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When consent is seen as a box-ticking exercise, the genuine wishes of the other person can be overlooked.

It's vital to establish that both parties are freely choosing to participate and have capacity to do so.

Thinking critically about how consent was obtained takes it beyond simply getting a "yes."

For decades, consent education has emphasised two simple principles: No means no, and sexual activity requires a voluntary and informed "yes." Yet recently reported behaviour from college campuses raises an uncomfortable question. What if some individuals are hearing that message very differently? What if, instead of viewing consent as a way of understanding another person's wishes, they merely view it as a hurdle to overcome before they’re able to get on with what they actually want to do? Under this mindset, the focus shifts away from whether the other person genuinely wants the sexual activity and moves toward securing just enough agreement to proceed.

This is a dangerous perspective. When the objective becomes to obtain a "yes" by whatever means possible, persistence, pressure, intoxication, emotional manipulation, social obligation, or exploiting vulnerability can all become part of the process (Kubota & Nakazawa, 2024). Once some form of agreement is secured, however compromised, it can be wrongly viewed as a green light not only for the act in question but also for any behaviour that follows.

When sexual assaults happen, people often assume that the perpetrator was told no and chose to ignore it. While this is........

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