Abstract
Reflecting the wide range of consensual unwanted sexual experiences, researchers often have contrasting views of the impact of these incidents on young women. Some scholars support a normalizing view of these as fairly harmless and ordinary aspects of relationships, akin to other forms of willing compromises between partners. Other researchers problematize unwanted sexual experiences, framing them in terms of gender inequalities and detrimental effects. In the current study, we were interested in how young women themselves characterized their unwanted sexual experiences and whether these accounts varied according to a woman’s social location. We interviewed 41 young women (18–22 years old) from three groups: affluent undergraduates, low-income undergraduates, and low-income nonstudents. Almost all of the affluent undergraduates framed their unwanted sexual experiences in normalizing terms, representing such events as relatively harmless incidents and outgrowths of developmental experimentation. In contrast, the low-income students and nonstudents both articulated more ambivalent positions and were more inclined to link their experience to sources of vulnerability, including personal adversity (e.g., trauma, social, and material insecurity) and social norms and stigma. Participants’ sexual histories, life circumstances, and standpoints at the intersection of gender and class were reflected in their experiences of unwanted sex, reinforcing that contextualized analyses and interventions are essential to advancing women’s sexual rights and well-being. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://pwq.sagepub.com/supplemental
Since researchers began documenting the prevalence of women consenting to partnered sexual interactions that they did not want (e.g., Abma, Driscoll, & Moore, 1998; Walker, 1997), they have grappled with the definition and ramifications of unwanted sex. It is difficult to overstate the complexity of “wantedness” (Muehlenhard & Peterson, 2005) as a dimension of women’s sexual experiences. Unwanted sexual encounters, as we explore in the current study, defy classification either as incontrovertible violations or as unequivocally volitional. Instead, the ambivalence and ambiguity of unwanted sexual experiences can result in competing feelings, motives, and factors: wanting or not wanting—or simultaneously wanting and not wanting—a sexual interaction because of emotional or physical states, social or material needs, personal values or attitudes, or significant others’ values or attitudes (Impett & Peplau, 2003; Muehlenhard & Peterson, 2005). The experience of unwanted sex also varies according to partner behavior and relational variables, including whether a partner solicits consent through tactics ranging from overt threat to persistent “sweet talking” (Livingston, Buddie, Testa, & VanZile-Tamsen, 2004). At other times, a person may have consented freely to an unwanted experience, not having been cajoled or compelled, for the benefit of the partner or the relationship (i.e., “sexual compliance”; O’Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998; Vannier & O’Sullivan, 2010).
Scholars and young women themselves often view this diverse and complex array of unwanted sexual experiences through two lenses: one through which unwanted sex is “normalized” and one through which unwanted sex is “problematized.” Seen through the former, unwanted sexual experiences appear to conform to varying definitions of normal. The prevalence of unwanted sex among young women (e.g., 37% in a survey study by Katz and Tirone [2009]; 59% in a daily diary study by Vannier and O’Sullivan [2010]) makes it a relatively commonplace and ordinary experience, at least statistically. Unwanted sex might also be seen as normal, insofar as it is deemed socially acceptable. The relational compromise underlying sexual compliance, for instance, may seem not only acceptable but essential to maintaining an equitable relationship in which partners prioritize each other’s interests (at least some of the time and reciprocally). Findings that the experience of unwanted sex may be relatively harmless, and perhaps even relationship enhancing, to the extent that they signify one’s commitment to a partner (Impett & Peplau, 2003; O’Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998), bolster the normalizing perspective.
Other scholars attribute an individual’s consent to unwanted sex to personal deficits (e.g., in assertiveness; Kennett, Humphreys, & Bramley, 2013) or to troubling relationship dynamics and gendered power differences (Basile, 1999; Katz & Tirone, 2009). While researchers are unanimous that young women succumbing to explicit coercion is problematic, some dispute the normalization of sexual compliance under any circumstance. The entrenchment of gendered sexual norms that undermine women’s sexual subjectivity provokes the question of whether compliance can ever be equated with “freely given” consent. Even the equity implied in the discourse of reciprocal relational compromise—that one partner complies with another’s wish in order to trigger a quid pro quo exchange—has been criticized for masking, rather than neutralizing, gendered inequalities (Braun, Gavey, & McPhillips, 2003). Reading compliance as volitional is also complicated by findings that while an incident may not involve direct coercion, it may have been preceded by one that did. In such cases, a woman’s consent may stand not as a free choice but as a learned behavior or strategy for preempting force and potential threats (Basile, 1999; Katz & Tirone, 2010; Vannier & O’Sullivan, 2010). For example, a participant in a study of young women in foster care explained that she agreed to unwanted fellatio and unprotected coitus with a boyfriend “so he wouldn’t go into a break up or a really bad argument, because I can’t afford to lose him” (Bay-Cheng & Fava, 2014, p. 123). However, factors beyond her feelings about her boyfriend or her adherence to gender norms likely culminated in her consent. It also reflected the paucity of her social and material resources and her consequent dependence on her relationship to meet a variety of vital needs.
Bay-Cheng and Fava’s (2014) case adds to a mounting body of evidence that young women’s sexual lives must be viewed through an intersectional lens that treats gender, class, and race as indivisibly intertwined forces shaping women’s lives, identities, perspectives, and prospects. For instance, gendered sexual norms often echo long-standing stereotypes that demean race/class marginalized women as oversexed and underdisciplined (Armstrong, Hamilton, Armstrong, & Seeley, 2014; Attwood, 2007; Bettie, 2003; D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988; Phillips, 2000; Stephens & Phillips, 2003). In accordance with a neoliberal discourse—and imperative—of the importance of agency (Bay-Cheng, 2015), race/class marginalized women may also face stigmatization for prioritizing romantic relationships over professional, academic, and financial ambition (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Maxwell, 2006; Maxwell & Aggleton, 2010). This Catch-22 situation, wherein they are penalized both for violating gendered sexual norms and for adhering to them, makes them likely targets for downward comparisons by their privileged peers, further estranging women from one another (Bay-Cheng, 2015).
Class shapes young women’s pathways into adulthood and the place of sexual and romantic relationships in their lives, not only in the intangible terms of classist stereotypes but also in the material facts of economic insecurity and deprivation. Young women with limited resources and unreliable safety nets may regard relationships warily, and be on guard against potential victimization or derailment (Bay-Cheng & Goodkind, 2016; Burns & Torre, 2004; Tolman & Szalacha, 1999). Burns and Torre (2004) refer to young women from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds as “anxious achievers” (p. 133), reflecting the tenuousness of their chances for social mobility and their minimal margin for error. Bullock and Limbert (2003) found that while low-SES young women have faith in the potency of higher education as a means of social mobility, they are less sure of its accessibility. As traditional markers of adult success and individual worth (e.g., academic and professional status) become unaffordable, romantic relationships and sexual desirability may be attainable and enticing symbols of achievement (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Bettie, 2003; Martin, 1996; Meier & Allen, 2008; Silva, 2012; Thomson, 2000). Symbolic value aside, relationships also may be a necessary means of meeting essential material and emotional needs (Meier & Allen, 2008; Watson, 2011). In her analysis of how social conditions leave young women sexually vulnerable, Maxwell (2006) noted that low-SES young women’s earlier entry into, and greater symbolic and material dependence on, romantic relationships leaves them little opportunity either to form expectations of what sort of relationships they are looking for or to insist that a partner meet these expectations. Instead, their relationships and interactions with partners, perhaps including regarding unwanted sex, may be more reactive and less anticipated.
Overview of the Current Study
Guided by evidence of how normative and material forces related to gender and class converge in women’s sexual lives, we interviewed 41 young women (ages 18–22) occupying three distinct social locations: affluent undergraduates, undergraduates with low SES, and nonstudents with low SES. The central question we hoped to answer was: How do young women think about and describe their experiences with unwanted sex, including how they frame their experiences in normalizing and/or problematizing terms? It is important to note that we did not presume normalizing and/or problematizing to be mutually exclusive lenses nor was it our intention to use the data to substantiate one perspective as correct or preferable. Instead, we were interested in how participants tapped into either or both discourses, over the course of sharing and representing their unwanted sexual experiences. Although we focused specifically on consensual experiences, we did not employ a preset definition of unwanted sex nor did we draw boundaries around which unwanted sexual experiences qualified for analysis. Our aim in the current study was not to perform a controlled comparison of a fixed type of unwanted sex, but to survey the diversity and complexity of young women’s experiences of unwanted sex. We posed our question, how women see their unwanted sexual experiences, with the expectation that their views would depend in part on their respective standpoints at the intersection of gender and class. We hoped that participants from the diverse samples would shed light on the normative demands at each social location and the tactics young women use to manage these demands. We also did not approach analyses with the expectation that the interview transcripts served as objective reports of unwanted sexual incidents. Instead, we adopted Frith and Kitzinger’s (2001) lens of script formulation: We assumed that participants’ narratives during the interviews would not capture or represent static events, but would represent instances of the ongoing construction of the meaning of these experiences, and how young women actively cast these—and themselves—in the circumstance of the interview itself.
Method
During 2013–2014, the first author conducted a two-stage project regarding the impact of social and material resources on young women’s sexual and romantic relationships. The first stage of the project consisted of a survey examining the sexual and relationship experiences and attitudes of three different groups of women aged 18–22 years. The first group included 163 undergraduate women attending a private university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States and not receiving any tuition support or public assistance; the second group included 180 undergraduate women from colleges and universities throughout New York State who were receiving tuition assistance and/or support services designated for very low-income and/or first-generation college students; and the third group included 159 women living in an economically depressed city in the U.S. Northeast’s Rust Belt region, who were not participating in any postsecondary education and who self-identified as living in poverty or with low incomes. The survey included several questions regarding participants’ socioeconomic and student statuses to verify that the three samples represented distinct social locations with regard to existing resources and future prospects (for details of the survey component of the study, see Bay-Cheng & Goodkind, 2016).
The survey included a single item asking participants, “Have you ever agreed to some form of sex (oral, vaginal, or anal) that you didn’t want for any reason?” For the second stage of the project, we invited survey respondents who answered “yes” to this question and who also indicated their interest in participating in a follow-up study to be interviewed about their unwanted sexual experiences. The current study analyzes the interview data from 41 participants: 9 from the affluent undergraduate sample, 15 from the low-SES undergraduate sample, and 17 from the low-SES nonstudent sample.
Participants
Thirty-three of the 163 affluent undergraduate survey participants were eligible for the follow-up interviews based on their affirmative responses to the questions regarding any past unwanted sexual experiences and their interest in a follow-up interview. When we began recruitment for interviews, only 17 e-mail addresses were still functional. It is likely that the remaining prospective participants had graduated. Of the 17 eligible participants for whom we had active e-mail addresses, we interviewed 10, 1 explicitly declined, and 6 did not respond to our e-mail invitations. One of the women interviewed was excluded from the current analyses because she only described a nonconsensual sexual assault, not any consensual unwanted experiences. The final sample of nine affluent undergraduates had a mean age of 19.7 (SD = 1.12, range = 18–21). Eight (88.9%) of the affluent undergraduates identified as White and one (11.1%) identified as Latina. Eight (88.9%) of the affluent undergraduates identified as heterosexual and one identified as bisexual.
Of the 180 low-SES undergraduates surveyed, 33 were eligible for participation and 17 were interviewed; 16 did not respond to our e-mail invitations. Two of those interviewed were excluded from analyses because they described only nonconsensual assaults. The final sample of 15 low-SES undergraduates had an average age of 20.13 (SD = 1.06, range = 18–22). Eight (53.3%) identified as White and seven (46.7%) identified as women of color (four Black, two Asian, and one multiracial). Thirteen (86.7%) of the low-SES undergraduates identified as heterosexual, with one identifying as bisexual and another identifying as pansexual.
Of the 159 low-SES nonstudents surveyed, 39 were eligible for participation in the follow-up study. We contacted the low-SES nonstudents via e-mail, text, and/or phone (depending on their stated preference on the survey) to arrange the interviews. We interviewed 18 participants, 20 did not respond to requests, and 1 expressed interest but did not show up at the appointed interview time and did not respond to follow-up messages. One was excluded from the current study because she only disclosed nonconsensual assault. The final sample of 17 low-SES nonstudents had an average age of 19.06 (SD = 1.30, range = 18–22). Over one half (nine participants; 52.9%) identified as Black, four (23.5%) identified as White, two (11.8%) identified as multiracial, one (5.9%) identified as Latina, and one (5.9%) identified as Native American. Nine (52.9%) identified as heterosexual, four (23.5%) identified as bisexual, one (5.6%) identified as lesbian, and three (17.6%) chose not to label their sexualities.
During the interviews, we asked participants in each sample to describe their current and childhood SES. We present excerpted descriptions of participants’ childhood SES in Table 1.
Excerpts of Participants’ Descriptions of Their Childhood SES.
Note. SES = socioeconomic status. Although two low-SES nonstudents recalled their childhood SES to be affluent, both described their current circumstances as impoverished. In one case, a grandmother won the lottery, resulting in a well-supported childhood, but these resources were not stable or enduring. The participant who described her childhood SES as “higher middle class” had also experienced significant childhood hardship, including her father’s death and significant socioemotional distress during adolescence.
Procedure
Two female social work master’s students conducted the individual interviews. Both interviewers, one of whom is second author on the current study, had prior experience working with young women in relation to sexuality and relationships and were trained and supervised by the first author for the purposes of the current study. Interviews occurred by phone or in person as per participant preference and availability and were audio recorded. Participants were informed in advance about the interview’s topic, so that they had time to decide whether or not to participate and to select a time and place that felt private and comfortable. Interviews followed a semi-structured protocol. We asked participants to recount their unwanted sexual experiences and to reflect on related circumstances and consequences. The second author transcribed all interviews, masking participants’ identities during that process. Participants each received a $30 gift card as compensation for their time and effort.
Interview protocol
The semi-structured interview began with questions related to participants’ demographic characteristics and identities, including age, race, and sexual identity. Participants were also asked to describe their financial situation at the time of the interview and during their childhood (e.g., “How about when you were growing up, what was your family’s financial situation like?”). After a brief, rapport-building period discussing the notion of “unwanted sex” in general, participants were asked, “Have you had experiences that fit your definition of unwanted sex?” Three primary questions were posed to participants about their experiences, all tailored to suit each participant and followed up as needed with prompts for details and clarification: (1) “Can you tell me about these experiences?” (2) “What do you think led to you consenting even though you didn’t want that? This could include things that were going on in that relationship, in particular, or even that specific day. But also, what was going on in your life in general that you think may have been related?” and (3) “When you think about the consequences or effect of these experiences on you and your life, what have they been, if any?”
Analysis strategy
The study was designed by the first author to enable comparative analyses of young women’s sexual experiences at diverse social locations. This is in keeping with her main line of research (e.g., Bay-Cheng, 2003, 2010, 2015; Bay-Cheng & Eliseo-Arras, 2008; Bay-Cheng, Robinson, & Zucker, 2009), which is informed by critical feminist, sexuality, and developmental perspectives. Bay-Cheng focuses on identifying how norms and inequalities manifest in the sexual lives of young women. In the current study, we were interested in young women’s depictions of their unwanted sexual experiences and how these varied by socioeconomic privilege and prospects. We judged the existing literature base regarding unwanted sexual experiences at the intersection of gender and class, to be too scant to support robust a priori hypotheses and adopted an inductive thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
The first author began analyses by reading through all the transcripts, noting apparently common and contrasting thematic elements among the samples; she drafted a preliminary coding scheme. This initial codebook tracked participants’ descriptions of specific unwanted sexual experiences, their use of normalizing and/or problematizing themes in these accounts, and information they shared about their broader life circumstances. Each author coded three randomly selected transcripts from each sample (nine transcripts in total) using the preliminary codebook. The authors convened to discuss discrepancies in their conceptualizations and applications of the codes and to amend the coding scheme accordingly (e.g., removing, adding, or combining categories; refining the parameters of codes). The authors then each reread the first set of transcripts using the revised codebook and two other randomly selected transcripts from each sample. They met again to compare their coding and clarify the codebook further and then separately coded all remaining transcripts. When complete, the authors met a final time to resolve any discrepancies, so that all applied codes were mutually agreed upon. The eight codes reflecting either a normalizing or problematizing perspective were used in the current analyses and are presented in Table 2.
Normalizing and Problematizing Theme Definitions and Frequencies.
Note. SES = socioeconomic status.
Results
Participants were not directed to or restricted from discussing a specific number of unwanted sexual experiences nor were they provided with a preset definition of unwanted sex. This open-ended, participant-driven approach resulted in significant variety among the experiences shared by participants. It is important to note that since participants were free to describe as many experiences as they wished, any frequencies we present indicate the presence of a theme not the frequency of incidents. During the interviews, 14 (34%) participants disclosed nonconsensual experiences (e.g., childhood sexual abuse, incapacitated rape) in addition to unwanted sexual experiences. To maintain our consistent focus, we did not thematically analyze incidents of sexual victimization. Some participants explicitly linked their unwanted sexual experiences to prior sexual trauma. In these cases, nonconsensual events were coded as a relevant factor in a participant’s unwanted sexual experience script formulation. Although we did not state or imply an exclusive interest in heterosexual experiences, all of the experiences mentioned by participants occurred with male partners. Those interested in reviewing the data directly may request this by e-mailing the first author.
We concentrated on two questions: (1) How do young women normalize or problematize their unwanted sexual experiences? and (2) Do women’s script formulations of unwanted sex vary by social location? To answer these, we organized the observed themes under the two headings of normalizing or problematizing. Code definitions and frequencies by sample are provided in Table 2. We describe and provide illustrative examples of each code in the sections below. It is important to note that because definitions of unwanted sex were permitted to vary, our comparisons across samples should not be mistaken for a controlled test of group differences on a common, specified variable. Instead, our analyses are closer to an exploration of complexities than they are to a test of differences.
Normalizing Unwanted Sex
Across all samples, 20 participants (49%) cast their unwanted sexual experiences in a predominantly, if not exclusively, normalizing light, with sizable differences among samples: Eight of the nine affluent undergraduates (89%) presented their unwanted sexual experiences this way, compared to 7 of the 17 low-SES nonstudents (41%) and 5 of the 15 low-SES undergraduates (33%). Participants employed some or all of the four normalizing themes listed in Table 1 and constructed their experiences of unwanted sex as normal: harmless, natural, beneficial, and functional. Keeping in mind Frith and Kitzinger’s (2001) model of script formulation, we assigned codes not based on whether participants’ experiences—as narrated during the interview—met a particular standard or definition of normal. Instead, we concentrated on the unwanted sex scripts formulated by participants and whether these worked to normalize the woman’s experiences.
Personally harmless
When asked directly about whether unwanted sex had had any effect on them, 16 participants (39%) responded that these incidents had been of little consequence to them. This was the most prevalent of all the themes we identified, although frequencies ranged widely across samples: The majority of affluent undergraduates asserted that consenting to unwanted sex had been of minimal consequence to them, compared to fewer than half of low-SES undergraduates and a small minority of low-SES nonstudents. Participants often asserted the harmlessness of unwanted sex through dispassionate statements, including: “It was never honestly anything like, serious” (affluent undergraduate, 20, White); “We weren’t really doing anything else, so I don’t know, it’s a time-killer, it’ll shut him up. It was annoying, but it wasn’t horrible” (low-SES undergraduate; 19, White); and “[It] doesn’t bother me […], it’s just something I’m used to” (low-SES nonstudent, 18, White). Others indicated that if there were any consequences, these were domain-specific and short lived: “I don’t think so. […] I guess I’m just more cautious about what situations I put myself in, but uh, other than that I don’t really think so” (affluent undergraduate, 20, White); “Nothing very serious, I’d say. I mean, in the moment, or not really the moment, but like, the few weeks surrounding it maybe. […] I don’t think that things affect me now” (affluent undergraduate, 21, White); and “I’ve been fortunate in the fact that it has never affected my relationships with people and, um, so it’s never, it’s not gone to that level” (affluent undergraduate, 18, White). This participant’s statement indicates that unwanted sex can be detrimental, but establishes the relative harmlessness of her own experiences.
Other participants used comparative assessments—either to hypothetical worst-case scenarios or to others’ experiences—to situate their own experiences as innocuous. One affluent undergraduate felt “lucky that that situation didn’t turn into something worse” (20, White), while another (18, White) said that, given the wide “range of these types of encounters,” hers were “not anything super extreme” and that the consequences were correspondingly mild: “In my situation, it [the impact of unwanted sex] wasn’t too severe. [It] led to like, slight feelings of remorse, but nothing extreme.” One of the low-SES nonstudents (19, Black) differentiated her situation and herself from others: “It does affect, it does affect people. But in my situation, it didn’t affect me.” A low-SES undergraduate (19, White) distinguished her “mild version of unwanted sex” from “girls out there who have had way worse experiences than I have.” These descriptions can be understood as participants being sensitive to others’ experiences of sexual coercion and taking care not to overstate the severity of their own, while also firmly situating their experiences within the range of normal (i.e., not problematic).
Developmentally natural
Fourteen participants (34%) framed their unwanted sexual experiences in developmental terms, noting that some amount of trial-and-error experimentation (and accompanying failure) is an expected, natural, and requisite aspect of late adolescence and early adulthood. Two thirds of the affluent undergraduate women and approximately one quarter of each of the two low-SES women made such comments. One participant described an incident of unwanted sex occurring during a period of “pushing the envelope and seeing what I could do” (affluent undergraduate, 18, White) and another explained, “It was my first year of college so I didn’t really care that much about letting loose and wasn’t that concerned about it. Like, I felt that at that point in my life, it was okay to just be more careless” (affluent undergraduate, 18, White). A 21-year-old White affluent undergraduate cast her first experience of unwanted sex as a “coming of age thing,” her “first adult decision and how am I gonna handle it.” One of the low-SES undergraduates (22, White) explained why she consented to her first coital experience with a boyfriend, despite feeling ambivalent and unprepared: “I was, um, a senior in high school, so I guess you know, I was ready to go to college and I don’t know, move on and grow up.” Others tapped popular stereotypes of adolescents as inherently sex crazed and reckless to cast their behavior and experiences as par for the course: “It was the first time I kind of felt interest in the other person and then you know, of course being a teenage girl and the hormones and what not, that was definitely a reason that caused it” (low-SES undergraduate, 18, White); “When I was 16, I got myself into a bunch of trouble, because that’s what 16-year-olds do” (low-SES nonstudent, 18, White). In these cases, participants enlisted developmental discourse to assert that unwanted sexual experiences were natural parts of learning through trial and error as well as events that were tied to a particular time in the past.
Personally beneficial
Five participants (12%), four affluent undergraduates and one low-SES nonstudent, felt that incidents of unwanted sex had been valuable, growth-promoting experiences. We applied this code when participants’ comments characterized their unwanted sexual experiences as necessary lessons and catalysts for self-improvement, primarily in relation to self-control and assertiveness: “I need to set limits for myself. […] So I guess it was a situation that at least if anything, it helped me realize what kinds of things I need to think about more and not be so impulsive” (affluent undergraduate, 20, White); “I will try to not put myself in that type of situation, meaning not drinking as much or being more assertive with my, being more assertive with myself” (affluent undergraduate, 18, White). The previously mentioned affluent undergraduate participant who construed her boyfriend’s pressure to have sex as a test of her “first adult decision,” failed this test insofar as she ended up regretting that she consented, but she also felt it had been instructive and that since then she was “more firm […] I’m much more careful, and I’m strict and I’m stubborn, but I’m much more happy.” Another affluent undergraduate (20, Latina) said being pressured by her boyfriend into consent in high school caused her to “gain my cojones.” Striking a similar sentiment of lessons learned, one of the low-SES nonstudents (19, Black) stated, “Well, sometimes with the partner that I am with now, if I say no, sometimes he gets mad. […] But I remember from my previous experience, I stick to saying no and he will get over it.”
Relationally healthy
Ten participants (24%), six of whom were low-SES nonstudents, cited consent to unwanted sex as an expected and accepted part of being in a relationship. Rather than an act of love and romanticized sacrifice, most presented it as a simple and expected matter of fact. An 18-year-old White low-SES nonstudent explained, “I felt like, that’s just kind of necessary. If he expects it, why not just give it to him? […] It’s not like it’s painful or it’s not like I don’t love him or anything.” Other participants expressed similar sentiments regarding the relationship maintenance function of consent to unwanted sex: “This is like, who I wanna be in a relationship with and I don’t want you to be angry with me, so we’re just gonna make you happy here, I guess” (low-SES undergraduate, 20, Black); and “Well, he wanted to have sex and I didn’t so, you know. But for our relationship and stuff … that’s how it felt like you had to, you know what I mean? You gotta put 50/50 into it, you know?” (low-SES nonstudent, 18, Black). Their comments also indicated that this was a common experience: “Everybody might have had that situation” (low-SES nonstudent, 18, White); “I mean, even people who are married do that, they don’t really wanna, you know, have sex with their husband, they’re not in the mood or whatever and then they’re just like alright, whatever, to avoid them leaving” (low-SES nonstudent, 20, Native American). One low-SES nonstudent (19, multiracial) construed consenting to unwanted fellatio with her current boyfriend in terms of love: And so with him it was more, I think more of a connection. Like, I wanted him to be happy and I figured that it wasn’t a big deal, other people do it so I guess it’s alright. I don’t know, I think it was more that I loved him so I was willing to do anything for him. I think in relationships you kind of make sacrifices for one another and getting along with other people is sometimes about doing things that you don’t want to. […] I was very much in love with him and I thought that it was not the right thing to do, to be saying ‘no’ for a whole week.
Problematizing Unwanted Sex
Participants employed four themes in their problematizing script formulations of unwanted sex. Slightly more than half (21 participants; 51%) characterized their unwanted sexual experiences in these terms, including as detrimental or linked to developmental vulnerability, personal adversity and hardship, and social norms and stigma. Only one of the nine affluent undergraduate participants (11%) endorsed a problematizing view of her unwanted sexual experience compared to 10 of the 17 low-SES nonstudents (59%) and 10 of the 15 low-SES undergraduates (67%). Just as we did not assign normalizing codes based on whether the positions were actually “normal” in terms of empirical fact, expert judgment, or popular opinion, we assigned problematizing codes based on the apparent intention of the participants to depict their experiences as problematic or not.
Personally detrimental
Nine participants (22%) explicitly described their experiences of unwanted sex as having had a significant negative impact on them. An affluent undergraduate (19, White) said that consenting to unwanted sex “really takes a toll on my self-esteem” and “makes me feel kind of crappy about myself.” In the same vein, a low-SES nonstudent (18, Black) said that after unwanted sex, “Sometimes you feel like, bad afterwards. Like bad about yourself, like did I really do that? Like am I really that dumb?” A low-SES undergraduate (20, White) said that in her relationships since her experience of unwanted sex, “I feel as though I am not as ‘here’ as I was”; and a low-SES nonstudent (21, White) explained: I have a terrible self-image, which doesn’t make sense, because you would think that because men want you that that would make you feel more like, it would make you feel good about yourself. But it doesn’t make you feel good about yourself, it makes you feel like … I don’t know how to explain it. The consequences of what happened? It destroyed me for a while. I mean I am still now facing the consequences […] I mean, I was called a slut, I was called a whore and I couldn’t go out in public and I wouldn’t go out to eat on campus because I knew that my boyfriend’s friends were gonna be there. […] And I know it happened and in my mind I am honest, but no one else does and obviously people thinking those things convinced me that they are all true.
Developmental vulnerability
In contrast to participants who normalized their unwanted sexual experiences as functions of natural, volitional, stage-related experimentation, eight participants (20%) identified being young as a liability. None of the affluent undergraduates referred to youth or age in this way, although one third of the low-SES undergraduates did. Participants’ comments suggested that they were overwhelmed, unprepared, and unsupported: “I think it was more so because I didn’t have much experience interacting with sex just because of my background” (low-SES undergraduate, 20, White); “I was just like, a very naive freshman” (low-SES undergraduate, 19, Asian American); “I don’t think I would ever have lost my virginity at the time I did [in an unwanted encounter] if someone would have talked to me about it” (low-SES nonstudent, 18, multiracial). A low-SES nonstudent (19, Black) described her first coital experience this way: I was young, I was 15, and yeah, he really liked me and I wanted him to like me more. But I didn’t know if I was “the girl” and if … I didn’t really know about sex, I really didn’t. I didn’t know certain terms about it or anything. And so I went over there and that’s [unwanted coitus] what happened.
Personal adversity
Nine participants (22%), all from the two low-SES samples, explicitly connected incidents of unwanted sex to adversity they had encountered, specifically to their past sexual victimization and to lacking social and material resources. Two low-SES undergraduates (both 20 years old, one White and the other multiracial) linked their childhood sexual abuse directly to unwanted sex later in their lives. One of them described her former boyfriend’s tactic for persuading her to consent to coitus, which hinged on the fact that she had been raped when she was 7 years old: He was already, just like, “It doesn’t matter what you do” because it was already kind of, no longer, I was no longer a virgin. So he was just like, “It doesn’t really matter.” And with that, I was like, maybe he’s right and I went with it.
Both of these participants also connected their unwanted sexual experiences to their dearth of social support. The participant whose boyfriend manipulated her into having sex, by claiming that she was not a virgin, explained how her compliance and investment in this relationship were also functions of her tenuous life circumstances at the time. Having spent her adolescence in foster care and having no social support as she transitioned to college, she explained that her boyfriend, while exploitative, also played an important role: The whole idea of stability wasn’t something that I was really familiar with, but at the same time, being in a new environment, it was the whole idea of an unstable ground, trying to find stability. And at this point, this guy I was with … he was kind of that stable thing for me at that point. It’s not like I could have gone home and talked about it with my brother and been like, “Oh my god, I shouldn’t do it.” I needed help but my family ties weren’t there. Like I didn’t have a role model who could be like, “Listen it’s ok to say no,” you know? Like I didn’t have anybody to tell me what to do. So it was like a lack of self-esteem and a lack of guidance. I was kinda influenced to do it [her first coital experience]. I did it for all the wrong reasons. Like my friend was […] 18 at the time. I was 13 and I just thought I was grown at the time. But after, I realized like, he kind of took advantage of me. Well, at that point in time I wasn’t working so I was depending on him for money and things like making sure my phone bill was paid. So if I didn’t get that from him I would be without it and if this is what he is asking from me in order for him to keep doing it for me I guess I have to do it. I can have my own money and take care of my daughter. I don’t need to do something for somebody else for them help me. If you can’t help me for free without expecting anything back then I don’t need it.
Social norms and stigma
Fifteen participants (37%) cited social norms and stigma as influencing their consent to unwanted sex. In some cases, participants directly critiqued the gendered character of these norms and women’s consequent sexual vulnerability. This was the second most frequently cited code after personally harmless, although only one affluent undergraduate mentioned it. All other references came from low-SES participants’ accounts. Participants recalled consenting to unwanted sex to ward off looking “uptight and uncool” (low-SES nonstudent, 19, Black) or “rude,” like an “asshole,” a “bitch,” or a “bad girlfriend” (low-SES undergraduate, 20, multiracial); or to avoid making “the situation awkward or uncomfortable […] or dramatic” (low-SES undergraduate, 20, White). As mentioned, two participants explicitly linked unwanted sex to their trauma histories, including how they consented in order to avoid victim-related stigma. Another participant (low-SES nonstudent, 18, White) with an extensive history of unwanted and nonconsensual experiences explained toward the end of the interview that in formulating her script of unwanted sex, she often made a point of claiming responsibility for those experiences not because she truly felt she was to blame but as a strategy for impression and stigma management: “I just don’t want to be painted out like a victim and I don’t want people to pity me.” She also worried that if she told others about these incidents and their harmful impact, she would be seen as an “attention whore.”
Others critiqued the broader system of gendered norms and power differences. Their critiques included portrayals of gender in popular entertainment, such as the glorification of male violence in popular songs (e.g., “they make getting shot seem more appealing than graduating” [low-SES nonstudent, 20, Native American]) and the sexual objectification of women in magazines and music videos. One of the low-SES nonstudents (21, White), after explaining her experience of unwanted sex and its impact on her self-image, situated her reaction in the context of broader cultural pressures on women to solicit men’s attention and approval: We have to be sexy, we have to be attractive. We have to. If we’re not, then people won’t talk to us, people will think we’re weird. People will think that if we’re not getting attention, then we’re not worth anything. And I’m not like, blaming anybody, but I think that I’ve constantly, my whole life, just seen women, just like, slave for men in a variety of different ways and it just seemed like, you just do that kind of thing. And I don’t think that was conscious on my part at all. I think it’s just like, if that’s what you see, you see women taking care of men, pleasing men, serving men, from a very young age. And not just one, but it seems like almost everyone you see, that’s just kind of like, “Oh, that’s what you do.”
Discussion
The literature dedicated to exploring consensual unwanted sex generally falls into two groups: perspectives from which it looks like an unremarkable, innocuous fact of romantic relationships and sexual interactions (Impett & Peplau, 2003; O’Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998; Vannier & O’Sullivan, 2010) and those from which it appears to be a manifestation of women’s disadvantage in heterosexual relationships (Basile, 1999; Katz & Tirone, 2009). We examined whether young women tended to cast their unwanted sexual experiences in either––or both––of these normalizing and problematizing lights. Recognizing the need for intersectional analyses of how young women’s lives are shaped by social forces and contexts, we designed our study to engage young women with three distinct standpoints at the intersection of gender and class: (1) women raised with socioeconomic privilege and with promising socioeconomic prospects (affluent undergraduates), (2) women raised amid socioeconomic disadvantage but with promising future prospects (low-SES undergraduates), and (3) women raised amid socioeconomic disadvantage and with limited socioeconomic prospects (low-SES nonstudents).
We focused our analyses on understanding the thematic components of both normalizing and problematizing script formulations of unwanted sex and also on whether participants at different social locations enlisted different themes to characterize their experiences. The two perspectives were each undergirded by four codes, some of which appeared to be different poles of the same spectrum. For instance, explicit statements that unwanted sex was of little to no consequence were fairly common among participants (especially the affluent undergraduates and to a lesser degree, the low-SES undergraduates). But others took the opposite position and felt consent to unwanted sex had had a significant negative impact on them, particularly in relation to their self-concept and orientation to intimate relationships. Participants also referred to youth and life stage development in contrasting ways. While some, the affluent undergraduates in particular, used developmental discourse of experimentation and limit testing to normalize their experiences of unwanted sex, some of their low-SES peers felt their youth had been a liability and that their naïveté left them vulnerable, either to be pressured by an opportunistic partner or to comply when they wish they had refused.
We observed another instance in which the normalizing and problematizing discourses diverged when some participants (again, namely, affluent undergraduates) expressed that they had learned necessary lessons in self-control from unwanted sex. From this perspective, unwanted sex was normal not only because these incidents were fairly harmless, expected, and acceptable but also because they led one to be healthier and stronger (e.g., learning one’s limits). This stands in contrast to participants’ views that incidents of unwanted sex were outgrowths of adversity whether from prior trauma or poverty in social or material terms. And finally, whereas some participants, particularly from the low-SES nonstudent sample, normalized unwanted sex as a regular and necessary component of relationships, others (also predominantly from the low-SES samples) were less neutral. Instead, they reflected critically on the norms and stereotype threat that compelled them, in direct and indirect ways, to consent to sex they did not want. While they spoke about their personal experiences and the idiosyncrasies of these, many situated women’s consent to unwanted sex in a broader culture of gendered norms and inequalities.
The thematic patterns among the samples signal meaningful differences and similarities in whether women in this study adopted a normalizing or problematizing frame, and in how they crafted those scripts. One of the most striking differences was that unlike the two low-SES samples, all but one of the affluent undergraduates framed their unwanted sexual experiences in exclusively normalizing terms. The majority of affluent undergraduate participants characterized unwanted sex as effectively inconsequential: mild, domain-specific, and/or time limited. Other than the one participant who said that unwanted sex had negatively affected her self-esteem and that she was concerned by its prevalence on campuses, the affluent undergraduate participants seemed—at least as they characterized their unwanted sexual experiences during the interview—largely unperturbed by unwanted sex. If these incidents registered any impact at all, it was regarded as beneficial. We found this view even among women who had felt at risk of harm during an encounter; for example, two women said that in their respective experiences, consent was “safer” and they used it to prevent something “worse.” Thus, affluent undergraduates’ tendency to normalize cannot be automatically attributed to having experienced less threatening incidents of unwanted sex.
Affluent undergraduates also enlisted popular developmental discourse to compartmentalize their unwanted sexual experiences. They depicted these incidents as outcomes of the risk taking and limit testing that are to be expected of emerging adults, especially during the transition to college and independence. They also described learning essential lessons in self-control from these mistakes and misjudgments, especially in terms of sexual relationships and substance use (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Lefkowitz, 2005; Lyons, Manning, Longmore, & Giordano, 2015). Developmental discourse that normalizes learning through trial and error may have provided them a useful means of containing unwanted sex as a mistake and threat of the past. Participants could ascribe responsibility to an earlier version of themselves, one that was going through necessary motions of maturation and therefore relieve their current selves from ongoing blame or shame. Temporal bracketing of their unwanted sexual experiences also allowed them to minimize any sense of current vulnerability: Violations had occurred because they had not yet learned their limits or become skilled at detecting others’ ulterior motives; now older and wiser, they were no longer susceptible. Thus, participants could use time to distance themselves not only from perceived threat but also from violations they had experienced (Tolman, Anderson, & Belmonte, 2015).
However, in normalizing unwanted sex, only one affluent undergraduate participant made use of a relational compromise discourse, playing the part of a good girlfriend (Bay-Cheng & Eliseo-Arras, 2008) or “pleasing woman” (Phillips, 2000; see also Gavey, 2005). This aligns with evidence that affluent young women are increasingly rejecting or at least postponing their assumption of conventionally gendered romantic roles, as they pursue academic, professional, and financial objectives (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Bay-Cheng & Goodkind, 2016). A sense of “abstracted independence” (Kurtiş & Adams, 2015) may have allowed the affluent undergraduates to feel relatively unbound by traditional norms and expectations. This reflects not only a neoliberal discourse of unencumbered individualism (Duggan, 2003) but also a developmental pathway cushioned by class privilege. The script formulations of the affluent undergraduates, in which responsibility for and ramifications of unwanted sex were so effectively contained, were enabled by safety nets that kept their missteps from irreversibly derailing their progress toward adult success. Such freedom to fail is an opportunity that socioeconomically marginalized women often cannot afford (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Burns & Torre, 2004; Furstenberg, 2006; Maxwell, 2006; Silva, 2012).
In contrast to the lopsided emphasis on normalization among affluent undergraduates, there was considerable thematic spread in the script formulations of participants from the two low-SES samples. Participants from both groups were divided between the normalizing and problematizing perspectives. Roughly equivalent proportions of low-SES undergraduates and nonstudents referred to the harm caused by unwanted sex, to youth as a normalizing factor, and linked unwanted sex to broader gendered norms. For both of the low-SES samples, the critique of gender norms and inequality drew the largest frequencies. The samples were also similar in their virtual nonuse of the personally beneficial theme. The thematic overlap in the script formulations of the low-SES undergraduates and nonstudents suggests that despite occupying positions with different future prospects, they also occupy some common ground. It may be that, because of their shared experiences of interlocking class-, gender-, and (for 62% of the two low-SES samples), race-based inequality, the low-SES students and nonstudents contend with similar pressures and constraints and take at least some of the same tacks in managing them.
Nevertheless, participants in the two low-SES samples also differed from one another. The low-SES undergraduates were somewhat more inclined to problematize their incidents of unwanted sex. While they tapped some normalizing themes, including that their experiences were not associated with enduring or severe difficulties, many of them represented their consent to unwanted sex as a function of vulnerabilities: being naive and unprepared for sexual interactions and negotiations earlier in their lives; their limited or unreliable social support and material resources; and the gendered, sexist sexual norms and pressures they encountered. The low-SES undergraduates’ stance outside a “bubble of privilege” (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2010), and on a tenuous path toward academic and professional achievement (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Burns & Torre, 2004), may have given them a clearer view and more acute awareness of vulnerability and/or a greater willingness to share this openly. For affluent undergraduates, investment in maintaining the appearance of being a “together woman” (Phillips, 2000) may have kept them from incorporating vulnerability in their unwanted sex script formulations.
The low-SES nonstudents stand out in that, while a lower proportion of them construed their unwanted sexual experiences as harmless, more of them framed such experiences in terms of a relational compromise (O’Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998; Vannier & O’Sullivan, 2010) than either of the undergraduate samples. But the impression given by many of the nonstudent participants (and as indicated in the examples cited in the Results section) was one of resigned concession, not romantic sacrifice or even egalitarian compromise. This observation is supported by at least three factors: Seven (41%) of the nonstudents described feeling compelled to consent in order to conform to social norms or to avoid sexual stigma; six (35%) implicated significant forms of adversity in their experiences of unwanted sex; and the strained socioeconomic circumstances of almost all of their childhoods (15 participants; 88%; see the note of Table 1 for details on two exceptional cases). These participants’ consent to unwanted sex cannot be removed from or understood outside their circumstances of complex pressures, cumulative experience, and meager capital. When viewed through this contextual filter, their compliance appears not only as a relational compromise but also as a pragmatic strategy for obtaining vital support and avoiding critical losses: of social status and esteem, of an emotional lifeline, or of essential resources.
Limitations and Future Directions
Although we believe the current study adds intersectional breadth and depth to the study of unwanted sex, we are also aware of its limitations. Our findings must be interpreted in the context of the small sizes of the study’s subsamples, particularly the affluent undergraduates, and the methodological variability among them. Different sample sizes and locations, different interviewers and interview modes (e.g., in person or by phone), and different lengths of time between the initial survey study and being contacted for the interview study may all have skewed participants’ disclosures and depictions of unwanted sex. As in any study of personal and potentially troubling topics, it is important to keep in mind that data represent only those individuals who feel comfortable enough to disclose their experiences and also that participants disclose only what they feel comfortable enough disclosing in the moment.
We also wonder how young women’s varying definitions of unwanted sex affect these data. While the qualitative approach of the current interview study can accommodate diverse experiences and perspectives, the original survey (Bay-Cheng & Goodkind, 2016) asked participants only to indicate if they had experienced unwanted sex. It neither offered a definition of unwanted sex nor asked participants to provide one. Thus, we created the sample pool for the current study on the basis of a single question with variable interpretations. We do not know how many women checked that they had not experienced unwanted sex because the notion of “wanting” sex had a different or perhaps even no meaning for them. Given the array of experiences that might be categorized as unwanted, and the many possible dimensions of wantedness (Muehlenhard & Peterson, 2005), there is much to be explored through in-depth, contextualized analyses of women’s conceptions of sexual wanting.
Given that over one third of the sample disclosed previous sexual victimization (and the possibility that others had such experiences but opted not to share this), we recognize that assault experiences may have inflected many participants’ unwanted sex script formulations. Rather than see this as a methodological weakness or confound, we find it informative. The interview protocol did not prompt participants for details of sexual assault or childhood abuse; this was information that they shared of their own accord. Even though only two participants explicitly linked their childhood abuse with subsequent incidents of unwanted sex, 12 others referred to past sexual trauma. These disclosures, whether directly linked or not, indicate that the participants saw their nonconsensual sexual experiences as part of the story of their unwanted sexual experiences; or rather, they saw their nonconsensual and unwanted experiences as parts of a larger story. Their accounts revealed our protocol’s implicit—and incorrect—presupposition that unwanted sex could be discussed as singular incidents with discrete effects. In contrast to an atomistic treatment of women’s sexual experiences as distinct and divisible from one another and from nonsexual life domains, we must understand these as cumulative and interdependent. A woman’s consent to unwanted sex cannot be fully understood in isolation from the conditions surrounding it and the experiences preceding it.
Practice Implications
Our holistic conceptualization of unwanted sexual experiences and women’s sexualities may have important ramifications for interventions on behalf of young women’s sexual well-being. Researchers should not treat sexual incidents as distinguishable from the rest of a woman’s sexual history or nonsexual circumstances, and practitioners and policy makers should take care to avoid drawing boundaries and distinctions around young women’s sexual experiences or imposing a predetermined vocabulary for labeling unwanted, coerced, or nonconsensual incidents. Such impositions might operate from definitions that might not hold the same or any meaning for different women, might imply that only one perspective of an experience is allowable or correct, and might ultimately reduce women’s opportunities to explore the multiple valences, perspectives, and implications of an experience. Young women must be assured that they will not lose their status as agents or face stigma as victims or losers, if they admit to and explore feelings of uncertainty, confusion, and ambivalence. Clinical practice that incorporates critical analysis of social systems and inequalities (e.g., feminist trauma treatment; Brown, 2004) enable women to reckon with sexual victimization and vulnerability without sacrificing their sense of agency or reverting to an individualized discourse of personal responsibility and self-improvement. Finally, given the inextricable situation of women’s sexual experiences from social, material, and normative conditions, everyone wishing to promote young women’s sexual well-being must be equally committed to advancing gender, economic, and racial justice on broader system levels.
Conclusions
Research, practice, and policies on behalf of women’s sexual well-being often aim to clarify their sexual experiences. By this measure, the current study appears to miss the mark. Instead of clarifying young women’s unwanted sexual experiences, our findings seem to blur the lines surrounding them: between normalizing and problematizing views, which we found to overlap among some women; between sexual interactions and nonsexual circumstances, which we found to be mutually influential; between prior victimization and current volition, the former of which we found to inflect the latter. Yet it is precisely the diversity and complexity of young women’s experiences of unwanted sex, especially when viewed from different standpoints at the intersection of gender and class, that we hoped to explore. Rather than artificially or superficially clarifying unwanted sex by imposing a definition or parsing out its effects, young women may be better served by research and practice that reckons with the blurriness of unwanted sex. If we contend with the complexity of women’s sexuality and its indivisibility from past experiences and surrounding circumstances, we can move beyond simplistic, individualist injunctions to girls and women. Instead, we can focus our analyses and interventions on the intricately interlocked material, relational, and normative conditions that construct their sexual realities.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Alyssa Zucker, Sangeeta Chatterji, Inbal Fischer, Jilleesha Inverary, and Melinda Mizell for their assistance with data collection, entry, and coding. This research was made possible by the cooperation of student services administrators at colleges and universities throughout New York State and social service providers in Western New York.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this research was provided by the University at Buffalo’s Les Brun Research Endowment Fund Pilot Program and the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender.
References
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