A team of WSU researchers found that college-aged women who believe in traditional sexual stereotypes were less likely to seek sexual consent and refuse unwanted sexual activity.

Associate professor Stacey Hust and her co-authors found that women who accept sexual stereotypes and endorse music videos that degrade women were less likely to engage in healthy sexual consent negotiation. Hust said these women were less likely to seek sexual consent from their partner, to listen if their partner says no and to refuse unwanted sexual contact themselves.

“If they believe that men should hold the power in relationships, or that men are more dominant than women,” she said, “then that actually has an effect on their sexual consent negotiation.”

Hust said the study indicated that acceptance of the degradation of women in music videos, not simply exposure to them, was also associated with whether women are involved in unhealthy sexual relationships.

“These findings are really suggesting that if we can help people feel less comfortable with the degradation of women, and be more critical of that, that it may actually translate to them having healthier sexual consent behaviors,” she said.

As for men, the study found their intentions to give or adhere to sexual consent were more likely to be impacted by their efficacy, or self-confidence, in their ability to avoid interpersonal violence.

“We really have to [reach men] before college,” Hust said. “In all likelihood, it’s something that’s happening outside of what we studied, and we don’t know what that is.”

Hust said efficacy is built over an individual’s lifespan, which makes early intervention for men and boys necessary.

“You want to get to them earlier, so that by the time they’re in college, they have a strong efficacy to avoid interpersonal violence,” she said.

Hust said women and girls may still be receptive by the time they enter college, and programming should both empower women and reject traditional sexual scripts to be effective.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to help women both understand and resist sexual stereotypes,” she said, “so that they don’t let those stereotypes influence their personal interactions.”

A total of 447 students, both male and female, participated in the study for extra credit through the Murrow Research Participation System.

The findings were published in a special campus sexual assault issue of the journal Family Relations.

“I think the body of work in its entirety, our [study] and others, will do a lot to inform how sexual assault reduction programming occurs on college campuses and what it looks like in the near-to-far future,” she said.

Hust emphasized the importance of media literacy and critical thinking in reducing sexual assault and unhealthy sexual relationships.

“It’s about empowering people to reject these prevailing sexual scripts and encouraging them to think differently about the media they use,” she said. “It’s not just about telling people to say no or telling people that a yes is required. It goes beyond that.”