Women's reactions to hypothetical male sexual touch as a function of initiator attractiveness and level of coercion

Abstract

This study investigated women's reactions to hypothetical male sexual advances and how these reactions are influenced by the physical attractiveness of the initiator. The 144 mostly Caucasian female participants were given vignettes asking them to imagine themselves as the recipients of an uninvited sexually coercive advance from a casual male acquaintance. The acquaintance was described as either attractive or unattractive, and the level of sexual coercion was low, medium, or high. Participants evaluated the situation in terms of how negatively or positively it would affect them, how socially acceptable it would be, and how much it would flatter them. The results indicate that for women, as has previously been shown for men, the attractiveness level of the opposite gender perpetrator redefines how the sexual advances are perceived. In addition, the results support earlier findings that women view sexual advances which use low levels of sexual coercion less negatively than those employing higher levels.