To protect and promote sexual consent, we must first understand what it means and involves, for whom, and in what contexts. Focusing on consent in digital sexual cultures and drawing on expert knowledge from leading stakeholders, the report puts forward core recommendations to aid those working in this field and affected by the topic, like educators and policy makers.
Dr Rikke Amundsen, Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture
04 April 2025
Sex education needs to cover digital devices and consent, says new report
In a new report, charities and researchers are calling for sex education to build a more nuanced understanding of consent where digital technologies are involved and more spaces to ask difficult questions about sex, gender and consent.
Consent in Digital Sexual Cultures, a new report authored by Dr Rikke Amundsen, Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture in the Department of Digital Humanities, advocates for understandings of sexual consent that account for its inherent complexity, especially as it is digitally mediated.
The report explores how digital technologies shape and differentiate practices and perceptions of sexual consent and recommends that this influence is factored into all forms of sex education. It also advises that future sex education should be context specific, addressing how the use of technologies for sexual purposes is informed by time, space, the digital technologies used, and the situation of each user.
While charities already provide crucial information and space for non-judgemental conversation around gender, sexuality, and consent, the report proposes that there are still not enough spaces to ask difficult questions about these topics.
Other recommendations include increasing funding for charities and organisations providing legal aid and support; for digital technology and platform providers to place safeguarding and positive (sexual) rights at the forefront of design and implementation, rather than as reactionary measures; and boosting research-informed activism, advocacy and insight-sharing.
The report is based on findings from a stakeholder workshop exploring consent in relation to sexual activities by people aged 16 and over in the UK. The workshop aimed to unpick and consider ways to address the common issues in relation to consent in digital sexual culture.
Stakeholder participants included charities Beyond Equality, Enhance the UK, Fumble, and the Revenge Porn Helpline, as well as researchers from King’s College London, UCL, Queen Mary University of London, University of Westminster, University of Essex, and University of Surrey.
The workshop is part of Dr Amundsen’s research project on ‘An exploration of male-to-female sexting behaviours and the digital mediation of intimacy, consent, risk, and trust’ funded by the British Academy. Her previous work on consent has explored unsolicited pictures and sexism and women’s experiences of sending intimate pictures through digital devices.
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Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture