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People’s beliefs about sexual consent can have far-reaching consequences, from forming opinions about a sexual assault case while serving as a juror to attending to a partner’s verbal and nonverbal consent cues during a sexual encounter. In this study, we examined the extent to which sexism, attitudes towards sexual consent, and sexual consent norms predict perceptions of risk related to sexual consent communication, or more specifically, the absence of sexual consent communication. Undergraduate students (N = 217) participated in an online survey study. Results revealed that participants’ attitudes towards sexual consent mediated the relationship between sexism and perceived risk. That is, people with sexist beliefs were less likely to evaluate sexual consent behaviours in a positive way, and in turn, these negative evaluations of sexual consent were associated with lower risk perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcohol intoxication may influence how bystanders interpret other people's consent and refusal cues. We examined the effects of alcohol intoxication on participants' perceptions of characters' consent and refusal indicators in a fictional vignette depicting an alcohol-involved sexual encounter. Young adults (n = 119, 52% women) participated in an alcohol administration experiment examining the influence of acute intoxication on bystander perceptions during a vignette depicting a character who is intoxicated and declines a sexual advance from another character, who ignores her refusal and continues to pursue sexual activity. Participants were randomly assigned to an alcohol or non-alcohol condition and then guided through a semi-structured interview in which we asked about the characters' consent and refusal cues. Interviews were analyzed using both inductive and deductive coding. Most participants eventually indicated the encounter was nonconsensual, but approximately 9% of participants described the encounter as entirely consensual and another 42% of participants described the interaction as initially consensual and then nonconsensual. Participants discussed nuanced accounts of consent and refusal cues, including indicators related to alcohol consumption. Disregarding intoxication and gender, participants eventually recognized the situation as nonconsensual and thus potentially risky. However, some participants recognized this risk earlier in the encounter than others. Consequently, bystanders who recognize risk later in a situation may have fewer opportunities to intervene before a situation escalates. We recommend sexual assault prevention educators take a more nuanced approach when discussing consent and refusal indicators, emphasizing contextual factors that may indicate risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substance use can occur prior to nonconsensual and consensual sexual activity and affect how sexual consent is communicated and felt. Yet, researchers' understanding of how substance use relates to these sexual experiences is still developing. Few researchers examine these behaviors among the intersection of sexual minority (SM) identity and gender. The goal of this study was to assess if experiences of nonconsensual and consensual substance-involved sexual activity, consent communication and feelings varied by the intersection of SM identity and identifying as a woman. Participants were recruited from a Prolific Academic panel to complete a survey about their substance use, sexual experiences, and sexual consent. SM persons and SM women reported more nonconsensual and consensual substance involved sexual experiences than heterosexual participants and SM men. Consent communication and feelings did not differ by across groups. Prevention initiatives for substance use and sexual activity may want to take an intersectional approach that addresses why different subgroups are at elevated risk to coalesce these two behaviors. Because consent feelings and communication did not differ by SM identity and gender, consent initiatives should expand their discussion to be inclusive of SM as these initiatives are often presented within a heteronormative framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Sexual assault is a pervasive problem in the UK, and young women are disproportionately affected. We sought to provide an initial account of sexual consent norms in the UK and whether they differ by gender and age. Method The present study was a secondary analysis of data collected by the Family Planning Association, which conducted an online survey (N  = 2003) to assess experiences with, knowledge of, and attitudes toward consent. The sample represented all regions of the UK and spanned ages 14–55. Results Definitions of sexual consent endorsed by women and older age groups more closely aligned with the tenets of affirmative consent compared with men and younger age groups. Women and older age groups were also more likely to perceive that various nonverbal cues may be used to interpret sexual consent or refusal and were more supportive of people being able to withdraw their sexual consent. Conclusion Maladaptive sexual consent norms seemed to be prevalent among men and young people in the UK, which may contribute to young women's elevated risk of experiencing sexual assault. Our findings support the UK's recent relationships and sex education curriculum that actively promotes healthy sexual consent norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual consent refers to people's internal willingness to engage in sexual activity with another person—as well as their external communication of that willingness. Internal and external sexual consent can vary by type of sexual behavior; however, previous research on sexual consent has primarily only assessed "typical" sexual behaviors such as genital touching, oral sex, and vaginal–penile sex without providing further context or acknowledging people's sexual diversity. Therefore, we provided an initial account of people's sexual consent—and lack thereof—for a broader array of sexual behaviors and contexts in which they occur. Using an online cross-sectional survey of participants in the United Kingdom and the United States (N = 658, 50.5% women), we examined event-level internal and external sexual consent for 20 sexual behaviors or contexts. Women reported significantly lower levels of sexual consent feelings than men for 12 of the 20 sexual behaviors and lower levels of active consent communication for 7 of them. Almost a third of participants (31.0%) had experienced at least one of the listed sexual behaviors against their will. Of those, participants on average reported nonconsensual experiences with 3.1 of the 20 types of sexual behavior listed, ranging from 1 to 11. More women reported at least one nonconsensual experience with one of the sexual behaviors assessed compared with men (47.9% versus 22.3%, respectively). We discussed several behavior-specific findings regarding sexual consent and the lack thereof. We also made recommendations for initiatives aimed at promoting healthy sexual consent practices: embrace sexual diversity, emphasize sexual agency, and encourage active consent communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring sexual assault experiences is considered a methodological challenge in survey research. Researchers can test the validity of sexual assault measures by comparing responses to different, albeit related, measures of sexual assault to determine if they identify similar groups of women. The goal of this study was to compare two measures of sexual assault victimization to determine if women report experiencing sexual assault in both assessments. Cisgender college women (n = 902) completed two separate measures of sexual victimization: the Sexual Coercion Inventory (SCI) and Sexual Experience Survey-Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV). Responses to both measures were coded to identify different sexual assault experiences (i.e., unwanted touching, attempted, and completed oral, vaginal, or anal rape) resulting from verbal coercion, threats of force, and use of force since enrolling in the university. Results suggested the SES-SFV produced higher overall rates of sexual assault experiences than the SCI. Specifically, the SES-SFV elicited more non-consensual sexual experiences resulting from threats and use of force, whereas the SCI elicited more non-consensual sexual experiences resulting from verbal coercion. Findings suggested discrepant responding across the two measures. Development of comprehensive sexual assault measures that fully capture women's victimization experiences is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective College students may not view sexual consent communication while under the influence of substances (i.e., alcohol and drugs) as problematic if media models the co-occurrence of these behaviors. The purpose of this study was to assess the types of consent cues used by characters who are and are not under the influence of substances in mainstream films. Method: Four researchers inductively analyzed popular mainstream films (N = 50). Films were assessed for substance use and consent communication cues. Results: Characters using substances were depicted using implicit verbal and explicit nonverbal consent cues more than characters who had not used substances. Conclusion: Films may perpetuate cultural narratives that substance use can be part of the consent process and that consent is communicated differently when people have used substances. Prevention programs could include media literacy to address misleading messages college students may internalize about substance use and sexual consent communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults frequently engage in sexual activity after consuming alcohol and, consequently, may try to communicate sexual consent while intoxicated. We aimed to assess how people's drinking behaviors relate to their consent perceptions and communication with their current sexual partners. Using aggregated data from a 30-day daily diary study, young adults (n = 86, 77.9% women, 86% in a monogamous relationship) reported instances of partnered sexual activity and their perceptions of whether that activity was consensual. For each partnered sexual event, participants reported what they said or did to perceive the sexual activity as consensual. Responses were coded as active consent communication (i.e., using verbal or nonverbal cues) or tacit knowledge (i.e., using context to understand consent). During an exit survey, participants retrospectively reported how many days they drank (i.e., typical drinking) during the 30-day study and whether they binge drank. Typical and binge drinking were associated with identifying sexual experiences as consensual. Participants who binge drank relied less on active consent communication and more on context compared with those who did not binge drink. Young adults who binge drink may rely more on tacit knowledge because alcohol impedes their ability to process complex stimuli—such as active consent cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preliminary evidence indicates that people's sexual consent (i.e., their willingness to engage in sexual activity and communication of that willingness) varies across time and context. Study designs that assess sexual consent at multiple time points (e.g., experience sampling methodology [ESM]) are needed to better understand the within-person variability of sexual consent. However, extant validated measures of sexual consent are not appropriate for ESM studies, which require shorter assessments due to the increased burden this methodology has on participants. As such, the goal of the present study was to develop ESM measures of sexual consent based on items that have previously been validated for use in cross-sectional surveys. We selected items that balanced face validity as evidenced by cognitive interviews (n = 10) and content validity as evidenced by experts' ratings (n = 6). To assess the construct validity and feasibility of these items, we administered the selected ESM measures of sexual consent in a seven-day pilot study (n = 12). The results suggested that the ESM measures developed in the present study were a valid and feasible assessment of people's experience-specific internal consent feelings and external consent communication. We conclude with recommendations for sex researchers interested in ESM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual consent is a multidimensional construct that requires the participation of all involved in a sexual encounter; however, previous research has almost exclusively relied on one person's perspective. To address this, we collected open- and closed-ended data on sexual consent from 37 dyads in committed sexual relationships (N = 74). We found that relationship length was associated with sexual consent and couples who accurately perceived each other's consent communication cues reported elevated levels of internal consent feelings. Communicating willingness to engage in sexual activity remains important even within committed relationships. Preliminary findings suggest that further investigations of dyadic nuances of sexual consent are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Substance-involved sexual activity is common. Even though people recognise that substance-related impairment can be a barrier to people's ability to consent to sexual activity, most do not believe that substance use automatically negates sexual consent. We extended previous work on substance-related effects on internal and external consent by investigating sexual events that involved alcohol, cannabis, or both.Methods: For 28 days, 113 participants (MAge = 29.2 years, 57.5% women, 70.8% White) responded to three surveys per day on their personal devices. At time points when participants reported having engaged in partnered sexual activity, they were asked to report their alcohol use, cannabis use, internal consent feelings, and external consent communication.Results: Across 1189 partnered sexual events, 31.5% involved alcohol, cannabis, or both. Sexual events that involved combined use were associated with diminished feelings of safety/comfort and feelings that the sexual act was consensual, compared with events that involved neither substance. Greater levels of alcohol consumption were descriptively associated with lower ratings of internal sexual consent.Conclusions: We found that combined use of alcohol and cannabis may lead to lower internal sexual consent than using either substance alone - potentially due to greater levels of impairment associated with polysubstance use. Sexual health education programs should consider more nuanced approaches to teaching people how to navigate substance use and sexual consent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated whether the context of first-time intercourse (FTI) was associated with internal consent feelings and external consent communication at FTI. College students (n = 1020) from universities in Canada and the United States retrospectively reported on their FTI. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the context of participants' FTI (e.g. age, contraceptive use) predicted their internal consent, which in turn predicted their external consent communication. Sexual health education should highlight these contextual correlates of sexual consent at FTI. Despite the cultural primacy of FTI, consent should also be prioritized for other early sexual experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In preliminary studies, behaviours, actions, and cues occurring in social settings (e.g., bars or parties), including the transition to a private setting (e.g., going home together), have been identified as indicating a potential partner's consent to sexual behaviour. To examine this nuance, we assessed people's in-the-moment perceptions of sexual consent. We developed staggered vignettes of a fictional sexual encounter between two characters and asked participants (N = 1094) to indicate the extent that they believed the characters were willing to engage in several sexual behaviours. We found that the act of transitioning from a social to a private setting increased participants' in-the-moment perceptions of the characters' willingness to engage in genital touching, oral sex, and vaginal-penile sex (ps <.001). We did not find the effect of transitioning to a private setting to vary by the gender of the (1) participant or (2) character initiating the transition. However, we found that male participants indicated that the female character was more likely to be willing to engage in sexual behaviour when the female character initiated the invitation to transition from the social to the private setting. We recommend that educators and advocates emphasise such nuances in consent communication as part of affirmative consent and sexual assault prevention initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though young people report learning about sex from pornography, most do not think this sexual medium teaches them about sexual consent communication. But research shows that people are also able to evaluate pornography as consensual or not. Therefore, we proposed that pornography depicts subtle sexual scripts regarding sexual consent communication. We conducted a content analysis of 50 20-minute segments within best-selling pornographic films from 2015. We systematically coded the presence of various consent communication cues in these films. Consent communication was often depicted; nonverbal cues were more frequent than verbal cues. We found that the films either directly or indirectly supported several sexual scripts: Explicit Verbal Consent Isn't Natural, Women are Indirect/Men are Direct, Sex Can Happen Without Ongoing Communication, Lower-Order Behaviors Don't Need Explicit Consent, and People Receiving Sexual Behaviors Can Consent by Doing Nothing. Further research is needed to examine whether viewers are acquiring, activating, or applying these scripts. Sex education programs could benefit from acknowledging how consent communication is modeled in pornography and by teaching about pornography literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual consent can be conceptualized as an internal willingness to engage in sexual behavior. To communicate this internal feeling, people use and interpret cues—both active and passive. We proposed and tested a model for the potential mechanisms underlying women's sexual consent, which predicted associations between women's internal feelings of consent and the consent cues communicated and interpreted in a given sexual encounter. Because research on sexual consent has consistently urged researchers to collect data from samples that are not primarily college-aged and White, we conducted a pilot systematic review of peer-reviewed sexual consent literature to confirm this need. We then used structural equation modeling to test our proposed model with data from a national sample diverse regarding age and race/ethnicity (n = 589). We found that women's internal consent feelings are associated with their use of active consent cues—especially nonverbal cues. Because passive cues were unrelated to women's internal consent, not resisting or not saying no should not be used to infer women's consent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults have limited access to comprehensive sex education. As such, they may seek sexuality information through such alternative sources, such as mass media. Previous research suggests that media, including films and television shows, can influence sexual behaviors and attitudes. Because sexual consent communication is important to sexual experiences, the purpose of this study was to assess how sexual consent and refusal communication were depicted in films. We also examined contextual factors that influence consent and refusal communication, such as gender, relationship status, location, and types of sexual behaviors. Four researchers analyzed popular mainstream films (N = 50) from 2013 based on a codebook developed inductively and deductively. The most common consent and refusal communication cues were nonverbal or implicit. The majority of scenes portrayed consent immediately before sexual activity. We also conducted chi-squared analyses to assess differences in consent and refusal communication based on gender and relationship status. There were no gender differences in the portrayal of consent cues; however, characters in established relationships used nonverbal cues more often than those in novel relationships. Mass media can normalize behaviors, and our results suggest that films may further normalize nonverbal or implicit consent cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the USA, universities have recently developed policies and programmes on sexual consent education. But waiting until students enroll in higher education may be too late to begin this work. To examine the extent that K-12 health education standards promote sexual consent education, we conducted a pilot study and found that only two of eighteen states explicitly mentioned sexual consent in their health education standards. Using a small sample (n = 4 states), we then identified four themes as making implicit reference to sexual consent: communication skills, decision making, personal space and interpersonal relationships. Finally, in a robust sample (n = 18 states), we conducted a content analysis of published standards regarding these themes related to sexual consent. Our analysis suggests that sexual consent is likely not discussed in sex education at K-12 schools. We recommend the more explicit inclusion of sexual consent in health education curricula via the identified themes that already exist in most or all standards, emphasising the importance of teaching young people about the nuances of sexual consent and its communication before they become sexually active. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: College students believe that they are supposed to be explicit and verbal in their sexual consent communication. We examined various contexts to determine when sexual consent is likely to be communicated explicitly and verbally. Method: We surveyed U.S. college students' (n = 707) sexual consent communication. Results: We identified contexts when explicit verbal consent cues are less likely—when the person is a woman, when the sexual relationship is casual, and when the sexual behavior is not vaginal-penile intercourse. Conclusions: If sexual consent is contextual, that means communicating consent should not ever be taken for granted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "Sexual Consent Perceptions of a Fictional Vignette: A Latent Growth Curve Model," published online on January 17, 2022 is presented.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) traits are primarily characterized by frantic efforts to avoid abandonment and unstable interpersonal relationships. Sexual coercion and consequently sexual compliance are overrepresented in the romantic relationships of those with BPD traits. The present study examined whether this association is altered after inducing fear of abandonment with a novel false feedback manipulation. After receiving an accurate personality assessment, 130 undergraduate women were randomly told how well they match with their current romantic partner—either in 11th percentile or the 89th. Our manipulation decreased mood and relationship expectations in the poorly matched condition; these effects were positive in the highly matched condition. We found that this fear of abandonment manipulation moderated the association between BPD traits and hypothetical sexual compliance. In the poorly matched condition, participants predicted that they would be more likely to engage in unwanted sexual activity the more BPD traits they endorsed (ß = 0.498, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.257); this association was not present in the highly matched condition (ß = 0.209, p = 0.102, η p 2 = 0.045). Knowing that the relationship between BPD traits and sexual compliance may be situational increases our understanding of the relationships of people with BPD traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]