A second metaphor conceptualizes sexuality as a competition. Sexu­ality is compared with a baseball game in which the batter (i. e., the man) tries to hit a home run (i. e., obtain sexual intercourse). Scoring, a term often used by young men to describe a successful sexual encounter (i. e., one that resulted in sexual […]

Similar themes are present in our language’s metaphors regarding sex­ual activity. These cultural metaphors provide important clues about the conceptualization of sexual behavior. Language is powerful in defining the experiences of people in a society. Therefore, an examination of cultural metaphors is necessary to understand the sexual experiences of people in our culture and its […]

The belief that a woman has consented to sexual intercourse despite her objections rests on several assumptions. Martha Burt (1980, 1991) hy­pothesized that the status of women within American culture plays a sig­nificant role in the attitudes toward sexual violence held by persons, par­ticularly rapists. These attitudes and beliefs may serve to facilitate sexually aggressive […]

The problem with conceptualizing rape around the issue of consent is that the decision whether a woman has consented to sexual intercourse rarely is determined only by the woman herself. Often, instead, a woman’s consent, and ultimately her sexuality, may be determined for her by others —her partner, the community, or the court system. Women […]

Most established conceptualizations of rape, particularly acquaintance rape, have been based on judgments of female sexual consent (Pineau, 1989). Acquaintance rape is usually defined as nonconsensual forced sex between persons who know each other. Traditionally, mutual consent for sexual activity, in our culture, has been determined by examining whether a woman consented to sexual intercourse. […]

PATRICIA L. N. DONAT AND JACQUELYN W. WHITE Our understanding of all forms of violence against women, including sexual assault, is embedded in our culture (Koss, Goodman, Browne, Fitz­gerald, Keita, & Russo, 1994). Because cultural norms, sexual scripts, and gender roles play such a large role in defining these experiences, it is im­portant to examine […]

We also propose one mandate related to individuals, organizations, and, indeed, all of society. Harassment of all types needs to be subject to social sanction. Members of organizations and professions, whatever the level of their position, need to be held accountable for ethical conduct (Blevins-Knabe, 1992). Some colleges and universities define sexual in­volvements between faculty […]

We propose three changes related to sexuality. First, the link between power and domination and sexuality must be broken and people must be encouraged to associate sexuality with equality and consent. If, indeed, some men are nonconsciously harassing because they are unaware of their mentally linking power and sex (Bargh & Raymond, 1995), such a […]

Knowledge of sexual harassment has increased since the phenomenon was given a name, but such knowledge may identify only extreme behaviors as harassment (Popovich et al., 1995). There may be a gap between knowl­edge of formal definitions of sexual harassment and application of that knowledge to one’s everyday life experiences. Bursik (1992) reported that the […]

Although a sexual focus must be present for sexual harassment to have occurred, this dimension is not clearly developed. A wide variety of behaviors may be considered sexual, and the intent of an actor becomes an issue in concluding if a gesture is sexual. As a consequence, behaviors that may be designated as sexual harassment […]