This article references grooming, sexual assault, and image-based abuse.
It’s never been more important that we have conversations around consent – a concept that underpins our freedom, sense of self, safety and sexuality.
Talking about it can save and change lives, especially when this leads to laws and social attitudes reflecting the importance of any one person’s sexual consent. These shifts in perspective and legislation can be set in motion by many different factors. Even what we watch on the telly.
Certain TV shows, films and books are exploring these issues right now, including BBC series The Jetty, which may appear at first glance to be your average British police drama, but actually explores consent within the context of grooming and intimate image-based abuse.
These issues need to be represented on screen – to start conversations and encourage campaigns for change. It’s an issue on many people’s minds, after all. GLAMOUR's very own consent survey found that 91% of women think that deepfakes – AKA sexually explicit artificial images – are a danger to women.
And following the news from the King’s Speech that spiking will become a specific criminal offence – which will reportedly help the police to better respond to cases – we need to keep talking about consent, and the many other ways it manifests and can be abused.
It affects all of us and our relationships with our bodies, sexuality and mental health – particularly young women. In a study, 71% of women reported being sexually harassed in public, and 97% between the ages of 18-24 reported being harassed or assaulted.
Conversations around the issue are – and must be – far-reaching and nuanced. They must cover sexual harassment and assault in public and private, as much as they must cover image-based abuse, an equally important violation of consent.
The Jetty protagonist Ember (Jenna Coleman)’s teenage daughter Hannah (Bridgerton's Ruby Stokes) experiences her nudes being leaked by a partner – leading to local men sharing the images amongst themselves, without her consent. Ember feels powerless to comfort or help her – and we are shown how little can be done (currently) to undo the sharing of such images, and the complications around prosecuting someone who shared these images.
This instance is a very real problem, and deserves representation on screen. A recent report found that a third (33%) of UK people reported either knowing someone who has experienced intimate image abuse or have experienced it themselves (7%).
The show also looks at Ember’s own retrospective view on consent, as she met her husband when she was a teenager and he was considerably older. It makes her, and the audience, question: is the age of consent ever arbitrary? Storylines of older men grooming women are woven throughout the show, highlighting the world in which women live in right now: one where violence from men is feared, and often accepted.
The conversations that a TV series like The Jetty can start are able to affect real change, culturally and politically – and the TV shows, films and books we consume can do so much to both inform and critique the way we speak about issues like consent.
Journalist Olivia Petter’s new novel Gold Rush looks at how the power dynamics of sexual assault become even more complicated when the offender is a celebrity. Its protagonist, young PR assistant Rose, wakes up after a party having gone home with popstar Milo Jax, with little memory of what happened between them.
The novel takes a shrewd look at the impact of society’s obsession with fame and glamour, and how it warps accountability in the aftermath of sexual assault. The novel was undeniably inspired by the #MeToo movement and the scores of men from Hollywood and the music industry disgraced in recent years, underlining the importance of continued conversations around consent.
Ela Lee’s fantastic novel Jaded also analyses the complicated discourse around consent, when protagonist Jade is assaulted when drunk. She navigates a corporate working culture that doesn’t support her and a boyfriend whose reaction to her non-consensual assault is feeling jealous and threatened by her attacker, because he felt in some way she must’ve signalled she wanted the exchange. It highlights the ways in which society still hasn’t completely grasped what consent truly means – that it can’t be manipulated or bent out of shape, or taken. And that it’s still not taken seriously enough.
Of course, this wave of consent-focused pieces of pop culture arguably began in earnest with Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You. Released back in 2020, it tells the story of Arabella (Coel) who, like Rose in Gold Rush, questions what she’s always thought she knew about consent when she struggles to remember a sexual assault encounter. It’s a masterclass navigation of “victimhood” and its stigmatisation.
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Coel’s amazing work – which was at least partially drawn from real life experiences, she has also confirmed she is a survivor of sexual assault – made way for other women to tell more stories of consent in the pop culture space. Director Molly Manning Walker’s incredible 2023 film How To Have Sex, for example, follows three teen girls on their first holiday together and their experiences of first-time sex and the pressures around “virginity” as a concept, as well as their navigation of consent.
In an interview with GLAMOUR, How To Have Sex actor Mia KcKenna-Bruce spoke candidly about a crucial element of the film’s message. “Consent is not binary,” she said. Referring to a sexual assault scene where her character Tara says “no” multiple times before eventually saying “yes”, Mia spoke about the importance of understanding what consent truly is. “There's more to consent than just words, it's the person as a whole,” she said, adding it was “hugely important” to show these nuances on screen.
The film started conversations around consent with people of all ages. Molly’s key aim was to bridge the “gap in education" around the issue – and has already succeeded. How To Have Sex will be shown in UK secondary schools as part of teachings around consent, alongside a lawyer-led workshop. For a female-driven story to make its way into classrooms with the sole purpose of educating future generations about consent is pretty groundbreaking. And it all started with a film script.
Smash Apple TV+ hit The Morning Show is also set to be tackling both AI and deepfakes in its upcoming fourth season, according to showrunner Charlotte Stoudt. While there’s been no indication so far as to whether storylines will cover sexually explicit deepfakes, shining a light on this technology and its harmfulness and the need for its regulation would still be a huge step forward for the conversation around consent in this area.
From covering leaked nudes to the power dynamics of sexual assault, these pieces of pop culture – all of which were led and written by women – create a body of work around consent that can be referred to in conversation, give comfort and ultimately change the way we speak about sexual assault and consent.
The more stories like these are told on screen, the more survivors may not feel alone and the more likely change can be fought for and achieved.
Find out more about GLAMOUR’s campaign in partnership with the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), Not Your Porn and Professor Clare McGlynn, demanding that the government introduces a dedicated, comprehensive Image-Based Abuse law to protect women and girls.
