MeToo or not MeToo? Sexual consent and the transformation of women’s worldviews on sexuality

In the post-MeToo context, sexual consent has gained visibility in public debates, appearing in discourses denouncing sexual violence and conveying a new model of egalitarian “good” sexuality. Based on a biographical interview study of heterosexual women aged 18 to 65 from different social backgrounds, this article looks at normative change at the individual level. It examines the conditions under which women are, in this context, led to substitute their biological and differentialist representations of sexuality, forged during their early socialization, with new constructivist reading grids influenced by feminist and therapeutic knowledge. After describing in-depth the case of four interviewees, the analysis highlights the role played by three social factors in the change of normative frame of reference: the experience of emotional shocks making visible the symbolic violence suffered, the attribution of legitimacy to the discourses carrying the new representations, and the biographical availability made possible by two relational configurations. The article thus shows that social class is not the main determinant of the transformation of individual visions of “good” sexuality since MeToo.