The Impact of Personal Gender-Typicality and Partner Gender-Traditionality on Taking Sexual Initiative: Investigating a Social Tuning Hypothesis.

Peggy M J Emmerink,Regina J J M Van Den Eijnden,Ine Vanwesenbeeck,Tom F M Ter Bogt

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00107

Peggy M J Emmerink, Regina J J M Van Den Eijnden + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00107

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Abstract

Sexual assertiveness is an issue of interest in the context of gender equality and sexual health. This study investigated the social tuning hypothesis that encountering a gender-traditional partner would lead to stronger gender-typical behavior, i.e., respectively, higher and lower levels of taking sexual initiative among men and women. Participants (N = 271) read a vignette describing a romantic partner, who was either presented as gender-traditional or not, followed by a sexual scenario. Subsequently, participants were asked about their expectations toward their own sexual initiative taking. Results showed a significant ‘target gender-traditionality × participant gender × participant gender-typicality (masculinity/femininity)’ interaction meaning that less gender-typical men were more likely to initiate sexual contact in the experimental, compared to the control condition. Men low in masculine characteristics showed higher initiative taking in response to a gender-traditional target female. We conclude that less gender-typical men seem to employ more social tuning toward their sexual partner, whereas more gender-typical men seem to adhere to their gender-typical behavior regardless of perceived partner characteristics. These results were not seen among the women in the sample. These findings are a starting point for the further development of experimental investigations regarding the gendered nature of both sexual initiative taking and sexual assertiveness in general.

Highlights

IntroductionSexual assertiveness remains an issue of great interest in the context of gender equality, sexual consent vs. aggression (Burkett and Hamilton, 2012), and overall young peoples’ sexual health (Crawford and Popp, 2003; Sanchez et al, 2012; Vanwesenbeeck, 2014)
Our findings appear to support the understanding of sexual behavior as a ‘ you see it, you don’t’ (Deaux and Major, 1987) phenomenon, as the situational display of sexual assertiveness in the form of initiative taking seems to be dependent on a multitude of gendered characteristics
The findings of this study could serve as a starting point for the further development of experimental investigations regarding the gendered nature of sexual initiative taking, as well as sexual assertiveness in general

Summary

Introduction

Sexual assertiveness remains an issue of great interest in the context of gender equality, sexual consent vs. aggression (Burkett and Hamilton, 2012), and overall young peoples’ sexual health (Crawford and Popp, 2003; Sanchez et al, 2012; Vanwesenbeeck, 2014). In this study we chose to focus on sexual initiative taking, because research has time and again shown a pattern of relatively frequent sexual initiative by men and relatively frequent sexual compliance by women (Morokoff et al, 1997; Vannier and O’Sullivan, 2011; Sanchez et al, 2012), even in relatively sexually liberal cultures such as in the Netherlands (Schalet, 2010; De Graaf et al, 2012) These gendered differences in taking sexual initiative can in part be considered a result of the sexual double standard (SDS); ‘A traditional gender norm promoting sexual modesty for girls and women, but sexual prowess for boys and men’ These studies conclude that this can be at least partly explained by the sexually sub-assertive role that is most commonly seen among (young) women

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