Michele Meek, Ph.D.’s project “consent puzzles” focuses on ambiguous moments of sexual consent. Such moments, she argues, evade clear readings on consent and resist the mantras “no means no” and “yes means yes.”
Ultimately, in her study, Meek advocates for a more nuanced approach to reading sexual consent and agency, so that we might better protect against sexual assault.
As part of this project, she has a forthcoming edited compilation with Routledge, The Ambiguity of Consent: Consent Puzzles in Film, Television, Public Discourse, and the Law, and she presented a TEDx talk “Why We’re Still Confused About Consent—Rewriting Our Stories of Seduction.”
In addition, she has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles on the subject, including “Exposing Flaws of Affirmative Consent through Contemporary American Teen Films” in Girlhood Studies, “‘It Ain’t For Children’: ‘Shame-Interest’ in the Adaptations Precious and Bastard Out of Carolina” in Literature/Film Quarterly and “Lolita Speaks: Disrupting Nabokov’s “Aesthetic Bliss” in Girlhood Studies.
Learn more about Michele Meek.