Assessing the Within-Person Variability of Internal and External Sexual Consent

ABSTRACT

Sexual consent is often conceptualized as an internal willingness to engage in sexual activity, which can be communicated externally to a sexual partner. Internal sexual consent comprises feelings of physical response, safety/comfort, arousal, agreement/want, and readiness; external sexual consent includes communication cues that may be explicit or implicit and verbal or nonverbal. Most previous research on sexual consent has focused on between-person differences; little attention has been devoted to examining the within-person variation of sexual consent across time. We conducted a 28-day experience sampling methodology (ESM) study with a sample of adults (N = 113) to assess fluctuations in internal and external sexual consent across a given person’s sexual events. We found that more than 50% and up to 80% of the variance in sexual consent scores could be accounted for by within-person variability. The type of sexual behavior participants engaged in during a sexual event predicted their internal and external consent. Further, internal consent feelings predicted external consent communication. Overall, our findings provided initial evidence regarding the extent that situational contexts are relevant for sexual consent. ESM study designs may be used to further investigate the potential contextual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal factors associated with internal and external sexual consent.

Supplementary Material

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Notes

¹ The LifeData application prompted participants to complete ESM surveys, time-stamped the responses, and stored the data on a secure server. The LifeData application did not record any identifying information from the participant’s personal device.

² Although we did not require participants to be in a committed sexual relationship at the time of the study, our inclusion criterion regarding sexual activity in the previous week seemed to restrict the sample to those with committed sexual partners when we collected data in April 2020 due to pandemic-related social distancing measures.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by student research grants awarded by the Graduate-Professional Student Congress and Department of Health, Human Performance, and Recreation at the University of Arkansas. This work was also supported by the United Kingdom Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00022/3) and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU11).