Scripting Sexual Consent: Internalized Traditional Sexual Scripts and Sexual Consent Expectancies Among College Students

• Author: Stacey J. T. Hust,Benjamin Bayly,Kathleen Boyce Rodgers
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12230
• Published date: 01 February 2017
• Date: 01 February 2017

S J. T. H, K B R,  B B

Washington State University

Scripting Sexual Consent: Internalized Traditional

Sexual Scripts and Sexual Consent Expectancies

Among College Students

College students are at a relatively high risk for

both sexual assault victimization and perpetra-

tion, and understanding sexual consent is imper-

ative to reduce the incidence of sexual assault.

Informed by the interactionist perspective of

feminist theory, we surveyed 447 undergraduate

students to identify factors associated with het-

erosexual college students’ expectancies related

to sexual consent. Womenwho believed in sexual

stereotypes and endorsed music that degrades

women were less likely than other women to

expect to engage in healthy negotiation of sexual

consent. Men who were condent that they could

avoid perpetrating nonsexual, physical interper-

sonal violence were statistically more likely to

report practicing healthy negotiation of sexual

consent. These results indicate that it is impor-

tant for practitioners to consider individuals’

sexual stereotypes in the prevention of interper-

sonal sexual violence.

Only seven of the 50 U.S. states explicitly dene

consent, and what legally constitutes sexual con-

sent is therefore not always clear (DeMatteo,

Galloway, Arnold, & Patel, 2015). Nonetheless,

Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Wash-

ington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164–2520

(sjhust@wsu.edu).

Key Words: Interpersonal violence, sexual assault, sexual

consent, sexual stereotypes.

among college students in the United States

who completed the Campus Climate Survey on

Sexual Assault, 11% reported having experi-

enced nonconsensual sexual contact during the

2014–2015 academic year, and 21% of col-

lege seniors had experienced nonconsensual sex-

ual contact since starting college (Cantor et al.,

2015). Given such prevalence rates juxtaposed

to ambiguous legal guidelines, sexual assault

reduction programming has focused primarily

on encouraging individuals to verbally ask for

a partner’s verbal “yes” to participate in sexual

activity (Jozkowski, Peterson, Sanders, Dennis,

& Reece, 2014).

In practice, research on sexual consent has

found that individuals use a variety of verbal and

nonverbalcues to communicate theirwillingness

to participate in sexual activity (Humphreys,

2004; O’Bryne, Hansen, & Rapley, 2008;

O’Bryne, Rapley, & Hansen, 2006; Walker,

1997). Importantly, too, men and women often

report using different cues to communicate

consent (e.g., Jozkowski et al., 2014), and some

scholars believe the negotiation of sexual con-

sent is informed by culturally determined sexual

scripts (Bay-Cheng & Eliseo-Arras, 2008;

Conroy, Krishnakumar, & Leone, 2015; Ryan,

2011). The interactional feminist perspective

provides a theoretical framework for explaining

how gender differences have an impact on

negotiation of sexual consent by emphasizing

the important role of power within social inter-

actions wherein masculinity and femininity

Family Relations 66 (February 2017): 197–210 197

DOI:10.1111/fare.12230