Introduction to Consent Culture and Teen Films - Abridged

Summary

Enjoy audio of the introduction to the book Consent Culture and Teen Films: Adolescent Sexuality in Teen Films read to you by the author.

Teen films of the 1980s were notorious for treating consent as irrelevant with scenes of boys spying in girls' locker rooms and tricking girls into sex. Contemporary movies, on the other hand, now routinely prioritize consent, ensuring date rape is no longer a joke and girls' desires are celebrated. Yet, sexual consent remains a problematic and often elusive ideal in teen films.

The introduction to the book Consent Culture and Teen Films: Adolescent Sexuality in US Movies demonstrates how teen films throughout the last several decades have shifted from trivializing nonconsent to emphasizing affirmative consent, or “yes means yes.” In doing so, they have adapted to “consent culture,” the cultural prioritization of obtaining clear verbal consent in all interactions—particularly sexual ones.

This chapter provides a historical context for how consent culture developed as a response to rape culture and traces how affirmative consent gained strength through legislation related to Title IX and sexual assault on college campuses between the 1990s and today.

Yet, at the same time, Meek reveals how teen films continue to expose how affirmative consent does not protect youth from unwanted and unpleasant sexual encounters. In the genre, we are confronted by innumerable problematic aspects of consent in practice—youth say yes when they clearly feel no; they insist on a consent and agency adults deem invalid due to their age; and they regret their sexual experiences.

While consent culture has provided some of the language during cinematic moments, it is strikingly evident that those words often fall short. Consent, it turns out, has not been the panacea we had hoped—that is, at least, not according to teen films.