Queerying consent: Romantic relationship scripts, rape myths, and the ‘sex game gone wrong’

Consent is often positioned as the linchpin of sexual ethics and justice, framed within binary paradigms such as ‘yes means yes’ and ‘no means no’. However, this fails to account for the complexities of power dynamics, ambiguous desires, and the interplay of verbal and non-verbal communication in sexual encounters. This paper critically interrogates how consent is constructed and mobilised in legal cases involving ‘sex games gone wrong’, where claims of consensual rough sex are often used to mitigate or exonerate acts of violence in which women are killed or injured by men. It provides an innovative intervention into these debates framed around the potentialities of queer approaches to consent and sexual encounters. Through in-depth analyses of Crown Court case transcripts, the paper reveals how heteronormative romantic relationship scripts and rape myths underpin consent narratives, often privileging male perspectives while erasing or discrediting those of women. Significantly, the paper draws on queer and BDSM scholarship to propose a ‘queerying’ of consent: a deconstructive approach that unsettles traditional assumptions and embraces the ambiguity, imperfection, and intersubjectivity of consent. By challenging the legalistic and cultural orthodoxy of consent, this paper offers a more nuanced, ethics-driven framework that fosters sexual justice in both legal and socio-cultural contexts.