Citation

Mukai T, Yuyama Y, Kamiya J, Nogami T, Fukushima Y. Sex Cult. 2023; 27(4): 1246-1263.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12119-022-09999-x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate how sexual consent is depicted in sex comics published in Japan. Twenty best-selling comics from 2010 and 2020 were set as objects of analysis and separated into 277 scenes. A codebook developed after five rounds of trials was utilized by four coders to code the materials. First, the results showed that explicit communication was not rare: among all materials, 39.9-57.3% of scenes were initiated by an explicit approach, while only 5.2-19.4% of scenes were coded as depicting non-explicit initiation. Further, as for the act of gatekeeper, 21.6-35.5% and 6.5-9.7% of scenes depicted explicit consent and refusal, while 20.3-28.2% of scenes were coded as expressing non-explicit consent/refusal. Second, in the comparison between 2010 and 2020, there were fewer scenes in which more than three characters were involved and sexual acts were initiated by non-explicit forms in 2020. Contrastingly, there were more scenes in which sexual acts were initiated by assault or intimidation. Based on these findings, social implications and future research orientations are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Content analysis; Sexual consent; Sexual violence; Unwanted sex