Too Drunk to Consent? Exploring the Contestations and Disruptions in Male-Focused Sexual Violence Prevention Interventions

Abstract

Primary prevention interventions, often in the form of media campaigns, are frequently utilised in order to tackle sexual violence. However, many in the UK have been criticised for perpetuating victim-blaming, due to their focus on the behaviour of women. One notable exception is a Liverpool City Council Campaign, which targeted young men (aged 18-24) in a bid to reduce rates of alcohol-related rape. Drawing upon an assessment involving 41 male university students, this article generates original insights into the development and utilisation of male focused rape prevention interventions. As this analysis shows, the young men's responses to the campaign involved negotiating discourses of sex, consent, rape, sexuality and gender -especially masculinity. While participants frequently drew upon stereotypes and misconceptions, moments of contestation and disruption emerged. We argue that interventions should concentrate upon masculinity and moments of disruption and contestation (possibly through the use of peer group discussions), in order to encourage critical reflections on gender and sexual violence, and to potentially engender more ethical practices.

Unwanted Sexual Attention in the Night-Time Economy: Behaviors, Safety Strategies, and Conceptualizing “Feisty Femininity”

“…This is not an issue for venues to respond to in isolation and wider focus on changing the behaviors of perpetrators is also required. As we have argued previously, there must be a multipronged approach to addressing sexual violence with work in the NTE complementing and extending other forms of governance (Carline et al, 2018; Gunby et al, 2017).…”

“…This may include watching drinks, intervening in incidents, and encouraging the group to leave a venue (Brooks, 2011; Graham et al, 2017; Kovac & Trussell, 2015; Nicholls, 2018; Snow et al, 1991). Such approaches could be argued to embody sexual violence campaign narratives, which under the guise of prevention have long offered women risk reduction solutions, including keeping a vigilant eye on friends (Carline, Gunby, & Taylor, 2018; Gunby et al, 2017; Vera-Gray, 2018). However, as Kovac and Trussell (2015) argue, a collaborative spirit exists among women when it comes to safety, with social support and friendship being dominant features of research focused on women and leisure.…”

Making and Communicating Decisions About Sexual Consent During Drug-Involved Sex: A Thematic Synthesis

“…Although substance-involved sex may sometimes be considered consensual to the people who engage in it, alcohol consumption is implicated in many instances of sexual violence (up to 50%; Abbey, Zawacki, Buck, Clinton, & McAuslan, 2004). It is therefore unsurprising that researchers have examined sexual consent in the context of alcohol use, the findings of which have been influential to alcohol-focused sexual violence primary prevention strategies (e.g., Carline, Gunby, & Taylor, 2018).…”

How do we defeat the ‘dark side’? Analysing a call to tackle lad culture at a UK university

“…However, the argument that individuals performing these actions are in no way connected to lad culture is potentially problematic. As such, research by Pascoe and Hollander (2016) and Carline et al (2018) documents men deploying similar repertoires that individualise and pathologise rape as ‘something a bad man does, not something that informs all gendered relationships between men and women’ (Pascoe & Hollander, 2016, p. 74). Echoing these findings, the ‘disavowing the dark side’ repertoire obscures the social structures and gender power relations that permeate university life, lad culture and wider UK society, which arguably scaffold and support problematic behaviours such as sexual assault (Gavey, 2013).…”

“…The current study builds on this work by focusing on another crucial aspect involved in campaigns to tackle lad culture, namely their performative representation. This is a crucial site of analysis because, as Carline et al (2018, p. 316) explain:

Campaigns… send a message to the public as to how the stakeholder conceives of the underlying problem and the perceived solution. Campaigns are fundamentally politicized, as stakeholders are likely to be acutely attentive to the public relations element of an intervention.

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