We have become rather good at talking about consent. There are campaigns about it, dating-app prompts about it, and enough Instagram explainers to suggest that the vocabulary is no longer the problem. The more interesting question in India in 2026 is whether the behaviour has caught up.

A study published in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed, open-access, multi-disciplinary scientific journal published by the nonprofit Public Library of Science, on January 8, 2025, offers a useful starting point. In it, researchers from the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai analysed data from 101,839 Indian men aged 15 to 54, collected through the National Family Health Survey-5 between 2019 and 2021. It found that 63% of men had favourable attitudes towards women’s sexual autonomy. Seventy-five per cent agreed that a wife was justified in refusing sex if she was tired or simply not in the mood; 77% said she could refuse if her husband were having sex with other women, and 83% if he had a sexually transmitted infection. Men with more egalitarian attitudes towards decision-making at home were also more likely to support women’s sexual autonomy.

So far, so encouraging. But statistics have a way of looking tidier than real life.

A woman I spoke to, who grew up in Mumbai and moved to Delhi about three years ago for work, says her dating life slowed considerably after the move. She is sex-positive and has had an active dating life, but has become more hesitant about meeting men. What she finds interesting is the gap between what some men say and what they actually do. “They know the vocabulary — boundaries, comfort, communication, consent — but it sometimes feels like it is Internet speak: the language has been learnt without necessarily absorbing the meaning,” she says.

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PeopleImages

She notices it particularly around intimacy. If she says she does not want to try something, or that her body is not ready for it, the response may initially be understanding. But then, she says, she can see the disappointment arrive. She has noticed versions of this in Mumbai too, which makes the point less about one city being enlightened and another being hopeless, and more about how easily consent can become conditional: Of course I respect your no, but I am now slightly less interested in you because you said it.

A young man from Goa describes the opposite problem. Dating, he says, can sometimes feel like going through a series of checks: Is she comfortable? Is this okay? Should I stop? There are moments when he feels permanently on tenterhooks, particularly when he is trying not to get something wrong. One woman even told him, “You don’t need my consent for everything,” before adding that she was glad he did because most men don’t.

He has come to think that the awkwardness is useful. Men have not always been required to think very hard about where their responsibility begins and ends. If being slightly overcautious means you are less likely to assume that somebody’s silence, previous enthusiasm, or general interest automatically amounts to permission, perhaps that is not such a terrible burden.

Consent should not become a performance in which men nervously ask permission before every movement while women sit around issuing permits. But neither should a woman’s no be treated as an invitation to negotiate. The responsibility is not just to make someone comfortable enough to say yes; it is to be comfortable enough with the answer when the answer is no.

Make it make sense

A 2026 study in The Journal of Sex Research, an international, peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to interdisciplinary research on the scientific study of sexuality, offers another perspective. The study, based on in-depth interviews with 32 Indian young adults aged 18 to 28, found that participants had markedly different understandings of consent, from a straightforward yes-or-no proposition to more nuanced ideas shaped by experience. What they consistently recognised was its importance to trust, comfort and healthy relationships.

A bisexual woman I spoke to says consent starts with knowing yourself. When you are having sex with men, particularly when there is a mismatch in libido, she says you have to recognise when your body is saying no even if the person beside you would like a yes. Some people, she says, have libidos that could power a small city; not everybody can or wants to keep up. Being able to say I’m not feeling it without producing a better explanation is part of knowing your own boundaries. So is recognising coercion when it arrives disguised as guilt — when you are made to feel prudish, selfish, difficult or responsible for somebody else’s disappointment.

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Deepak Sethi

“Your body is not a group project,” she says.

Perhaps that is also why sexuality educator Leeza Mangaldas wants to make consent feel less like the least sexy part of sex. Through her work, she has tried to make introducing sex toys into a relationship feel more like taking up a new sport together: something curious, playful, and mutually enjoyable.

“Being sex-positive is not only about being willing to try more things. It is about being curious enough to ask, secure enough to hear an honest answer, and comfortable enough not to punish someone for giving it,” she says.

Then there is the queer community, where the conversation around consent can take another turn. A Kerala-based gay man I spoke to says that as more people explore kink and BDSM, some seem to learn the vocabulary before learning the responsibility. Someone declares himself a dominant and assumes that being submissive means being open to whatever comes next. But kink is not a licence to hurt someone and call it experimentation.

Consensual BDSM is built around communication: discussing what you want, establishing boundaries, and having a way to stop.
He believes there is a useful distinction here: sexual openness is not the same as sexual competence. You can be curious about almost anything and still need to know how to communicate, negotiate boundaries, and stop.

Because consent is not merely about getting a yes, it is about learning to hear a no without taking it personally. And in India in 2026, that may still be the more difficult lesson.

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