Yes means yes and no means no? A critical sociolinguistic analysis of cultural assumptions and transnationalism in Polish online sexual education discourses on sexual consent

The subject of sexual consent has received increasing media and academic attention in recent years and the question of its sociolinguistic significance has been investigated in the context of the English language in Canadian, American, and British settings (sources). There seems to be a lack of cross-cultural analyses; however, little research has investigated the complexities of consent as far as attitudes and discourses. This paper presents an analysis of sexual education discourse taken from Polish grassroots sexual education initiatives and looks at the phenomenon of changes in discourse on consent, as well as signs of linguistic imperialism in sexual consent education practices. The project takes a qualitative approach to integrating critical discourse analysis (CDA) and feminist post-structural discourse analysis (FPDA), in which five sources of sexual consent materials found online are analyzed for the linguistic remnants of cultural assumptions about sexuality. This is done to investigate the implied understandings of roles in giving and asking for sexual consent, which at the same time work towards a more progressive discourse on sexuality.