Abstract
This investigation examined the effects of who asked, who paid, date location, and gender on first date sexual expectations and related attitudes. Participants from a large southwestern university in the United States reported that men hold higher first date sexual expectations than women, particularly when men asked and paid for the date and the date occurred at an apartment versus the movies or restaurant. When women asked and paid for the date and the date occurred at her apartment, men hold higher rape myth acceptance beliefs than when the man asked and paid for the date or when either sex asked for the date and the partners “went dutch” on expenses. Additional sexual- and gender-related findings, discussion, and implications follow.
Manuscript received a Top 4 paper award for the Interpersonal Division at the 2009 Western States Communication Association conference, Mesa, AZ.
Notes
*p < .05.
*Key for Scale Anchors.
Sexual Expectations (1 = Won't Happen, 7 = Will Happen); Rape Myth Acceptance (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); Adversarial Sexual Beliefs (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); Ambivalent Sexism-Overall (0 = Disagree Strongly, 5 = Agree Strongly); Ambivalent Sexism-Hostile (0 = Disagree Strongly, 5 = Agree Strongly).
Muehlenhard, Friedman, and Thomas' (1985) study examined who asked (man/woman/woman hinted) who paid (man paid all/man and woman “went dutch”), and location of the date (movies/religious function/man's apartment to talk).