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.

Sexual Consent Perceptions of a Fictional Vignette: A Latent Growth Curve Model

“…Together, these egalitarian aspects of the current vignette may have negated sex differences in consent perceptions that have been found in previous studies. Further, recent evidence suggests that gender’s association with sexual consent may be overshadowed when accounting for within-person differences such as type of sexual behavior (Willis et al, 2021a ).…”

“…We accounted for this nested design by testing the effects of within-person variables using a clustering option available in the lavaan package. This analytic approach allowed us to control for within-person variability, which previous research has indicated is relevant for sexual consent (Willis et al, 2021a ).…”

“…Finally, we measured participants’ consent perceptions for several types of sexual behavior. Previous research has indicated that a highly relevant context to consider for within-person variability of sexual consent is type of sexual behavior one is engaging in (Marcantonio et al, 2018 ; Willis, et al, 2021a ). For example, the proportion of students who believe that explicit consent is necessary increases as the perceived level of intimacy of the sexual behavior increases (Humphreys, 2007 ; Jozkowski, Sanders, et al, 2014 ).…”

Testing the Internal Consent Scale for Measurement Invariance Across Women and Men

“…Because people's experiences of internal sexual consent can vary from one encounter to the next (Willis et al, 2021b), researchers should consider collecting event-level contextual data to further understand the situational nuances of being willing to engage in sexual activity with another person. While we did not assess such characteristics in the present study, contexts in which sexual consent can vary include type of relationship with the sexual partner, gender of the sexual partner, type of sexual behavior, and whether substances were used.…”

Momentary versus retrospective reports of alcohol or cannabis use, sexual activity, and their co-occurrence

“…Using data from a study designed to assess within-person variability of sexual consent ( Willis, Jozkowski, Bridges, Veilleux, & Davis, 2021 ), the purpose of this short communication was three-fold. First, we provided an updated account regarding whether the recall biases for alcohol use, sexual activity, and the co-occurrence of these behaviors are discrepant.…”