 You should have just said no. You shouldn't have consumed that much alcohol. Those are some of the most common responses I hear when someone talks about getting sexually assaulted while they were intoxicated by alcohol. Those responses imply that it is indeed simple to resist a sexual assault. When in fact a very common response to getting sexually assaulted is freezing, making it very hard to resist the assault. And if it was that simple, we would not see as many as 29 to 50% of all sexual assaults happening in an alcohol intoxication context. The fact that resisting a sexual assault isn't that simple is especially one of the reasons that got me interested in interviewing 30 young people between the ages of 19 or 25 around their opinions on sexual consent, as well as their sexual experiences while they were intoxicated by alcohol. My participants generally define consent as a mutual understanding or agreement between two people about to have sex, and they emphasize the importance of sexual consent being based on sexual desire. However, they also talked about gender norms relating to having sex that could complicate consenting out of sexual desire. Men talked about how there was an expectation that they should never say no to sex. While women talked about having to balance between consenting to sex in order to not be perceived as boring, while on the other hand not consenting too much to sex in order to not be perceived as slutty. Others talked about relationship norms where it was accepted or even expected in some cases to consent to sex wanted not desire in order to please one's partner. Other participants talked about how when they were intoxicated by alcohol they were not always sure whether they had given or received consent or that they had consented to sex that they did not desire. While others talked about how being intoxicated by alcohol should not deprive someone of the responsibility of consent. So as a result show there are different and contradicting expectations in relation to sexual consent in an alcohol intoxication context. On the one hand there is an expectation about mutual consent and that sexual consent to be based on sexual desire. But on the other hand there are gender and relationship norms as well as factors relating to being intoxicated by alcohol that can complicate consenting out of sexual desire. So while my participants might also ask themselves why didn't I just say no? Why did I drink so much? The problem of those questions is that they overlook the complexity of the alcohol intoxication context where simply saying no to sex might not be that simple after all. Thank you.