want to get consent right but still struggle with it in real-world interactions. They were clear that sex must be consensual, but the frameworks currently available to them are both impractical and incomplete.”
First author Jossy Forest of the University of Melbourne added: “The boundaries between unwanted but consensual sex and non-consensual sex are often unclear, creating what has been described as a ‘grey area’ between consent and non-consent. Our study underscores a critical disconnect between the language of consent taught in schools and the ways young men actually navigate sexual encounters.” (MORE - details, no ads)
RE: When consent meets reality: How young men navigate intimacy - Syne - Feb 13, 2026
The main hurdle is that asking for consent is a sure way to kill the mood for women, often called "ick" nowadays, but you can't educate women out of their subconscious evolutionary desire mechanisms. Since verbal consent is often a non-starter in reality, men need to be better educated on reading non-verbal cues of sexual interest and consent. The main hurdle to that is women can't teach it. Boys need more interactions with male role models and teachers who are conversant with the subject. So not only are the female majority of school teachers ill-equipped, they are also the most likely to object to the sorts of men who could teach this subject.