A Social Model of ‘Abused Consent’

Abstract

These young people are challenging the assumption that they are consenting to CSE. In this chapter I argue that too often young people’s ‘consent’ to CSE is taken for granted or assumed, and by default, the young person feels blamed for the abuse they experience. I argue that this is intricately linked to our current understanding of young people’s ‘consent’ to sexual activity which is based on a medical model that assesses their intellectual capacity to understand and use contraceptives. This is inadequate as a framework for understanding the pressures on those who might be sexually exploited. A ‘social model’ of consent would enable consent to be contextualised, shedding light on how ‘consent’ may be distorted through abusive and exploitative relationships and/or contexts. This would eventually challenge what I call ‘condoned consent’: the process by which some practitioners may fail to identify and challenge sexual exploitation. Without a social model helping us to contextualise ‘consent’, too many young people are left feeling that they are responsible for the abuse they experience.

[T]hey question you a lot and say ‘did you try to run away?’ and they think you didn’t try to get away. They think you wanted it. They doubt you.

People’s stereotype is, ‘girls like that, that’s what they do’.

A lot of their attitude is ‘you’re just a little slapper — a slapper who likes sleeping with older men — they think it’s just kids coming onto older men.

(Quotes from young people in the ‘What Works for Us’ WWFU Group, Annual Report, 2011)