Perceptions of Sexual Consent: The Role of Situational Factors and Participant Gender Among College Students

Sexual consent communication can be ambiguous when people rely on nonverbal, implicit cues. This ambiguity can lead to the reliance of contextual information to assess whether a sexual encounter was consensual, both in the moment and retrospectively. The current study examined how level of alcohol consumption, relationship type, and evaluator gender influenced the extent to which various sexual encounters were seen as consensual. Participants read a series of vignettes in which sexual consent was verbally granted, verbally rejected, or inferred using nonverbal cues. The vignettes also manipulated the amount of alcohol consumed by the target of the sexual advances (i.e., sober, tipsy, or intoxicated) as well as the relationship between the dyads (i.e., dating or strangers). Generally, male participants were more likely to interpret all encounters as more consensual. Encounters in which the target was intoxicated were more likely to be interpreted as nonconsensual, but instances when targets were described as tipsy (i.e., she consumed two or less alcoholic beverages) were seen as more consensual than sober encounters. The relationship between the dyads also influenced these perceptions. This work can inform educational efforts geared toward alcohol and sexual consent.