Up for Grabs? Sexual Objectification as a Mediator Between Women’s Alcohol Use and Sexual Victimization

Abstract

Sexual objectification, the tendency to reduce women to their bodies, body parts, or sexual functions for use by others, has been theorized to set the stage for more severe acts of violence but has been largely absent from the existing sexual victimization literature. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of sexual objectification in mediating the well-established link between women’s alcohol use and sexual victimization. A large sample of undergraduate women (N = 673) reported their alcohol use (frequency and quantity), experiences of sexual objectification (body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances), and sexual victimization. Results indicated positive bivariate correlations among all study variables. Path analyses showed that mild forms of sexual objectification (body evaluation) mediated the link between the frequency of alcohol use and more extreme forms of sexual objectification (unwanted advances). Furthermore, the combined effect of sexual objectification (body evaluation and unwanted advances) mediated the link between alcohol use (frequency and quantity) and sexual victimization. The current findings are among the first to evaluate sexual objectification as a mechanism in the link between alcohol use and sexual victimization. Results suggest that efforts to prevent alcohol-related sexual violence may benefit from addressing sexual objectification.

Keywords

alcohol use sexual objectification sexual victimization sexual assault women

A vast literature identifies sexual assault and alcohol use as major problems among college students. An estimated 20% to 25% of female college students in the United States experience rape or attempted rape during their college years (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000; Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2007). These experiences often lead to problems including poor academic performance, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Jordan, Combs, & Smith, 2014; Zinzow et al., 2010). Spurred by the seriousness of the problem, President Obama established the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault in January 2014. This task force has drawn national attention to the topic of college sexual assault, highlighting the importance of sexual violence research to inform the development and implementation of effective prevention strategies (White House Task Force, 2014). As noted in a related report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2014; DeGue et al., 2014), a key aspect of these efforts will involve understanding the various ways in which alcohol use may increase risk for sexual violence. Although perpetrators are ultimately responsible for any act of sexual violence, investigation of factors related to both the perpetrator and victim is critical to enhance our understanding of the complex phenomenon of sexual assault. With the current study, we examine the linkage between college women’s alcohol use and increased risk for sexual assault and posit that sexual objectification may play a key role in explaining this association.

Alcohol Consumption and Sexual Assault

Alcohol consumption has been implicated as a risk factor for sexual assault in general (Testa, Vanzile-Tamsen, & Livingston, 2004) and may be especially prominent as a contributor to sexual assaults occurring on campus. Undergraduates drink alcohol more than the general population (Ham & Hope, 2003), with approximately 70% of students at 4-year colleges reporting alcohol consumption in the past month (Velazquez et al., 2011), and a large proportion engaging in binge drinking in the past 2 weeks (Core Institute, 2014). These high rates of alcohol use likely contribute to the frequent co-occurrence of drinking and sexual assault found among college students. A recent survey of college women indicated that victims’ alcohol or drug use was present in 140 of the 165 incidents of reported sexual assault (Lawyer, Resnick, Bakanic, Burkett, & Kilpatrick, 2010). Other work has found that approximately one in five college women has experienced an alcohol-related sexual assault (Howard, Griffin, & Boekeloo, 2008). Furthermore, frequent alcohol consumption and frequent binge drinking have been found to predict subsequent sexual victimization among college women (Mouilso, & Fischer, 2012). These findings document the common co-occurrence of women’s alcohol use and sexual assault and highlight the need to investigate mechanisms that may account for relations between these two events.

To date, researchers have examined a number of possible mechanisms that help to account for the links between women’s alcohol use and sexual victimization, including alcohol use bringing women in close proximity to potential perpetrators, men’s altered perceptions of women who drink alcohol (e.g., misperceiving sexual interest), and the physiological contributions of intoxication to impaired risk perception (Abbey, 2011; Testa & Parks, 1996, Ullman & Brecklin, 2000). Although knowledge of these factors has greatly informed our understanding of alcohol-involved sexual assault, this linkage is undoubtedly complex, and subject to a variety of intervening factors. With the current study, we draw on objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) to test a novel and potentially important mechanism that may play a role in alcohol-involved sexual assault.

Sexual Objectification

As proposed by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), sexual objectification describes the tendency for women to be reduced to their bodies, body parts, or sexual functions, and be evaluated as mere instruments, with value assigned based on their sexual utility to others. In this form of body reduction, the body is perceived as representative of or separate from the person as a whole (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Thus, by treating women’s bodies as objects, those who engage in sexual objectification disproportionately emphasize easily observable appearance-based aspects of women over less superficial qualities, such as personality or abilities. Manifestations of sexual objectification lie along a continuum. Mild or common behaviors, including whistling at someone, leering at someone’s sexual body parts, or making sexual comments, have been described as acts of body evaluation and involve visually inspecting the body (i.e., the objectifying gaze; Kozee, Tylka, Augustus-Horvath, & Denchik, 2007). The increased focus on women’s bodies and sexual functions through body evaluation is theorized to lead to more extreme forms of sexual objectification (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Unwanted explicit sexual advances, including unwelcome physical contact and sexual harassment, represent more severe acts of sexual objectification (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Kozee et al., 2007). Because men’s sexual objectification of women is manifested through observable behaviors, such as body evaluation or unwanted explicit sexual advances, women should be able to notice and report experiences in which they encounter sexual objectification (Kozee et al., 2007; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001).

Alcohol and Sexual Objectification

To date, it appears that only one study has examined associations between women’s sexual objectification and alcohol use (Carr & Szymanski, 2011). These researchers examined women’s alcohol abuse as a potential outcome of sexual objectification experiences. In this cross-sectional study, documented outcomes of sexual objectification, including self-objectification, body shame, and depression, were found to mediate the link between sexual objectification and increased substance use (Carr & Szymanski, 2011). Here, we build on this work and posit that the reverse may also be true; greater alcohol use by women might lead to increased risk of men engaging in sexual objectification of them. Support for this possibility comes from findings that men perceive women who appear to be drinking (e.g., alcoholic beverage in hand), even without visible signs of intoxication, as more sexually interested or available than non-drinking women (e.g., Abbey, 2011; Abbey, McAuslan, Zawacki, Clinton, & Buck, 2001). Men may also overestimate the sexual interest of drinking women through misperceptions of neutral cues as sexual in nature (Abbey, Jacques-Tiura, & LeBreton, 2011). These misperceptions suggest the possibility of a sexual focus on drinking women that may be accompanied by greater sexual objectification of them. College men, in particular, may sexually objectify women in drinking settings through reliance on women’s outward characteristics, such as clothing, to make assessments about their sexual interest or availability (Parks & Scheidt, 2000). This tendency is illustrated by focus group data from a male bar drinker who voiced the opinion that, “she’s advertising,” in reference to women’s dress in bars (Parks & Scheidt, 2000). This belief reflects an objectifying and problematic view that women’s bodies are products that are available for consumption by others, particularly in the context of drinking.

Whereas increased sexual objectification may arise simply from the perception that a woman is drinking, actual intoxication, particularly when extreme, may result in even more severe sexual objectification. The physiological effects of intoxication, such as slurred speech and poor motor control, may diminish “humanness” by obscuring an individual’s agency, depth, refinement, and emotional responsiveness (Haslam, 2006; Tryggvesson, 2004). With this process it may become easier to separate another’s physical self (e.g., sexual body parts or functions) from the person as a whole (Loughnan et al., 2010). Consider, for example, colloquialisms such as “up for grabs” and “meat market,” which imply that drunken women are literally objects to be acted upon by men. This objectified view is exemplified through qualitative interviews with men who assert that drunken women would only be options for sexual relationships, rather than romantic relationships (Peralta, 2010). Peralta (2010) suggests that some men may perceive excessive drinking by women as a violation of the traditional female gender role, increasing the likelihood that they will target those women. Such opinions demonstrate the capacity for some to obscure the entire woman and, instead, view her solely in terms of her potential use as a sexual object.

Sexual Objectification and Sexual Assault

If men tend to sexually objectify women more when women are drinking, this may set the stage for more severe and extreme objectification in the form of sexual assault. Although common behaviors such as objectifying gazes and appearance commentary have more often been the focus research, objectification theory draws attention to the objectifying nature of sexual violence in which the victim’s consent is irrelevant to the perpetrator, who uses her body as a mere instrument (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Indeed, recent research finds that men who engage in more sexual objectification report higher rape proclivity (Rudman & Mescher, 2012), and have a greater history of sexual assault perpetration (Gervais, DiLillo, & McChargue, 2014). This work is consistent with the possibility that viewing women who are drinking as sexual objects may facilitate decreased moral treatment of them. Because morality is a higher-order construct specific to humans, moral treatment and mind attribution (e.g., feelings, thoughts) are denied to those given object status, providing the foundation for violence (Loughnan et al., 2010), and contributing to increased blame and decreased suffering perceptions for sexual assault victims (Loughnan, Pina, Vasquez, & Puvia, 2013). Extending this work theoretically, we propose that women who drink more—and therefore are especially vulnerable to sexual objectification—may also be at increased risk for sexual assault victimization. If this is the case, then sexual objectification should account for the linkage between women’s alcohol consumption and sexual victimization.

The Proposed Model

Based on the above theory and research, we propose that sexual objectification may be an important mechanism through which women’s alcohol consumption is related to sexual assault victimization. As shown in Figure 1, we posit that women’s alcohol use will be associated with increased sexual objectification and that this objectification, in turn, may be associated with increased risk of sexual assault victimization. The present study provides an initial examination of this proposed model using cross-sectional data in the form of college women’s self-reported alcohol use, sexual objectification experiences, and sexual assault victimization. The following hypotheses are proposed.

Figure 1.

Proposed mediational model.

Bivariate Correlations (Hypotheses 1a-1h)

We hypothesize positive bivariate associations among all of the study variables. As a precondition for our proposed mediational model, we examined the frequency and quantity of alcohol use, expecting both to be positively related to sexual victimization (Hypotheses 1a-1b), consistent with previous research (Testa & Parks, 1996; Ullman & Brecklin, 2000). Links between sexual objectification and alcohol use as well as sexual victimization have also emerged in prior research (Carr & Szymanski, 2011). Thus, we predict that more frequent alcohol use will be associated with greater experiences of sexual objectification (both body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances; Hypotheses 1c-1d), and that the same positive associations will be found for quantity of alcohol use (Hypothesis 1e-1f). We also predict positive associations between both forms of sexual objectification (body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances) and sexual victimization (Hypotheses 1g-1h).

Mediation Analyses (Hypotheses 2-5)

Next, we will consider whether mild forms of objectification mediate relations between alcohol consumption and severe forms of sexual objectification. Regarding this possibility, we hypothesize indirect effects of drinking (both frequency and quantity) on unwanted explicit sexual advances, through body evaluation (Hypotheses 2 and 3, respectively). We will then test our proposed mediational model using multivariate path analysis. In this model, we expect that experiences of sexual objectification will mediate relations between alcohol use and sexual victimization. This possibility will be examined in two complementary ways: we hypothesized an indirect effect of alcohol on sexual victimization through the combined effect of body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances for both alcohol frequency (Hypothesis 4) and alcohol quantity (Hypothesis 5). Furthermore, findings that factors related to being in a drinking setting (e.g., frequency of bar attendance) increase risk for victimization (Parks & Miller, 1997); we expect this effect to be stronger for alcohol frequency than quantity.

Method

Participants

A total of 673 female undergraduates from a large Midwestern university participated in the study (mean age = 18.92, SD = 1.76, range = 17-46). The majority of participants identified as European American (87.8%), followed by Native American (3.1%), Hispanic (2.5%), African American (2.2%), Asian (1.8%), and Other (2.5%).

Measures

Alcohol consumption

Two dimensions of alcohol consumption were measured. The frequency of alcohol use was defined as the average number of days an individual consumes alcohol in a week and was assessed with the item “How many days per week do you drink alcohol?” The quantity of alcohol use was defined as the average number of standard drinks a person consumes during a typical day when they are drinking and was assessed with the item “On a typical day when you drink alcohol, how many standard drinks do you have?” Participants provided open-ended numerical responses to each item without reference to a specific time frame. If a participant provided a range (e.g., four to five drinks), the average was computed. Ambiguous responses (e.g., a few, a bottle) were coded as missing.

Sexual objectification

The Interpersonal Sexual Objectification Scale (ISOS; Kozee et al., 2007) is a 15-item measure of sexual objectification that consists of two subscales: Body Evaluation and Unwanted Explicit Sexual Advances. The Body Evaluation subscale contains 11 behaviorally defined items that capture perceptions of experiences of objectifying gazes (e.g., noticed someone leering at your body) and experienced overt behaviors related to body evaluation (e.g., whistled at while walking down a street). The Unwanted Explicit Sexual Advances subscale consists of four items (e.g., sexual harassment, degrading sexual gesture, grabbed or pinched). However, for the purposes of this study, only 3 items were used. An item about being “touched or fondled against your will” was removed from the Unwanted Explicit Sexual Advances subscale to avoid capturing experiences that may better align with sexual victimization (see below). Participants respond to each item to indicate how often they experienced each event in the past year using a scale ranging from 1 (rarely) to 5 (frequently). The ISOS Body Evaluation subscale has strong internal consistency reliability and test–retest stability over a 3-week period (α = .91, r = .89; Kozee et al., 2007). Within the current study, the ISOS Body Evaluation subscale (α = .92) and the abbreviated Unwanted Explicit Sexual Advances subscale (α = .79) both showed good internal consistency.

Sexual victimization

The Sexual Experiences Survey–Victim Version (SES-V; Koss & Gidycz, 1985) is a 13-item measure commonly used to assess sexual victimization. The SES-V assesses unwanted sexual experiences since the age of 14 by asking participants about the occurrence of specific behaviorally defined events ranging from verbal pressure to physical force. The scale yields information about sexual coercion and sexual assault. Participants are asked to estimate the frequency of each experience using a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (often). For the purposes of this study, women’s scores on items 4 to 13 were averaged to create a mean sexual victimization score. Items 1 to 3 were excluded because they do not exclusively capture victimization experiences (i.e., assess sexual activity, misinterpretation of sexual interest). The SES has been found to have acceptable internal consistency among women (α = .74) and good test–retest reliability within a week (Koss & Gidycz, 1985). SES scores for the current study showed good internal consistency reliability (α = .83).

Demographic information

A demographic questionnaire was used to obtain participant age and ethnicity/race.

Procedures

The university’s Institutional Review Board approved the current study. Undergraduate students taking psychology courses were recruited through an online subject pool and were given a link to the online survey. After providing informed consent, participants proved demographic information and completed a series of questionnaires, several of which were not included in the current study. Participation took approximately 1 hr to complete. Participants were compensated with course credit.

Results

Descriptive Data and Bivariate Correlations (Hypotheses 1a-1h)

The majority of our sample reported having some type of unwanted sexual experience (58.5%). The largest proportion of unwanted sexual experiences involved sexual coercion (42.5%), followed by unwanted sexual contact (23.8%). Similar numbers of participants had experienced attempted (6.8%) or completed (7.1%) rape (oral, anal, or vaginal). Of particular interest to this study, 17.8% of our sample reported having unwanted sex while they were “too drunk to resist.”

Among students who reported consuming alcohol on a weekly basis, the mean number of drinking days was 1.84 (SD = .88). Although students reported an average consumption of 2.5 drinks on a typical day of drinking, this number rose considerably to 3.8 drinks (SD = 3.5) when only including those who reported any alcohol consumption. A large proportion of the sample reported no alcohol use when asked to report the amount on a typical day of drinking (31.2%).

To test our first set of hypotheses that all of the study variables would be positively associated with one another, we examined the bivariate correlations across all variables and found support for Hypotheses 1a to 1h (see Table 1 for correlations and descriptive statistics). Particular attention was given to the correlations between our main outcome measure, sexual victimization, and each form of sexual objectification. Body evaluations and unwanted sexual advances were each significantly positively correlated with sexual victimization scores (Hypotheses 1g-1h; rs = .32 and .50, respectively). An r to Z transformation was performed to examine the relative strength of these correlations. As might be expected because of the increased intrusiveness of more extreme forms of sexual objectification, the relation between sexual victimization and unwanted sexual advances was stronger than the relation between sexual victimization and body evaluation, Z = 3.22, p < .001.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for Study Variables.

	M (SD)	Range	1	2	3	4
1. Alcohol frequency (n = 639)	1.00 (1.11)	0-5	—
2. Alcohol quantity (n = 628)	2.53 (2.40)	0-12	.66*	—
3. Body evaluation (n = 673)	2.56 (0.68)	1-5	.26*	.23*	—
4. Sexual advances (n = 673)	1.56 (0.64)	1-5	.21*	.23*	.50*	—
5. Sexual victimization (n = 656)	1.28 (0.39)	1-5	.21*	.24*	.32*	.47*

p < .01.

Mediation Analysis (Hypotheses 2-5)

Sexual objectification experiences (including both body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances) were examined to determine if body evaluation functions as a mediator of the relation between alcohol use and unwanted explicit sexual advances (Hypotheses 2-3). Using Mplus Version 6.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2010), we also evaluated the full proposed path model to determine if the combined effect of sexual objectification (body evaluation and explicit unwanted sexual advances) mediated the association between alcohol consumption and sexual victimization (Hypothesis 4-5). We expected these mediational effects to emerge (or be stronger) for alcohol frequency compared with alcohol quantity, due to past research that provides greater support for the potential influence of factors related to frequency of alcohol use (e.g., setting, perceptions of women, and proximity to perpetrators) on sexual violence rather than the actual level of inebriation.

The estimated path model is shown in Figure 1, with alcohol frequency and alcohol quantity serving as the predictors, body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances as the mediators, and sexual victimization serving as the outcome. Each variable’s unique direct effects, as well as the indirect effects of frequency and quantity of alcohol use through body evaluation to unwanted explicit sexual advances were examined (Hypotheses 2-3). Similarly, we examined the direct effects of each variable and the indirect effects of alcohol consumption on sexual victimization through sexual objectification (both body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances; Hypotheses 4-5). Consistent with mediation testing recommendations (Mallinckrodt, Abraham, Wei, & Russell, 2006), empirical standard errors were obtained using 10,000 bootstrap samples. The significance of indirect effects was first tested using 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals (Williams & MacKinnon, 2008). Specifically, indirect effects were deemed significant when their 95% confidence interval did not contain zero (see Mallinckrodt et al., 2006). However, some indirect effects so closely approached zero that a determination regarding significance was not possible using the 95% confidence interval. In these instances, the Sobel test was used to determine the significance of indirect effects (Sobel 1982, 1986). Figure 2 provides unstandardized parameter estimates and standard errors and standardized parameter estimates for the direct effects. Tables 2 and 3 provide the unstandardized and standardized parameter estimates and standard errors for the indirect effects.

Figure 2.

Standardized/unstandardized parameter estimates and standard errors for the direct effects.

Table 2.

Standardized Bootstrap Analysis of Magnitude and Significance of Indirect Effects.

					95% Confidence Interval
Predictor	Mediator	Criterion	B	SE	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Alcohol frequency	Body evaluation	Sexual advances	.088	.026*	.02	.155
Alcohol frequency	Body evaluation	Sexual violence	.014	0.009	−.009	.036
Alcohol frequency	Sexual advances	Sexual violence	−.005	0.023	−0.064	.053
Alcohol frequency	Body evaluation/sexual advances	Sexual violence	.036	.012*	.006	.066
Alcohol quantity	Body evaluation	Sexual advances	.053	.023^	−.007	.113
Alcohol quantity	Body evaluation	Sexual violence	.008	0.006	−.007	.024
Alcohol quantity	Sexual advances	Sexual violence	.056	.026^	−.01	.122
Alcohol quantity	Body evaluation/sexual advances	Sexual violence	.022	.010**	−.005	.048

Confidence intervals that do not contain zero are considered significant (Mallinckrodt, Abraham, Wei, & Russell, 2006), ps < .05.

ps < .05, confidence intervals contain zero.

Significance found using Sobel test.

Table 3.

Unstandardized Bootstrap Analysis of Magnitude and Significance of Indirect Effects.

					95% Confidence Interval
Predictor	Mediator	Criterion	B	SE	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Alcohol frequency	Body evaluation	Sexual advances	.05	.016*	.014	0.099
Alcohol frequency	Body evaluation	Sexual violence	.005	.003	−.001	0.016
Alcohol frequency	Sexual advances	Sexual violence	−.002	.008	−.024	0.02
Alcohol frequency	Body evaluation/sexual advances	Sexual violence	.013	.004*	.004	0.029
Alcohol quantity	Body evaluation	Sexual advances	.014	.006^	−.001	0.031
Alcohol quantity	Body evaluation	Sexual violence	.001	.001	.000	0.005
Alcohol quantity	Sexual advances	Sexual violence	.009	.004^	−.001	0.022
Alcohol quantity	Body evaluation/sexual advances	Sexual violence	.004	.002**	0	0.009

Confidence intervals that do not contain zero are considered significant (Mallinckrodt, Abraham, Wei, & Russell, 2006), ps < .05.

ps < .05, confidence intervals contain zero.

Significance found using Sobel test.

As shown in the Figure 2, no direct path was found between alcohol frequency and sexual victimization or alcohol quantity and victimization. One possibility for this finding is that the association documented with the bivariate correlations between alcohol use and sexual victimization may function indirectly through sexual objectification. Indeed, direct effects were found at each step of the proposed mediational model. Specifically, positive direct paths emerged between both forms of alcohol use (frequency and quantity) and body evaluation, and positive direct paths emerged between body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances and between unwanted explicit sexual advances and sexual victimization. Evaluation of the potential relation between alcohol and unwanted explicit sexual advances was not consistent between measures of alcohol use. A direct path did not emerge between alcohol frequency and unwanted explicit sexual advances, but a positive direct path did emerge between alcohol quantity and alcohol use.

Upon investigation of the mediating role of mild forms of objectification (body evaluation) on more extreme forms of objectification (unwanted explicit sexual advances), the indirect effect of body evaluation on the relationship between alcohol frequency and unwanted sexual advances was significant and supported Hypothesis 2 (see Tables 2 and 3). This indirect path may explain the lack of a direct relation between alcohol frequency and unwanted explicit sexual advances. However, the relations between alcohol quantity and unwanted sexual advances was not mediated by body evaluation and was inconsistent with Hypothesis 3 (see Tables 2 and 3), suggesting that other factors in addition to body evaluation may account for the link between alcohol quantity and unwanted sexual advances.

Finally, to test Hypotheses 4 and 5 that sexual objectification would mediate the relations between women’s alcohol use and sexual victimization, the combined indirect effect of body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances was examined. An indirect path emerged from alcohol frequency to sexual victimization through sexual objectification (both body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances), consistent with Hypothesis 4. In support of Hypothesis 5, an indirect path emerged from alcohol quantity to sexual victimization through sexual objectification (both body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances), although evaluation of the confidence interval indicated that this effect too closely approached zero to make a significance determination. Further evaluation using the Sobel test indicated that the indirect effect of alcohol quantity was indeed significant (p = .048). The indirect effects of alcohol frequency and alcohol quantity on sexual victimization through sexual objectification were not found to be significantly different from each other using the Sobel test (Sobel, 1982, 1986).

Discussion

This study provides an initial examination of the links between alcohol use, sexual objectification, and sexual victimization, and is novel in its evaluation of sexual objectification as a mechanism explaining the well-established association between drinking and sexual victimization. Results showed positive associations between women’s alcohol use (frequency and quantity), experiences of sexual objectification (body evaluation and unwanted explicit sexual advances), and sexual victimization. These findings provided the basis for testing our proposed mediational model linking alcohol use to sexual victimization through experiences of sexual objectification. As expected, results revealed that sexual objectification mediated the relation between frequency of alcohol use and sexual victimization as well as quantity of alcohol use and sexual victimization. The implications of these findings are discussed below.

The current results corroborate the well-established link between alcohol use and sexual victimization (e.g., Testa & Parks, 1996). Frequency and quantity of women’s alcohol consumption each had positive associations with sexual victimization experiences. These findings are consistent with research examining factors that increase risk of sexual victimization, which include factors specific to both alcohol frequency (e.g., proximity to potential perpetrators) and alcohol quantity (e.g., reduced perception of risk cues; Abbey, Zawacki, Buck, Clinton, & McAuslan, 2004; Ullman & Brecklin, 2000).

Women’s alcohol use was positively associated with their sexual objectification experiences. Carr and Szymanski (2011) previously identified this link, positing that drinking is a maladaptive method of coping with other primary outcomes of sexual objectification by others through a self-objectification mechanism (e.g., body shame, depression). Although causation cannot be determined, the present results complement those of Carr and Szymanski and suggest possible bidirectional relations between drinking and objectification; not only may women consume alcohol in response to sexual objectification experiences but others may use women’s alcohol use as an excuse to objectify. Here, increased frequency and quantity of drinking on the part of women were each associated with greater sexual objectification. Women who drink regularly are likely to more often be in settings such as bars, clubs, or parties where men “checking out” women is commonplace. Indeed, it appears that men who report greater alcohol use tend to sexually objectify women more than their lesser drinking counterparts (Gervais et al., 2014). Thus, in line with past research, greater frequency of drinking was associated with more objectification. Regarding the link between increased quantity of drinking and sexual objectification, it may be that symptoms of intoxication, which become more pronounced and visible with increased consumption, play an important role. Specifically, the physiological and cognitive effects brought on by intoxication may serve to dehumanize women in the eyes of others. Outward signs of intoxication, including slurred speech, decreased motor control, glazed eyes, and loss of awareness may cause women to be seen as less human by others, masking unique human attributes that could buffer against objectification (e.g., refinement, civility, higher cognition, moral sensibility; see Haslam, 2006). If men perceive highly intoxicated women in a dehumanized fashion, they may engage in sexual objectification through increased body evaluation and unwanted sexual advances toward them. Such a process may be especially common in cases where men are themselves drinking and perhaps intoxicated (Gervais et al., 2014).

In formulating objectification theory, Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) argued that during sexual victimization, “a woman’s body is literally treated as a mere instrument or thing by her perpetrator” (p. 186). From this perspective, sexual victimization may be seen as the most extreme manifestation of sexual objectification. Yet sexual objectification has also been described as a “key component of sexual violence” (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; p. 183), suggesting that it may also be qualitatively different from “everyday” forms of objectification typically studied in the literature (e.g., body evaluation, unwanted sexual advances). Although common forms of sexual objectification may have an adverse cumulative impact on women (Moradi, 2011), even a single incident of sexual victimization can lead to serious negative mental and physical health outcomes for the victim, including posttraumatic stress disorder, substance use, physical injury, and sexually transmitted diseases (e.g., Jozkowski & Sanders, 2012; Neville & Heppner, 2000; Peter-Hagene & Ullman, 2014). Furthermore, whereas milder forms of sexual objectification are largely excused or even encouraged societally (Levy, 2005), as evidenced by the rising popularity of “breastaurants” featuring scantily clad waitresses (Daley, 2011), sexual assault is recognized as a serious public health problem that should be prevented. The current study is among the first to examine the role that these more commonplace forms of objectification may play as potential contributors to full-fledged sexual assault.

Findings regarding our proposed mediational model revealed that the combined effects of sexual objectification fully mediated links between women’s frequency and quantity of alcohol use and sexual victimization. Within this model, milder experiences of sexual objectification, in the form of body evaluation, mediated relations between women’s alcohol use and more severe sexual objectification, in the form of unwanted sexual advances. These results suggest that potential perpetrators may use a woman’s alcohol consumption as an opportunity to sexually objectify her, which in turn may increase the risk of sexual victimization. These results raise the possibility that alcohol consumption may initially elicit mild forms of sexual objectification, such as body evaluation, which escalate to more severe acts of objectification (i.e., unwanted advances) that serve as more proximal predictors of sexual assault. Such a process would be consistent with the theoretical notion that objectification is a central component of sexual violence (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), and challenges lay notions that sexually objectifying women is harmless (e.g., “You can look but don’t touch”).

Our finding that sexual objectification plays an important role in alcohol-related sexual assault has implications for prevention efforts. The possibility that mild forms of sexual objectification serve as activating agents that culminate in sexual victimization suggests that recognition of sexual objectification may be an important component to integrate into sexual violence prevention programs such as bystander interventions, which rely on early recognition and modification of potentially dangerous situations (Banyard, Moynihan, & Plante, 2007; Fischer et al., 2011). Bystander training has been found effective in helping witnesses of situations involving sexual risk to intervene (Banyard et al., 2007). Conceivably, bystander interventions could be improved by more explicitly incorporating strategies that encourage peers to recognize and intervene in situations marked by less explicit risk, such as mild forms of sexual objectification (e.g., objectifying comments, unwanted touching) to interrupt to the escalation toward victimization. Moreover, if college students increase their bystander involvement in situations when men sexually objectify women, it will send the clear message that students do not tolerate this behavior and potentially circumvent this type of behavior as well as more extreme forms of violence toward women. Relatedly, universities and other organizations serving college students might implement programs to alter social norms that promote the sexual objectification of women, particularly when drinking is involved. For example, bars, clubs, or fraternities hosting events that involve drinking by college students could choose to forgo themes that promote sexual objectification (e.g., decades or celebrity lookalike rather than “bros and hos” or lingerie themes; Clapp et al., 2008). Furthermore, several effective prevention programs target interpersonal violence among middle and high school students (DeGue et al., 2014). These programs may also benefit from incorporating education about the potential risks of sexual objectification.

The present findings should be considered in the context of study limitations. First, although our results suggest the possibility that drinking operates through objectification to increase victimization, the cross-sectional design of the study does not permit conclusions about causality or the temporal ordering of variables. Indeed, whereas our model suggests that intoxication may precede women’s experiences of objectification, other research (also correlational) indicates that increased drinking occurs in response to sexual objectification (Carr & Szymanski, 2011). Together, these findings point to the possibility of multiple pathways between drinking and sexual objectification. Second, as with other work relying on self-report measures, individuals’ responses may have been subject to recall biases or intentional withholding of information. For example, participants may have difficulty reporting their exact drinking behaviors or be reluctant to disclose sexual victimization.

To address these issues, future research could examine potential causal connections between women’s experiences of drinking, sexual objectification, and victimization using experimental approaches such as lab-based alcohol administration and in vivo sexual objectification (see Gervais, Vescio, & Allen, 2011). Such work could test the supposition, suggested here, that men’s objectification of women increases in response to women’s intoxication. Ecological momentary assessment might be used as well, to assess event-level associations between drinking, objectification, and victimization as they unfold in real time.

Finally, keeping in mind that the responsibility for sexual offenses lies solely with the perpetrator—and sexual assault is never deserved—future work should begin to explore the interactions between potential victims and perpetrators prior to the act of sexual assault. Initial data suggest that men’s intoxication may promote greater sexual objectification of women (Gervais et al., 2014). Conversely, and consistent with the present findings, some women may internalize other people’s objectifying views of them and unwittingly reinforce objectification (Calogero, 2013). Together, these findings suggest a need to understand the dyadic processes that serve as precursors to sexual victimization. To ignore these interactive processes runs the risk of disempowering women by treating them in the same way that their objectifiers do, as passive objects. Ultimately, knowledge of these interactive processes may lead to improved strategies for identifying risk processes that can be targeted to prevent sexual assault.

Footnotes

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) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Michelle Haikalis, MA, is a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology Training Program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her research and clinical interests are focused on interpersonal violence and, more specifically, sexual assault perpetration and victimization. She is especially interested in the relations between alcohol and sexual violence and in the application of research to sexual assault prevention and intervention programs targeting bystanders and perpetrators.

David DiLillo, PhD, is professor of clinical psychology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. His research and clinical interests lie in the areas of trauma and interpersonal violence. Within those areas, he is particularly interested in intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and the long-term adjustment of adults who have experienced various forms of childhood maltreatment. He has received grants from the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institude for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in support of this work.

Sarah J. Gervais, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology in the Social and Cognitive as well as the Law–Psychology programs at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her research focuses on power, discrimination, and violence. Examining behaviors like the objectifying gaze, patronization, and interpersonal confrontation, she has found that the discriminatory acts of powerful people are often more subtle and nuanced than previously thought, but they still have negative legal and social consequences for recipients. She has a dual PhD in psychology and women’s studies from the Pennsylvania State University and has received grants from the NSF for her work.

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