How Does Alcohol Consumption Affect Perceptions of One’s Own and a Drinking Partner’s Ability to Consent to Sexual Activity?

Abstract

In this naturalistic study, our aim was to examine the extent to which alcohol consumption affected perceptions of one’s own and one’s friend’s ability to consent to sexual activity. We surveyed 160 adult bargoers in pairs about their own and their friends’ alcohol consumption, intoxication symptoms, and ability to consent to sexual activity. On average, participants reported consuming 4.97 drinks, rated themselves at the legal limit for driving, reported one intoxication symptom, and had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) just over .08. However, few thought they or their friend had diminished cognitive function. Accordingly, most indicated that they could consent to sex (93%) and their friend could consent to sex (87%). Number of drinks people reported consuming, self-reported intoxication levels and symptoms, and BACs were significantly correlated; however, none of these measures was significantly related to individuals’ perceptions of their own or their friends’ ability to consent to sexual activity. Finally, those in man–man pairs were significantly more likely than those in woman–woman pairs to indicate they would allow their friend to have sex if approached by an interested party. These findings have potential implications for prevention programming and for legal cases involving individuals who engage in sexual activity while intoxicated.

Notes

¹ Participants were given the parameter of their friends’ drinking in the past 12 hours so that all participants were working from the same scale, and they did not have to make an additional estimate of when their friends started drinking.

² As these participants were recruited in dyads, we attempted to use multilevel modeling (MLM) to account for individuals’ responses being nested within dyads; however, there was too little variability in the outcome measures to treat the data as multilevel. As an additional step, we examined within-dyad correlations and found that there were weak to nonexistent correlations between friend pairs on the outcome measures, suggesting little, if any, interdependence.

³ As we found no significant differences between the three groups of sex pairs on any demographic characteristic (i.e., relationship status, college enrollment, highest education; all ps >.12), we excluded these variables from the regression analyses.