The stereotypical picture of men as the perpetrators and
women as the victims of acquaintance rape and other forms of
unwanted sexual contact appears to be slightly out of
focus.
Men are almost as likely as women to report unwanted
sexual contact and coercion, according to a new study of
college students conducted by researchers from the University
of Washington's Addictive Behaviors Research Center. The
study, involving nearly 300 students, appears in the current
issue of the journal Sex Roles.
Overall, 34 men (21
percent of the male participants) and 36 women (28 percent)
reported being recipients of one or more of five types of
unwanted sexual contact listed on a gender-neutral
questionnaire used by the researchers. The study also showed
that men who experienced unwanted sexual contact reported
more symptoms of depression than the other males in the
study, although none met the criteria for clinical
depression. There was no difference in the level of
depression symptoms for women who said they were sexually
coerced and those who weren't. Women, however, were more
likely to be the victims of having physical force used
against them.
The research, funded by the National
Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, grew out of a
larger study looking at alcohol abuse prevention among
fraternity and sorority members. One of the surveys used in
the larger study by the UW researchers was a standardized
sexual experiences questionnaire that solely pictured women
as the recipients of coercion and men as the
perpetrators.
"Our participants told us we were missing the
boat when it came to sexual coercion," said Mary Larimer,
research assistant professor of psychology and principal
investigator on the new study, "so we revised the
questionnaire to make it gender neutral."
The revised
survey asked the students - 165 men and 131 women - about
their sexual experiences over the previous year. The
students were primarily freshmen and sophomores and were
largely white (82 percent) or Asian (13 percent).
Men were
more likely than women to report that they had unwanted sex
or were pressured into having sex. The survey defined
unwanted sex as a situation in which an individual's partner
became so sexually aroused that the individual felt it was
useless to stop even though he or she did not want to have
intercourse. Fourteen percent of the men and 8 percent of
the women said they had unwanted sex. Being pressured into
having sex was described as having intercourse with someone
even though you really didn't want to because the other
person pressured you with continual arguments. Eight
percent of the men and 6 percent of the women said they had
been pressured into having sex.
Physical force was used
infrequently. Just 5 percent of the women and less than 1
percent of the men said some sort of physical force, such as
having an arm twisted or being held down, was used on them
when they didn't want to have sex, whether or not intercourse
actually occurred.
Alcohol and drugs played a significant
role in sexual victimization. Seventeen percent of the women
and 9 percent of the men said someone had attempted to have
intercourse with them when they didn't want to after giving
them alcohol or drugs. And 6 percent of the women and 4
percent of the men said they had sex when they didn't want to
after being given alcohol and drugs.
Overall, nearly half
of the students - 48 percent of the women and 47 percent of
the men - reported that drinking had gotten them into sexual
situations that they later regretted. In addition, both men
and women who reported being sexually coerced in some way
listed higher alcohol use and more alcohol related problems
than did students who were not coerced.
"Alcohol is clearly
a major factor, but not the only one," said Larimer. "Alcohol
not only impairs the awareness of warning signals about a
sexual situation but it also impairs a person's ability to
resist an unwanted sexual advance. Both men and women
reported intentionally using alcohol and drugs to obtain
sex."
She added that the male participants (and observing
researchers) described attending parties and seeing women
waiting around until "guys became drunk and then hitting on
them when they were unable to make rational decisions about
having sex.
"All of this activity is unacceptable behavior
and it is clearly not consensual sex," Larimer said. "Both
men and women are experiencing unwanted sexual advances and
our preliminary indications are that men are suffering from
those experiences just as women are. I was surprised at how
guilty and ashamed some of the men were and that we, as
researchers, were buying into a cultural myth and didn't
think such experiences were the same for men as for
women."
Co-authors of the study are Britt Anderson and
Aaron Turner, UW psychology doctoral students, and Amy Lydum,
research coordinator.
###
For more information,
contact Larimer at (206) 543-3513 or
larimer@u.washington.edu
The original press release is at: http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/07-99archive/k072699.html
