Young men’s attendance in alcohol intensive environments and its association with sexual aggression tactics

ABSTRACT

The goal of this study was to assess if attendance at alcohol-intensive environments (AIE; bars, parties), was associated with men’s engagement in two types of sexually aggressive tactics (enticement/coercion and assault) independent of individual alcohol consumption. Young men (n = 790) were recruited through Qualtrics’ survey panel to complete a web-administered questionnaire. We ran a multinominal logistic regression predicting whether men used each tactic. AIE attendance, but not alcohol consumption, was related to men’s use of assaultive tactics only whereas alcohol consumption, but not AIE attendance, was related to enticement/coercion. Men’s attendance at AIE may be associated with their engagement in certain aggressive tactics, rather than their individual alcohol consumption. Prevention programme implementers may want to focus on cultural risk factors associated with AIE for specific sexual aggression tactics.

PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT

Men’s attendance at alcohol intensive settings (AIE; e.g. bars/parties) may be a stronger predictor of their sexual aggression than individual alcohol consumption. AIE attendance may relate to sexual aggression because of cultural norms surrounding AIE that could normalise men’s sexual aggression. Prevention programmes could focus on underlying cultural norms associated with AIE and teach people to identify concerning sexual situations within these contexts, given that they can be a risk factors for sexual aggression.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual aggression
• alcohol intensive environments
• alcohol consumption
• young adult men

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We examined if there were group differences in RMA and sexual aggression tactics between participants who did (n = 790) and did not (n = 696) receive the alcohol measures in our study. The reason half the sample did not receive these items was due to a survey randomisation error. There was no difference in RMA. Chi-square analysis suggested a greater proportion of men who received the alcohol items, reported a history of coercion compared with the men who did not receive these items.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Arkansas Faculty Collaborative 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 and L30AA031129. 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.