Citation

Marcantonio TL, Jozkowski KN, Lo WJ. Arch. Sex. Behav. 2018; 47(2): 341-351.

Affiliation

College of Education and Health Professions, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10508-017-1130-2

PMID

29297109

Abstract

Preventing sexual assault is a core goal for universities as prevalence rates of sexual assault remain high, particularly among college students. A key mechanism thought to decrease rates of sexual assault is teaching college students how to give clear, explicit, verbal refusals. However, there is a paucity of research regarding how college students refuse sex. Thus, the purpose of this study was to understand different behavioral strategies college students would use to refuse sex. A sample of 773 heterosexual college students (523 women, 250 men) were recruited from two large southern universities in the USA to complete a survey on sexual communication. Thirty-eight items assessing verbal and behavioral cues that college students would use to refuse vaginal-penile sex were written based on previous, formative research. Items were assessed by the research team through an exploratory factor analyses, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results yielded a three-factor structure: direct nonverbal refusals, direct verbal refusals, and indirect nonverbal refusals; CFA results suggested a good fit index for the model. Two independent sample t tests were conducted to examine differences in refusal cues across gender and relationship status; significant differences in refusals emerged for both. The three-factor structure depicting refusal cues was similar to previous work depicting cues college students use to communicate sexual consent; such information could inform sexual assault prevention programming.

Language: en

Keywords

College students; Gender differences; Sexual consent; Sexual refusals