No means no when it comes to sex. But what happens when a woman makes a more passive response to a sexual advance? According to new research from Binghamton University, men differ in how they interpret these types of responses, and men who display hostile masculinity, known commonly as "toxic masculinity," tend to act on them regardless of whether or not they think it's consensual.

A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to hypothetical sexual hookup situations in which a woman responds passively to a sexual advance, meaning the woman does not express any overt verbal or behavioral response to indicate consent to increase the level of physical intimacy. The team then surveyed how consensual each man perceived the situation to be, as well as how he would likely behave.

The work is published in the journal Sex Roles.

“A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore,” said Mattson.

The team found that men varied in their perception of passive responses in terms of consent and that the level of perceived consent was strongly linked to an increased likelihood of continuing or advancing sexual behavior.

“The biggest takeaway is that men differed in how they interpreted an ambiguous female response to their sexual advances with respect to their perception of consent, which in turn influenced their sexual decisions,” said Mattson.

“But certain types of men (e.g., those high in toxic masculine traits) tended to view situations as more consensual and reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual.”

  • HubertManne
    12•6 months ago

    boy this terminology is wierd. I think advances are always without consent. They are first moves. Assuming they mean making advances after already recieving some sort of no then its more like that is a sign of toxic masculinity.

    EDITED: yeah reading it I see they mean advances like advancing from a stage so that makes more sense. still seems a bit chicken and egg to me though.

    • @TubularTittyFrog
      -32•6 months ago

      The entire narrative aroudn sexual relationships is heavily biased in terms of women and their subjectivity of who/what is attractive.

      The same actions taken by men of different physical attributes will have different general rates of acceptance/rejection by women.

      Which also applies to women. Hot people get away with more horrible shit because they are hot.

      And yet people refuse to admit this very observable and repeatable fact about human behaviour.

      The better work is not about ‘men vs women’ it’s about ‘how your level of sexual attractiveness permits antisocial behaviors’

      and the ugly truth is that a lot of people simple HATE ugly people, men or women and get insulted that an ugly person approaches them.

      • HubertManne
        15•6 months ago

        This is outright wrong. Physical attractiveness is way bigger of a deal in women than men and there is a lot of hypocrisy around it. I had a friend in high school who was, without beating around the bush, fat. He would bemoan how women would not give him a chance because he was fat but then he himself would not go after women of his same build. He preferentially went after thin hot women. Worse he was when he finally was in a realtionship with a woman of equivalent hotness he started one up with her hotter friend. Im way hotter male wise than he was and he could not figure out how my more sincere approach to relationships was likely a bigger factor than my relative looks. Now that is anecdotal but I have a second hand thing to. It was a news piece and I don’t have the reference so take my word or not but it was a study on tips between male and female servers. They both had to be cordial and pleasant and provide good service but controlling for those factors they each had one factor that would increase the tips. For women it was looks. For men it was making their customer laugh.

      • @lennybirdEnglish
        5•6 months ago

        At the end of the day, it doesn’t particularly matter because (in the context of this submission) it’s really up to the woman. There may be some truth in this given the primordial drive to procreate that attractive people can get away with more… But again, it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps better-looking individuals are just more experienced and know the subtle signs of an evolving relationship. Perhaps they’re not as desperate or forward or aggressive in advancing too quickly. Either way — again: it doesn’t matter because it’s the woman who decides, arbitrary or not.