The ambivalence of sexual consent: a socio-legal inquiry

Abstract Consent – the organizing principle of legal responses to sexual harms – rests on a yes-versus-no binary. Yet, ambivalence is pervasive in sexual life, often eluding binary simplicity. This article assesses the implications of ambivalence for sexual consent jurisprudence. Drawing on interviews with Israeli gay and bisexual men regarding their experiences in (semi-)public sexual venues, it examines a context in which sexual norms have historically developed outside dominant cultural scripts, where ambivalence is particularly salient. Through the men’s testimonies, the conditions under which ambivalence leaves individuals uncertain of how to name sexual harms, identify boundary violations, or assign responsibility are mapped. Grounded in these findings, alongside sociological theories of ambivalence and socio-legal theories of sexual consent, the article adopts dialectical sensibility to capture what binary consent models tend to flatten: the simultaneous presence of agency/coercion, empowerment/vulnerability, and pleasure/danger within a single sexual interaction. Ambivalence in these “gray zones” is therefore reconceptualized here as neither anomaly nor individual failure but as a structuring – and even productive – feature of sexual life, complicating theories that cast ambivalence as primarily suppressive. Finally, the analysis underscores the limitations of prevailing consent paradigms and surfaces new questions about how criminal law might respond to the indeterminate realities of sex.