Associations between internal and external sexual consent in a diverse national sample of women

Willis, M. , Blunt-Vinti, H. D. and Jozkowski, K. N. (2019) Associations between internal and external sexual consent in a diverse national sample of women. Personality and Individual Differences, 149, pp. 37-45. (doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.05.029)

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Willis, Dr Malachi
Authors: Willis, M., Blunt-Vinti, H. D., and Jozkowski, K. N.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Health & Wellbeing > MRC/CSO SPHSU
Journal Name:Personality and Individual Differences
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0191-8869
ISSN (Online):1873-3549
Published Online:03 June 2019

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