Models of Sexual Consent Communication by Film Rating: A Content Analysis

People communicate their sexual consent using cues that are explicit or implicit and verbal or nonverbal; implicit or nonverbal consent cues are the most common strategies. As a sexual educator, mass media may provide young people with models of sexual consent that are inconsistent with the explicit verbal cues endorsed by some legal and educational advocates. Guided by Social Cognitive Theory, we examined the effects of film rating on how mainstream films model sexual consent communication and on whether they positively reinforce implicit or nonverbal consent cues. We conducted a content analysis of popular films from 2013 (n = 49) using a codebook that was developed with an inductive process and demonstrated strong inter-rater reliability. Films rated PG-13 depicted characters that were younger than those in films rated R. Further, films rated R more frequently modeled sexual behavior without any preceding consent communication cues. All films tended to rely on implicit or nonverbal models of consent communication; however, these cues were more frequently positively reinforced with consensual sexual behaviors in films rated PG-13 than in those rated R. Because young people are primarily exposed to implicit or nonverbal sexual consent cues in films, they may continue to adopt these types of communication—despite efforts from formal sexual educators to encourage explicit verbal consent cues.