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.”

  • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    You’re missing the point. Of course being lost in the woods with another human is preferable to a bear. The point in choosing the bear in the hypothetical scenario is that women have felt so uncomfortable around men for so long, that it’s almost preferable to risk the bear than risk the man. It’s making a statement about how women feel they’re being treated by too many men every day.

    Maybe listen to the women who say they choose the bear, they’re telling you something is wrong with how they’re treated.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      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

      • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The self-awareness of those guys is non-existent. How can you be so obtuse as to fall into the exact behavior you’re being called out on?

        It baffles me

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      5 months ago

      The bear or man meme thing made me realize a lot of people don’t seem to have passed 10th grade English. They get so caught up in like the literal evaluation of the text and don’t even think about the subtext or deeper meaning. They probably think Dracula is just a story about a dude that bites people, and star trek is just about space ships.

    • rab@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      I just find it amusing that a kid is spouting out a common sense answer but dad is like “well ackshually”

      Yes I know why women pick bear

      But I also know the actual correct answer is man, if we are taking this situation literally, lol. I grew up on the east slopes of the rockies, I’ve been charged by a grizzly, yeah no thanks on that shit

        • rab@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          A 13 year old child doesn’t have this level of terminally online brain rot yet and hasn’t yet forgotten that bears are our natural predators