A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to hypothetical sexual hookup situations in which a woman responds passively to a sexual advance, meaning the woman does not express any overt verbal or behavioral response to indicate consent to increase the level of physical intimacy. The team then surveyed how consensual each man perceived the situation to be, as well as how he would likely behave.
The work is published in the journal Sex Roles.
“A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore,” said Mattson.
The team found that men varied in their perception of passive responses in terms of consent and that the level of perceived consent was strongly linked to an increased likelihood of continuing or advancing sexual behavior.
“The biggest takeaway is that men differed in how they interpreted an ambiguous female response to their sexual advances with respect to their perception of consent, which in turn influenced their sexual decisions,” said Mattson.
“But certain types of men (e.g., those high in toxic masculine traits) tended to view situations as more consensual and reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual.”
I’m very interested in how many posters in this thread are non-virgin men, because I’m not seeing any discussion of how behaviour like this is often absolutely necessary in order to get anywhere with a woman. Every woman I’ve ever met, including my current gf, has found explicit consent at every step an absolute mood-killer, and I’ve been rejected multiple times by other women for checking for it. I’m expected to sinply make an advance and give her the opportunity to reject it. I absolutely hate this, but it’s reality. I’m sure not all women are like the women I’ve met, and I don’t have hard numbers for you, but it’s also how every woman works in every movie, every book, every story about romance, so I’m sure most people reading this post at least understand what I’m referring to.
I can’t speak for the women you know, but most, if not all, of the women I know prefer men who aren’t overly-aggressive misogynistic assholes.
Cool. There’s a big difference between asking for explicit consent every time and noticing passive response and it’s a bit disturbing that you don’t seem to understand that.
It isn’t, but it certainly is in a lot of them that are written by men.
I don’t know how unique or widespread my personal (male) experience is, but I’ve always had a very difficult time noticing anything less than a blatant response.
I’ve discovered (in retrospect) that I have missed tons of hints, clues, and subtle responses that I have been shown over the decades. Absolutely oblivious.
And in my attempts to be a decent person, I have always treated what I perceived as a lack of interest/consent and not pushed forward.
I suspect my romantic life and even friendship circle would be much more lively had I been better able to notice many of those subtle clues.
Even now approaching my grey-hair years, I am not very good at “picking up what people are putting down” unless they are quite blatant in their intentions.
Then I guess you need to find someone who is blatant enough to help you understand.
You’re not owed a girlfriend or sex.
Wow… you are assuming a helluva lot from what I wrote.
Nowhere did I even imply that I thought I was ever “owed” anything by anyone.
Don’t know what your motivations are to assume that.
Gross. Yeah, no. You should definitely be asking for consent if nothing explicit has been said. I’ve done it many times and it was always appreciated (including by my now wife on our second date when I asked her if I could kiss her), but more importantly, it was the right thing to do. If for some reason there’s a person that is put off by asking, that’s kind of a red flag to be honest. Good communication in relationships and sex is essential and the foundation of any healthy relationship.
There are many ways of asking, too. It doesn’t have to be some stitled “Would you like to have sex with me right now?” Also just generally communicating a lot before and during sex acts as consent and helps to build trust.
A lot of women have had truly awful experiences with men. Good communication and obtaining consent is not only treating women with the kindness and respect they deserve, but it also makes you stand out among the many men with poor social skills that make unwanted advances all the time.
Ick
If a woman has a problem with me asking if I can touch her then I probably don’t want to.
I had one interesting experience when it came to explicit consent. I walked to the date, she drove. No alcohol was consumed by any parties.
She offered to give me a ride home, which I politely declined, and then accepted when she pushed. I asked her if she wanted to come inside, and she said yes. I asked her if she wanted to come upstairs, and she said yes. We went up to my bedroom, did the deed, I asked her if she wanted to take a shower together and she said yes. I asked her if she wanted to go for round 2 and she said no. She left, shortly thereafter, and I was pretty confused when she told me she had felt pressured into sex and didn’t want to see me again, when I thought I had intentionally given her lots of opportunities to say yes or no.
I still don’t think I need to get a legally binding document agreeing to engagement in sexual intercourse, but that experience really demonstrated to me that an extra awkward question or two is better than the alternative.
I don’t think extra questions will help if your prospective partner is determined to lie to you about their consent.
because a lot of women lie or at least setup a scenario of plausible deniability. they don’t care about logic or facts of the situation, only the ‘feelings’ of it.
in her mind she wanted you to seduce her. so she seduced you and convinced herself that it was 100% your fault.
many women 100% refuse to exercise any agency in sexual relationships, and even when they do exercise it… they deny they have done it.
why? because agency requires responsibility. by denying it 100% they are 100% not responsible for their actions.
in this woman’s mind it’s your fault she felt pressured. but the only pressure that existed was the pressure she put on herself in her head.
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That’s fantastic; I’m happy for you.
same. the real world is very different than the world of internet words.
i have never ever met a woman who wanted ‘consent’ in my 30+ years of dating. and plenty of them told me they are turned off, and many said they find non-consent, aggression, and boundary violation ‘sexy’. i have never met a ‘sex positive’ woman who wanted to talk about boundaries and consent for any sex act, including kinky violent bdsm stuff. they always told me ‘just do what you want, i trust you, talking about this stuff is gross i just want to do it’.
but nobody wants to talk about that because it violates their kindergarten level ideals of human behaviour. truth is a lot of people get off on non-consent and idealize it. men and women both.
Just want to say I’m sorry your potential partners are turned off by consent seeking. I definitely wouldn’t be with my partners if they didn’t find consent sexy.
I can promise you that the actual bdsm community cares a great deal about consent. Negotiating is a critical skill in that context, especially if engaging in stuff that might look nonconsensual. If you like your sex kinky and consensual you might seek out your local kink scene.
No. I am not interested in joining sex cultists who think they are ‘know the truth path’. Thanks.
you guys need to chill and stop recruiting.
Not sure where you think I claim to know the true path. I can assure you I don’t, even just in my relationships. I was mentioning an option, if you wanted something, that seemed relevant based on your words. I’m confused how discussing folks who have a different view of consent make them cultists.
But the thing about consent being key is that you’re more than welcome to reach your own conclusions. You do you.
Yes, exactly.
Agreed. Your down votes and my down votes are toxic celibacy from those who no longer know how to go out and speak to women in person. Their lives are lived mostly on their phones.
What’s amusing is that these same people will, in other threads, bash men who take the only other feasible approach, which is the giving up you’re referring to. They want to have their cake and eat it, too: in this thread, it’s never ok to make a pass at a woman, but if you make a thread about being lonely, you’ll be told you’re a coward for not making passes at women.