A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to hypothetical sexual hookup situations in which a woman responds passively to a sexual advance, meaning the woman does not express any overt verbal or behavioral response to indicate consent to increase the level of physical intimacy. The team then surveyed how consensual each man perceived the situation to be, as well as how he would likely behave.
The work is published in the journal Sex Roles.
“A passive response to a sexual advance is a normative indicator of consent, but also might reflect distress or fear, and whether men are able to differentiate between the two during a hookup was important to explore,” said Mattson.
The team found that men varied in their perception of passive responses in terms of consent and that the level of perceived consent was strongly linked to an increased likelihood of continuing or advancing sexual behavior.
“The biggest takeaway is that men differed in how they interpreted an ambiguous female response to their sexual advances with respect to their perception of consent, which in turn influenced their sexual decisions,” said Mattson.
“But certain types of men (e.g., those high in toxic masculine traits) tended to view situations as more consensual and reported that they would escalate the level of sexual intimacy regardless of whether or not they thought it was consensual.”
And the worst part is that some men’s reactions prove the women’s points
In posts to social media that I have chosen not to share, men have made gleeful memes of women being savaged, ripped apart, bloodied, mauled and eaten by bears.
They’ve shared videos of bear attacks with captions either mocking women or saying they deserve this fate for choosing the bear. “What did they expect?” these men claim, unwittingly echoing the very mindset women are protesting against.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/man-vs-bear-debate-reactions/
There have also been the men responding by saying they hope that women get F***ed by a bear or murdered for daring to feel that a bear is less of a threat than a random man.
https://medium.com/@SpencerGall/man-vs-bear-how-are-so-many-men-missing-the-point-0345d4c2de0f
