HeckNo Consent in relationships: a soft no is a no
- A soft no is a no. That it was not heard is not your failure.
- Asleep or unconscious cannot consent — everywhere we operate.
- Pressure, not force, is the usual route. Now you can name it.
THE PART WITH NO TECHNIQUE
The longest lesson here, and nothing to practise.
That is deliberate. In the only programme ever shown by a randomised trial to reduce rape, a full quarter of the time goes here.
HOW IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS
Most of it never looks like a fight.
Of women in the landmark US survey reported having had intercourse after being overwhelmed by a man's continual arguments and pressure.Koss, Gidycz & Wisniewski, 1987 — the US national survey of sexual aggression and victimisation, 6,159 students.
Drink does more of this than force does.
In the same study's twelve-month data, more women were raped through intoxication than through physical force — 91 women against 63.
Which happens to more women?
Answer: Being worn down by pressure until she stops saying no
Pressure, by a wide margin. In the survey, 25% of women reported having had sex after continual arguing and pressure, against 9% for physical force. The alleyway and the struggle are real — and they are the small minority.
Koss, Gidycz & Wisniewski, 1987 — the US national survey of sexual aggression and victimisation, 6,159 students.Half the time there is no force at all.
In the crime survey for England and Wales, physical force was used in 48.3% of rapes. So in about half of them, it was not.
TRUE WHEREVER YOU ARE
Four things hold in every country this app ships in.
Someone asleep or unconscious cannot consent. Submission produced by fear, threat or coercion is not consent.
The other two of the four.
Nowhere are you required to have physically fought back. And marriage, a relationship, or having said yes before is not consent to this.
Someone is asleep. Can they consent?
Answer: No — nowhere we operate treats that as consent
No, and this is one of the very few things that holds in every country this app ships in. Scotland's law says it outright: a person is incapable, while asleep or unconscious, of consenting to any conduct.
Consent law compiled from primary legislation for England & Wales, Scotland, Germany, France (law of 6 November 2025), Spain, Italy and Sweden, plus the European Parliament research service review of 2025.And four that people will tell you are true, which are not.
Enthusiastic or affirmative consent is not the legal standard everywhere. Germany deliberately chose “no means no” in its 2016 reform rather than a yes-means-yes model.
A campus rule in about five states, not the criminal law.
In American criminal courts it is not the standard anywhere. France adopted a consent-based definition in November 2025. Italy debated one and has not.
THE UNEVEN ONE
Drunk is not the same as incapable — not everywhere.
In roughly 21 US states, the criminal definition of being incapacitated requires that the alcohol or drug was given to you without your knowledge.
She drank a lot by choice, and could not follow what was happening. Is that legally incapacity?
Answer: It depends where she is
It depends. In roughly 21 US states the law counts it as incapacity only if someone gave her the drink without her knowing. The gap is the awake, talking, catastrophically drunk case, which is the common one. Europe has no such gap.
Teravskis, Grossman-Kahn & Gulrajani, 2022, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law — how US states define incapacity by intoxication.In Europe there is no such gap.
Being unconscious is covered everywhere. The English courts, the Swedish statute and the German law all treat how you came to be drunk as irrelevant.
SAYING NO
Nobody refuses anything by saying the word.
Research on how people refuse anything at all finds that refusals are almost never a bare “no”. They are pauses, hedges, apologies, reasons offered.
She said no by going quiet and changing the subject. Did she say no?
Answer: Yes — that is how people refuse anything
Yes. Refusing a cup of tea sounds exactly the same: a pause, a reason, a change of subject. Everyone understands it. As the researchers put it — the problem is not that men do not understand refusals, it is that they do not like them.
Kitzinger & Frith, 1999 — conversation analysis of how refusals actually work, and what “just say no” misses.They understood. They just didn't like it.
When young men were asked directly, they described knowing exactly how refusal works — and then, in the same conversation, claimed not to understand it.
So this app will never teach you a script.
Those researchers recommended that the story about crossed wires be treated not as a basis for prevention advice, but as one of the rape myths.
WHY THIS UNIT EXISTS
Knowing what you want makes it faster to notice what you don't.
In the trial, this unit improved women's ability to spot risk and their willingness to resist out loud, over and above the first three units.
Fewer completed rapes over the following year among women who took the programme, compared with women given the usual information leaflets.Senn et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2015 — randomised trial of a sexual assault resistance programme, 893 women.
What one trial can tell you.
The confidence interval is wide — between 7% and 69% — which is what a single trial of 893 women can tell you.
Will finishing this lesson stop you being pressured into sex?
Answer: No, and the trial behind it found no real effect on that
No. The programme cut completed rape by 46% and did not significantly reduce coercion — 13.9% to 10.5%, which is well inside chance. We would rather say so than let you conclude, if it happens to you anyway, that you failed to apply a lesson.
Senn et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2015 — randomised trial of a sexual assault resistance programme, 893 women.That trial did not significantly reduce coercion. It moved from 13.9% to 10.5%, well within chance. Nobody has yet shown a programme like this reduces it. This lesson can tell you what coercion is. It cannot promise to make it stop — and if it happens anyway, you have not failed to apply a lesson.
What graduates actually reached for
Of women followed up after the programme, 47.6% used noticing a situation early, 44.9% used leaving early, and 7.6% used forceful verbal resistance.Crann, Senn et al., 2021 — which resistance skills graduates of the programme actually used afterwards.
You don't owe anyone a true reason for leaving.
The thing everyone tells women to do is the thing graduates reached for least. The programme tells women plainly that lying to get out is a legitimate way to leave.
IF SOMETHING ALREADY HAPPENED
Most women it happens to never call it that.
Of women whose experience meets the legal definition of rape do not call it rape. Among students the figure is higher still, at 63%.Wilson & Miller, 2016 — meta-analysis of 28 studies, 5,917 survivors, on whether women label the experience rape.
So we describe what happened, never what to call it.
You do not have to decide what it was in order to be allowed help. You do not have to be certain to call someone.
Whatever you decide, you decide it in very ordinary company.
In the original survey, 5% of these rapes were reported to the police and 42% were never told to anyone at all.
And in England and Wales today.
In England and Wales today, 10.7% of victims aged 16 to 19 report it.
Sources
- Koss, Gidycz & Wisniewski, 1987 — the US national survey of sexual aggression and victimisation, 6,159 students.
- Office for National Statistics, Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2025.
- Senn et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2015 — randomised trial of a sexual assault resistance programme, 893 women.
- Crann, Senn et al., 2021 — which resistance skills graduates of the programme actually used afterwards.
- Kitzinger & Frith, 1999 — conversation analysis of how refusals actually work, and what “just say no” misses.
- O'Byrne, Hansen & Rapley, 2008 — young men discussing sexual refusal; a small study of nine men, flagged as such.
- Wilson & Miller, 2016 — meta-analysis of 28 studies, 5,917 survivors, on whether women label the experience rape.
- Teravskis, Grossman-Kahn & Gulrajani, 2022, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law — how US states define incapacity by intoxication.
- Consent law compiled from primary legislation for England & Wales, Scotland, Germany, France (law of 6 November 2025), Spain, Italy and Sweden, plus the European Parliament research service review of 2025.