The effects of past sexual assault perpetration and alcohol consumption on men's reactions to women's mixed signals

Theories about misperception of sexual intent, cognitive distortions among rapists, and alcohol's effects on cognition describe processes that may contribute to acquaintance sexual assault. Drawing on these literatures, an experiment was conducted to examine hypotheses about the effects of past sexual assault perpetration and alcohol consumption on 153 college men's reactions to a female confederate. As compared to non perpetrators, self-acknowledged rapists and verbal coercers reported being more sexually attracted to the confederate. Trained coders were least certain that rapists noticed specific positive and negative cues that the confederate used and most certain that verbal coercers did. Intoxicated participants perceived themselves and their partner as acting more sexually than did sober or placebo participants. Suggestions are discussed for research and treatment programs with college sexual assault perpetrators.