Manipulation and force as sexual coercion tactics: conceptual and empirical differences

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between perpetrator characteristics, situational characteristics, and type of sexual coercion tactics used to obtain sexual contact (including sexual intercourse) with an unwilling partner. Men who used manipulation or force were compared to each other and to men who engaged in only consensual sex. Participants were college men drawn from the first wave of a 5-year longitudinal study. Stepwise discriminant function analyses, univariate analyses of variance (ANOVA), and chi(2) analyses tested group differences. As predicted, men who used force reported more childhood sexual abuse, witnessed more domestic violence, were more accepting of male violence, and were less likely to endorse love as a motive for sex than men in both the manipulation and consent groups. Men in the force group were also more likely to have had a casual relationship with the woman, and to be drinking and also intoxicated during the coercive incident than men in the manipulation group. Hypothesized differences between men who used force and manipulation regarding parental physical punishment, traditional gender role attitudes, delinquency, hedonistic and dominance motives for sex, prior sexual contact, and the length of the relationship were not supported. The results suggest that types of tactic used in sexual assaults can be distinguished on the basis of person and situational variables and that knowledge of these differences can facilitate future research, as well as rape deterrent and intervention programs.

Is the link between endorsement and engagement in sexual coercion associated with life history strategy?

“…This is contrary to our predictions, as low SES is consistently associated with an accelerated life history strategy (Brumbach et al, 2009). A potential explanation is that men with high SES may be more willing to engage in sexual coercion, as sexual coercion can involve an abuse of power and authority (Lyndon et al, 2007). Another possibility is that previous research overrepresents engagement in sexual aggressiveness of those with low SES, while simultaneously underrepresenting those with higher SES.…”

Do men use more sexually aggressive tactics when intoxicated? A within-person examination of naturally occurring episodes of sex.

“…In support of Hypothesis 1, higher event-specific subjective intoxication had a positive direct effect on verbal persuasion as well as an indirect positive effect on physical force, mediated via verbal persuasion. The positive effect of male intoxication on use of verbal persuasion appears at first to be at odds with previous event-based studies of sexual assault incidents showing that intoxicated men are more likely to use physical force rather than verbal coercion (Abbey, Ross, McDuffie, & McAuslan, 1996;Lyndon, White, & Kadlec, 2007). However, those studies compared only sexual assault incidents with and without alcohol and, like our results, suggest sexual aggression for intoxicated men.…”

Adversarial heterosexual beliefs moderate the effects of daily emotion modulation and sex motives on condom use resistance: A 32-day daily diary study among young men.

“…Additionally, CUR engagement was more likely among participants who had stronger coping sex motives over the 32-day period on average and on days with stronger daily power-related sex motives. These results also support past findings highlighting these two sex motives as risk factors for sexual aggression and sexual risk behaviors, including coercive CUR (Davis et al, 2022; Hoffmann & Verona, 2019; Lisak & Roth, 1990; Lyndon et al, 2007; Smith et al, 2015). Our results underscore that power-related sex motives are a construct that can fluctuate daily and that this daily fluctuation is associated with sex-related behavioral outcomes, such as a higher likelihood of CUR engagement.…”