Do college students feel confident to consent to sex after consuming alcohol?

Abstract

Objective

College students engage in consensual sexual activity after consuming alcohol, perhaps because they feel confident to do so. However, why students feel confident consenting to sex after consuming alcohol is unclear. We conducted a mixed-method evaluation of students’ confidence consenting to sex after consuming alcohol; we examined individual (gender, relationship status, Greek life, alcohol and sex expectancies) and contextual (drinking behaviors) factors’ association with confidence to consent to sex. We then qualitatively examined why students felt confident.

Method

232 college students completed a survey assessing alcohol and sexual activity.

Results

Gender, Greek life involvement, and drinking behaviors were related to confidence to consent; open-ended responses suggested students had their own norms for combining consent and alcohol.

Conclusions

Students were confident consenting to sex after consuming alcohol. Sexual assault prevention educators may consider focusing on misunderstandings surrounding alcohol’s effects on people’s ability to consent.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• sexual consent
• sexual activity
• college students
• drinking behaviors

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Miki Brewington and Abigail Downey for their assistance with coding the data.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the University of Arkansas’s Institutional Review Board..

Notes

1 30 (13.0%) responses were coded as other and two responses were coded as missing.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded through the University of Arkansas’s Honor’s College Research Grant. Researcher Tiffany L. Marcantonio’s contribution and time toward this publication was supported by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health under award number F31AA027150-03. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIAAA or National Institute of Health.