Hooking up as a sexual script: How is consent to sexual activity communicated in an emerging adult university population when mediated by gender and alcohol in the context of societal and cultural norms?
Byrnes, Elaine
Byrnes, Elaine
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Identifiers
http://hdl.handle.net/10379/17174
https://doi.org/10.13025/16384
https://doi.org/10.13025/16384
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Publication Date
2022-04-25
Type
Thesis
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Abstract
This thesis presents a mixed-methods study to examine how consent to sexual activity is understood and communicated by Irish college men and women. Additionally, it seeks to examine how injunctive and descriptive norms influence hooking up behaviour, and how alcohol impacts sexual decision making, particularly the communication of sexual consent, in the context of gender and cultural scripts. This is the first such research conducted in Ireland. I used a sequential mixed methods research design employing the complementary method. The principal method was qualitative, complemented by the quantitative method, in that this informed and guided the principal component. An online survey at NUI Galway collected quantitative data from undergraduate students. Analysis indicated significant gender predictors of injunctive and descriptive norms related to the hooking up script, and of behavioural cues in consent to sex when mediated by alcohol. Qualitative interviews were then conducted on a subset of survey respondents to address questions these initial indicators raised. Qualitative data were analysed, resulting in three themes. The first theme related to preparedness. It reflects participants' emerging sexuality pre-college, their learning about relationships, sexuality and consent, and whether this was formal in the school system or informal through family, friends, or other sources of information. The second theme is related to consciousness. It considers participants' expectations for exploring their sexuality. And their experience of hooking up and communicating sexual consent in the context of an alcohol-fuelled social culture. The third theme is related to transformation. It considers conformity to heteronormative gender roles and adherence to the traditional sexual script among college students. Or is this generation more egalitarian in its behaviour and attitudes to sex? It also distinguishes participants' understanding of consent and its communication from the ideal, that is what should happen in sexual encounters if following the consent “recipe” correctly, to the reality of what often does happen in the giddy, alcohol-fuelled, sometimes messy reality of emerging adult sexual encounters. In the discussion, I consider the quantitative findings and qualitative analysis in relation to the literature review. In the context of the strong social and cultural norms that permeate Irish society, I argue that for college men and women consent to sexual activity is understood and communicated through experiences reflecting the double bind of rebellion and conformity, in the shadow of Irish societies historical lack of freedom in sexual exploration and expression.
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Publisher
NUI Galway