Tactics of sexual coercion: when men and women won't take no for an answer

Journal of Sex Research, Feb, 2003 by Cindy Struckman-Johnson, David Struckman-Johnson, Peter B. Anderson

THE PREVALENCE OF SEXUAL COERCION

Sexually coercive behavior, defined in this paper as the act of using pressure, alcohol or drugs, or force to have sexual contact with someone against his or her will, has been studied among young adult populations for decades. From 1950 through the 1980s, the research focused on female victims and male perpetrators. One of the most influential studies was by Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski (1987), who found that 15% of the women in a national sample of over 6,000 college students had experienced rape. About 4% of the men indicated that they had perpetrated rape. In this survey, like many others conducted during this time period, only women were asked about being victims, and only men were asked about being perpetrators of coercive sexual behavior (Allgeier, 2002; Struckman-Johnson & Anderson, 1998).

In the late 1980s, a small number of investigators began to ask men as well as women about their experiences as victims of sexual coercion. Struckman-Johnson (1988) documented that 16% of 268 men and 22% of 355 women surveyed at a university reported being forced to have sexual intercourse while on a date. In the 1990s and early 2000s, at least a dozen more studies that included both male and female sexual victims appeared in the literature. For example, Lottes (1991) discovered that 24% of the men and 35% of the women in a classroom sample of over 300 college students reported that they had been coerced into sexual intercourse. In a survey of 433 Canadian college students, O'Sullivan, Byers, and Finkelman (1998) found that 24% of the men and 42% of the women reported being pressured or forced into sexual contact in a heterosexual dating context in the past year. A survey of 221 high school seniors in New Zealand (Jackson, Cram, & Seymour, 2000) revealed that 67% of the boys and 77% of the girls reported that they had engaged in unwanted sexual activity.

TACTICS OF SEXUAL COERCION

The present paper is about gender differences in the tactics that are used in sexual coercion. In our review of the literature, we learned that men and women have been the victims of and have used a wide variety of coercive strategies for sexual contact. Most of the research has focused on the tactics men used to gain sexual access to women. Notably, Koss and her colleagues initiated a large body of research using the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES; Koss & Oros, 1982; Koss et al., 1987), which assessed a list of coercive tactics that men use to have sexual contact with women. For example, Koss et al. (1987) found that college women reported engaging in unwanted sexual intercourse because men had used verbal coercion (reported by 25% of the women), had threatened or used force (9%), had given the women alcohol or drugs (8%), and had misused authority (2%).

We found a small number of studies that examined the sexually coercive tactics used by women against men. Expanding upon research by McCormick (1979) on sexual influence strategies, O'Sullivan and Byers (1993) measured whether 112 women had used 44 positive, neutral, or negative strategies to obtain sex from a reluctant male partner. The most frequently reported behaviors were flirtation, touching, compliments, and removing clothing (cited by 45% to 54% of women). Least reported were acts such as trying to get men drank or stoned (cited by 5% of women) and using physical force (3% of women). Anderson and Aymami (1993) measured 212 college women's use of 24 tactics for initiating sexual contact with men. One of the most commonly reported tactics was attempting to arouse the partner (cited by 79% of women). However, about half of the women reported initiating sex with a drunken man, 15% reported getting a man drank or stoned, and 6% reported using physical force. In Germany, Krahe (2000) found that 9% of 248 sexually experienced women reported attempting to have or having sex with a man against his will. The strategies employed were exploitation of a man in an incapacitated state (reported by 6% of women), verbal pressure (3%), and physical force (2%).

A few studies have explored male victims' perspectives on sexually coercive tactics used by female perpetrators. Struckman-Johnson and Struckman-Johnson (1998) found that 43% of 318 college men had been subjected to at least one coercive sexual act with a woman since the age of 16. The most frequently cited tactics were verbal coercion (reported by 75% of male victims), being encouraged to get drunk (40%), and threats that the woman would withdraw her love (19%). Only 8% of male victims said that they were physically restrained by a woman. Surveying 182 college men, Fiebert and Tucci (1998) documented that 70% reported being subjected to some form of sexual coercion perpetrated by a woman in the past 5 years. Most of the coercive activities fell into categories labeled mild (e.g., 17% to 39% experienced unwanted sexual touching and kissing) and moderate (e.g., 24% had unwanted sex with an insistent woman). Severe coercion involving a woman's threats or physical force was reported by only 1% to 3% of men.