Films to Help You Understand Consent

This article contains discussion of sexual violence, grooming, and domestic abuse.

There are also some minor spoilers for the films discussed in this article.

Since 2020, Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) has been mandatory in UK schools. The guidance states that schools should be teaching young people about "the age of consent, what consent is and is not, [and]... rape, sexual assault and harassment". Heavy stuff. But it's undeniably necessary. When it comes to keeping people safe from coercion and exploitation, having strong foundations of consent education is key.

Schools are one place where people will learn about sex. Not everyone will engage effectively with the materials provided to them, simply because different people learn, well, differently. Others will learn about sex from what friends and older siblings or cousins might tell them; many from social media; and many from music, TV, and films. Likelihood is, it's a mixture of everything.

We don't stop learning about sex when we leave school. The vast majority of us will probably learn about it once we're adults, fumbling around in other people's pants. It's not too late to improve your understanding of consent and learn how to be a better sexual partner -- and whilst some films (both pornographic and not) are certainly not helpful in providing this guidance, some are.

Part of solidifying the importance of consent in people's minds is translating the impact sexual violence can have on other people. This isn't easy to explain in theory, which is where film can be useful in depicting the emotional effects. The films recommended below aren't easy to watch, but they convey powerful messages about consent.

How to Have Sex (2023)

Age rating: 15

In February, Mia McKenna-Bruce won the EE Rising Star Award at the BAFTAs for her lead role in Molly Manning Walker's How to Have Sex. McKenna-Bruce plays Tara, who goes on a post-GCSE holiday to Malia with her friends Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis).

McKenna-Bruce plays Tara with gentle nuance. We first see her being raucous and outgoing with her friends, unabashedly urinating in an empty alleyway during their first drunken night away together. The next morning, we see a contrasting side to Tara, as she observes the other teenagers from her solitary sunbed by the pool with a blissful smile on her face, enjoying the wallflower's perspective of the delightful chaos.

Tara and her friends soon meet Badger (Shaun Thomas), Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), and Paige (Laura Ambler) in their hotel. The spark between Tara and Badger ignites quicky but burns out prematurely on a night out in which Badger is pulled on-stage to take part in a live sex game. Heartbroken and repulsed by the sight of Badger receiving oral sex from three unknown girls, Tara runs off and bumps in Paddy, who's also shown attraction to her. The two walk off and end up on the beach together, alone, where the mood sours even further.

There's a variety of ways consent is explored in this film. Firstly, Tara's first sexual experience is stolen from her when Paddy rapes her on the beach. Her lack of "no" is taken as a yes, rather than her uncomfortable silence being checked in upon. Next, Badger, a character whose age is uncommented on, being blown in public whilst under the influence. His pleasure is obvious, but his capacity to consent? Not so much. Finally, external pressures -- Skye pestering Tara to lose her virginity, despite only just being 16, the age of consent in the UK. Arguably, her blasé attitude towards sex contributes to Tara's attempts to dismiss her own sexual assault.

Em, however, has greater emotional awareness. She notes the decline in her friend's mood during their time away, and discreetly addresses this in the airport before their flight home. Her empathy radiates through the screen as she understands that Tara has been assaulted but isn't ready to call it by its name yet. She validates her through simple gestures, showing the kindness of a genuine friend.

Pleasure (2021)

Age rating: 18

The porn industry holds a unique place in the realm of sex work. It's largely accepted as a part of everyday life but is hotly debated over its ethics -- in particular, its portrayal of women. Director Ninja Thyberg throws another perspective into the mix with her film Pleasure.

Speaking about her past as a teenage anti-porn activist, she told Little White Lies:

When I saw these [porn] films, they really shocked me and I thought it was so degrading, it was so brutal, and like the women were treated just as fuck dolls. It was all for the pleasure of men. For the young guys [that] were watching it, that was their sexual education. Women’s sexual education at the time was watching romantic comedies, or reading women’s magazines, maybe an erotic novel, where things were super tame.

Thyberg uses Pleasure as a space to discuss the nuances in the porn industry she's come to understand in her years of research. If the impressive selection of adult performer cameos is anything to go by (you may notice such stars as Kendra Spade, Gina Valentina, and Abella Danger hanging out in the background), Thyberg did her research well.

Hailing from Sweden, our filmmaker draws from her own nationality to tell the story of Linnéa (Sofia Kappel), who arrives in LA with a dream of becoming the next big porn star. There seems to be no bounds to Linnéa's ambition. Christening herself with the stage name Bella Cherry, she at first withdraws from the other models in her residence. But as she bonds with the women, she finds joy in her mission; she takes part in a rough sex scene to build a notable following online, and thoroughly enjoys it. Suspended in shibari, Linnéa is taken care of by female crew on set, with clear boundaries outlined through the use of safe words, and her male co-star taking her pleasure into account.

Thinking that she's found her niche, Linnéa requests that her agent book her onto a second rough sex scene. Here, two men brutalise her until she cries out for them to stop. When they notice this isn't a part of the CNC (consensual non-consent) they're supposed to be performing, they stop. When she expresses no desire to continue, they and the director coerce her into finishing the scene. Linnéa flags this conduct to her agent, calling the incident a rape. He dismisses her distress, insisting that she was the one who requested rough scenes. She fires him and continues as an independent worker.

Over the course of Pleasure, the audience watches Linnéa succumb to her ambition, and how this warps her behaviour towards other performers. Not only does this film critique pornography, but it also shows how women are capable of harming other women through their assimilation into patriarchal systems. It demonstrates the importance of implementing solidarity, diversity, and consent on porn sets. It also raises the question: how much of the porn we consume involves coercion in its production?

The Diary of Teenage Girl (2015)

Age rating: 18

Marielle Heller first adapted Phoebe Gloeckner's semi-autobiographical graphic novel into a play before writing and directing the 2015 Diary of a Teenage Girl. It tells the story of Minnie (Bel Powley), a 15-year-old girl living in 1970s San Francisco, and the sexual relationship that develops between her and her mother's boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård). Heller handles Gloeckner's experiences sensitively, without moralising the behaviours on-screen. In an interview with Issue, Heller said that "it was a more interesting story to tell if we were just truly presenting it from the perspective of a teenage girl. If we came down on a side, we would be in the role of an adult casting a judgmental eye on it. I wanted to honor this character."

The way Heller presents it, Minnie is a teenage girl curious about having sex and loses her virginity to someone she believes she can trust. Her mother (Kirsten Wiig) isn't aware that her partner is having an affair with her underage daughter, but she has her suspicions. Skarsgård strikes the balance of being attractive yet repulsive in his role as Monroe, weaving between the two as rapidly as he cycles through the thoughts of 'what the hell am I doing?' and 'this is fine because Minnie is consenting.' Slight spanner in the works, though: Minnie is a child. Whilst he tries to rationalise his actions to himself, Minnie is caught up in the excitement of experiencing sex for the first time.

Because we're presented with Minnie's perspective, we feel her giddiness. This, blended with the nostalgic lens of the 1970s, takes us back to our first rendezvous into sex and relationships. Her fantasising and fawning makes us feel like teenagers again. The blurred lines between adult and adolescent as we stumble through puberty, trying to act more mature than we really are. Minnie is us, making sense of the person she is, not realising that Monroe is abusing her because she's swept up in the euphoria of sex. She's just a girl.

As Heller herself puts it:

From an outsider’s perspective, this man took advantage of a girl who had a budding sexuality and was bursting from her own curiosity. By the end of the movie I think we are aware of that as well as being aware that, from her perspective, it was entirely consensual. But from his perspective, he just took no responsibility for what he was doing.

These three films provide a broad scope of consent education -- or, more appropriately, education on what not to do. How to Have Sex and The Diary of a Teenage Girl are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin, with our protagonists navigating their first sexual experiences in traumatic ways. The trauma, however, is inflicted and felt very differently. Minnie doesn't view her experience as abuse, whereas Tara is visibly uncomfortable. Both of them are secretive about their encounters. On the other hand, in Pleasure Linnéa is more sexually open like Minnie is. She doesn't hesitate to call her ordeal abuse. But she tries to suppress it, similar to how Tara does, though she acts out as a result, abusing other women. In seeing the consequences of sexual abuse, we can hopefully become more vigilant in noticing when our own consent is being violated, and when we ourselves need to enact greater consideration for our sexual partners.