Victim-blame as a symptom of rape myth acceptance? Another look at how young people in England understand sexual consent

There is no doubt that being ‘critical’ about victim-blame requires ensuring first that it is the perpetrator and not the victim that is held responsible for sexual offending. At the same time, engagement with this topic requires critical acuity as to how victim-blame is identified, and to the boundary between raising legitimate questions about the presence or absence of consent in less than ideal circumstances, and a falling back onto myths and stereotypes that are unfair to complainants and damaging to victims. This paper identifies and critiques three purported intersections of rape myths and victim-blame that have gained widespread acknowledgement within feminist legal studies. Firstly, that a woman is blamed for voluntarily putting herself into circumstances in which ‘rape happens’; secondly, that a woman is blamed for ‘miscommunicating’ her refusal; thirdly, that consent is wrongly understood to have been given in circumstances where a woman in fact lacked the freedom to do so. This critique of methodological and analytical approaches to identifying victim-blame as a symptom of rape myth acceptance focuses on research published recently by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, ‘Sex without consent, I suppose that is rape’: how young people in England understand sexual consent