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Understanding sexual assault disclosure
Published in Rachel E. Lovell, Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Sexual Assault Kits and Reforming the Response to Rape, 2023
Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Bridget Jules, Emma C. Lathan, C. Austin Coates, Rachel Crisler
Gender roles inform sexual activity. According to sexual script theory (Simon & Gagnon, 2003), sexual initiation should follow traditional gender roles in which men initiate sexual activity while women restrict access. Strict adherence to traditional gender roles has been shown to promote sexually coercive behaviors like sexual assault (Byers, 1996), use of violent and/or rape-supportive pornography, and the development of rape scripts among men. Conversely, these beliefs contribute to occurrences of unrecognized rape and lack of disclosure and reporting among victims (Clark & Carroll, 2008). Overall, male sex, masculine gender ideology, and heterosexual orientation predict greater victim blame, lower perpetrator blame, and a reduced likelihood of disclosure and/or reporting to authorities (Seibold-Simpson et al., 2021).
Sexual and Affectionate Behaviors in Asexual and Allosexual Adults
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2023
Alyssa N. Clark, Eva S. Lefkowitz, Corinne Zimmerman
Sexual scripts are unconscious mental representations that guide how people behave and understand sexual behaviors (Frey & Hojjat, 1998; Laumann et al., 1994; Simon & Gagnon, 1986). More specifically, sexual scripts are “blueprints for behavior, specifying who one will have sex with, what one will allow themselves to do sexually, when one will have sex, and why one will engage in sexual behavior” (Atwood & Dershowitz, 1992, p. 201). Sexual script theory proposes that people conceptualize sexual behaviors using three levels of scripts: cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Although people adjust their conceptualizations of sexual scripts to better fit their own experiences and expectations (Jones & Hostler, 2002; Simon & Gagnon, 1986), a culture’s predominant scripts influence people’s behavior (Murray, 2018; Wiederman, 2005, 2015).
Sexual Modesty in Sexual Expression and Experience: A Scoping Review, 2000 - 2021
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2022
J. Dennis Fortenberry, Devon J. Hensel
Among modern sexuality theories, however, Sexual Script Theory perhaps best serves as an organizing framework toward understanding how sexual modesty is socially stipulated, interpersonally negotiated, and individually practiced (Ruvalcaba et al., 2020). The central idea of sexual script theory (Simon & Gagnon, 1984, 2003) is that sexuality is learned from culturally shared norms – scripts, in the theory’s metaphor – that set guidelines for expected conduct in both public and private sexual situations (Clark & Wiederman, 2000; Frith & Kitzinger, 2001). Scripts function like “blueprints” to prescribe uses of sexual modesty to organize and guide most aspects of sexuality (Shtarkshall et al., 2007) as well as define expressions of sexual modesty based on experiences with gender and sexual identity, ability status, nationality, race and ethnicity, religion, and relationship status (Marshall et al., 2021). The scripting process is theorized to occur on three levels: the cultural level encompasses the overarching social-cultural-historical norms related to sexual modesty expectations (Ruvalcaba et al., 2020), while the interpersonal level engages how individuals apply sexual modesty scripts in interactions with others (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Finally, intrapsychic scripts mediate and provide an experiential space for interpersonal scripts – specifically, how cultural scripts are adapted to meet one’s own fantasies and desires, and then enacted in daily sexual life (Morrison et al., 2015). We consider each of these levels in more detail below.
An Exploratory Study of Sexual Aggression Tactics as a Function of Perpetrator Gender and Victim Gender
Published in International Journal of Sexual Health, 2022
Errin Fornicola, Zoë D. Peterson
Prototypically, sexual aggression—including pressuring or manipulating a partner for sex, having sex with someone who is incapacitated, or using threats or force to obtain sex—is perpetrated by men against women. Consistent with that, most research on sexual perpetration focuses on men, and most research on sexual victimization focuses on women. Indeed, much of the scholarship on sexual aggression is guided by sexual script theory (Gagnon & Simon, 1973). Sexual script theory posits that, from a young age, children receive gendered messages from their caregivers, peers, and society about what is or is not acceptable or typical behavior during sex, and “sex” is typically presumed to be heterosex. As a result, individuals grow up with a preconceived idea of the “script” that they are expected to follow during sexual encounters as dictated by their cultural learning (Wiederman, 2005). For example, a traditional heterosexual script posits that men, who are thought to have very strong sexual needs, should initiate sex, and women, who are thought to be sexually reluctant, should act as “gatekeepers,” resisting those advances even if they are, in fact, interested (Byers, 1996). This expectation for “token refusal” could lead to coercion such that a woman who does not wish to have sex may say “no” to sex, but a man may mistake that for coy script-adherence and apply pressure until the woman eventually goes along with his advances (Wiederman, 2005).