Unwanted escalation of sexual intimacy: Male and female perceptions of connotations and relational consequences of resistance messages

Abstract

In heterosexual dating situations, males sometimes attempt levels of sexual intimacy that exceed the threshold desired by the female partner. For the woman, these situations often are extremely unpleasant. Most explanations of these episodes assume that the offending male has ignored or disregarded the messages by which his partner has indicated her resistance to escalated intimacy. The present study supports an explanation whereby males do not understand certain sexual resistance messages to indicate resistance. Indeed, it appears that the resistance messages most often used by some women are the least understood by most men. This suggests that unwanted sexual escalation efforts might be minimized if men were to better understand women's resistance messages, and/or if women were to use the clearer messages. Ironically, the resistance messages that males understand best happen to be messages that often are avoided by women because of anticipated relational consequences. The study suggests, however, that males perceive these relational consequences as very unlikely outcomes of resistance messages. The study has implications for a communication‐based explanation of unwanted sexual escalation behaviors, and has pragmatic implications for reducing the frequency of these episodes via the reduction of certain male/female misunderstandings.