Proceptive and rejective strategies of U.S. and Canadian college women

It is widely believed that men are the initiators in sexual encounters. However, results from animal sex research show that proceptivity—female behavior patterns which initiate or maintain a sexual interaction—is extremely common. We investigated proceptivity in U.S. (n = 29) and Canadian (n = 48) college women who wrote essays explaining how they would seduce and reject a man and who completed a questionnaire assessing sexual conservatism/liberalism. The seduction and rejection essays were subjected to complete thematic analysis; nearly all (87.2%) essays mentioned proceptive themes. Degree of conservatism was not related to proceptivity either within or between U.S. and Canadian samples. Proceptive strategies were described in 22 separate themes as an escalating set of verbal and nonverbal signals for communicating sexual interest to a man. Twenty‐three rejection themes were identified, and rejection strategies fell into two categories: Avoid Proceptivity and Incomplete Rejection. Proceptive and rejective scripts assign symbolic meaning to specific behavior patterns, and male‐female conflict may arise when men and women do not share these meanings. These scripts may allow women both to choose male partners and to limit sexual intimacy while assessing the man's potential as a partner.