Report examines issue of consent among third-level students

Young people’s ambivalence towards what constitutes sexual consent when alcohol is involved is captured in new research which shows that while the majority of college students (86%) agree that alcohol impacts on the ability to give consent, more than a third (37%) feel that a woman can still give consent after drinking heavily.

While just 3% of students agreed that a person who is sexually assaulted after drinking has only themselves to blame, 50% nonetheless saw consensual drunk sex as “a normal and harmless part of the college experience”.

The findings of the research, based on a series of surveys carried out during 2016-2017 by NUI Galway’s SMART Consent research team, provide a variety of insights into how third-level students view the issue of sexual consent and how they perceive their peers to view it.