College Men’s Propensity for Sexual Aggression and Perceived Justifications for Sexual Aggression Toward a Heterosexual or Bisexual College Woman

Abstract

Bisexual women are twice as likely to report sexual assault (SA) as heterosexual women (Seabrook et al., 2018). Research is needed to examine whether men’s perceptions of bisexual women’s sexual interest and behavior differ relative to perceptions of heterosexual women, as such perceptions are relevant to the decision-making processes of sexually aggressive men. This study examined whether constructs used in sexual aggression models were associated with greater perceived sexual availability and justifications for SA of a bisexual woman relative to a heterosexual woman. Participants were heterosexual undergraduate men (n = 118) who read a hypothetical vignette in which the sexual orientation of the woman described was manipulated (i.e., bisexual or heterosexual) and rated items that assessed justification for sexual aggression and judgments of the woman’s behavior (e.g., her sexual interest, her resistance to sexual advances, her behavior as inappropriate or unladylike, her promiscuity). Hierarchical linear regressions were used for the analyses. Sexual dominance was associated positively with men’s justifications for sexual aggression. As impersonal sex increased, negative blindness (e.g., a hypothesized deficit in accurate perception of women’s negative behavioral cues) increased in the bisexual condition only. Rape myth acceptance (RMA) was associated with greater negative blindness in both conditions, with a steeper slope in the bisexual condition. Additionally, RMA was associated with greater sexual availability in both conditions, with a steeper slope in the bisexual condition. Hostility toward women was also associated with greater judgments of sexual availability in both conditions, with similar slopes across conditions. These findings suggest that particular traits associated with sexual aggression may predispose men to misperceive cues of bisexual women’s sexual disinterest and judge bisexual women as more sexually available relative to heterosexual women.