How To Have Sex shows us consent isn't about words
It's about the attention we pay to one another
Hello and welcome back to The Overthinker’s Guide To Sex, a sex and relationships newsletter by journalist Franki Cookney.
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How To Have Sex shows us that consent isn't about words, it's about the attention we pay to one another
As a general rule, I try not to engage with content I’m not interested in just because it is related to my work. I do not want to watch a show because I feel I “should”. I’m not going to listen to a podcast just so I can tick it off. If a book is relevant to my work but it’s a terrible read, I will simply put it down. I’ve said this before but I keep finding myself repeating it, we don’t need to have a take on everything.
So when I first saw the trailers for How To Have Sex, I laughed because, for all that I have just said about letting go of the feeling that we Must. Have. Opinions on everything, always… how could I NOT watch that film?
The movie, directed by Molly Manning Walker, is an assured and resonant depiction of a boozy teenage holiday in which the conversation about consent is finally moved on from "yes means yes and no means no".
I was lucky enough to be invited to a screening hosted by Good Night Out, an organisation that works with UK nightlife and events to help them better understand, respond to and prevent sexual violence in their spaces. Afterwards there was a panel talk to discuss some of the themes.
This is probably a good point to mention that this newsletter contains light spoilers as well as some references to non-consent and “grey area” consent. Hopefully you inferred both of those things from the headline so this is just to reiterate.
Already the internet is flooded with women reflecting on their own messy “post-exam holiday” so don’t worry, I won’t be doing that. However it was remarkable to me how little has changed about Brits Abroad culture in two decades. I went to Kavos in Crete in 2002 and watching this film, the only part that felt fresh or unfamiliar to me was the representation of queerness. That one of the girls on the holiday could hook up with a woman, and it just not be a thing, felt like a very far cry from my 18-year-old experience of the world.
But the key thing you need to know about this film is that during the pivotal sex scene, the guy ostensibly asks for consent, twice. “Yeh?” he grunts briefly as he undresses main character Tara and then, again, “Yeh?” as he takes down his own pants. We then see and hear Tara reply, quietly, “yeh.” So that’s fine, right? Consent given.