Contemporary TV series and movies reflect and shape cultural understandings of sexual consent and refusal, crucial for promoting bodily autonomy, preventing assault, and fostering healthy relationships. This study analyzes 124 sex initiation scenes, focusing on 35 cases of verbal and embodied refusals. Using a critical conversation-analytic approach, the analysis reveals that a verbal “no” rarely operates as a straightforward indicator of unwillingness. Instead, it often co-occurs with expressions of desire and accounts unrelated to refusal, embedding it in a complex assemblage of interactional resources, especially in morally ambiguous contexts. By contrast, physical immobility often communicates an unambiguous refusal, though its recognition is inconsistent. Male passivity tends to be treated as rejection, while female passivity is frequently disregarded, reflecting entrenched gendered sexual scripts. These scripts perpetuate disparities in how sexual boundaries are communicated and understood, complicating the affirmative consent model's reliance on explicit cues such as “no means no” and “yes means yes.” By examining portrayals of sexual refusal in popular media, the study throws light on the limitations of such simplistic consent slogans, arguing that they fail to capture the nuanced realities of communication while highlighting the need for representations that expose problems and challenge entrenched scripts.