Particular attention has been paid to the issue of sexual assault on college and university campuses in the United States in the past 6 years. This attention has spurred action by institutions of higher education to comply with federal mandates through increased education for students, policy changes, and training for faculty and staff. One of the significant areas of attention across the country has been development of affirmative consent policies, including signaling consent through the use of nonverbal communication. In order to understand the phenomenon of nonverbal consent, this phenomenological qualitative study was conducted utilizing individual interviews and focus groups to obtain perspectives from current traditional-age college students at a public 4-year university in the southwest. All participants were cisgendered and had previously engaged in a mutually wanted sexual experience. Participants noted challenges in answering questions about how one indicates "being into" sex. Despite these challenges, they identified multiple nonverbal behaviors that they believed indicated consent. Behaviors identified were categorized based on level of invasiveness, as well as level of strength, as indicators of consent, based on participant contributions and existing research. Lack of resistance was discussed at length as an indicator during individual interviews and focus groups. Participants expressed a variety of opinions regarding what lack of resistance means. Context was important to participants when identifying whether a behavior indicates consent. The collected and analyzed data may assist higher education administrators and other practitioners in educating and otherwise engaging with students on the topic of nonverbal consent. Furthermore, this study may assist researchers in gaining depth in their work through increased detail of language uncovered during the study. While this study contributes to a growing body of knowledge on this topic, further research providing greater depth is needed.
