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CONTEXT Affirmative consent standards adopted by colleges and universities are meant to decrease miscommunication that may lead to sexual assault. However, they may not take into account sociocultural factors that influence consent. In particular, the role of gender norms needs to be better understood. METHODS In‐depth interviews about college students’ sexual activity, including sexual consent communication, were conducted with 17 female and 13 male students at a large southern university during the spring 2013 semester. The interview protocol and analyses were guided by Carspecken's critical qualitative methodology, which seeks to understand both participants’ explicit statements and implied underlying meanings and values. Themes and subthemes were identified through inductive analyses. RESULTS Two overarching themes emerged: Students perceived a sexual double standard, and males viewed obtaining sex as a conquest. Subthemes related to the first theme reflected endorsement of traditional views of women's sexuality (the notions that “good girls” do not have sex, that women should privilege men's sexual needs over their own and that women “owe” men sex once men have “worked” for it). Subthemes related to the second theme reflected males’ beliefs that sex is a commodity that pits women and men against one another, and that women can be “convinced” to have sex if they initially refuse. CONCLUSIONS College students’ consent communication may be influenced by gender norms that challenge assumptions of affirmative consent standards. Cultural shifts in students’ views of sexuality may be necessary for affirmative consent policies to be effective.

Even though young people report learning about sex from pornography, most do not think this sexual medium teaches them about sexual consent communication. But research shows that people are also able to evaluate pornography as consensual or not. Therefore, we proposed that pornography depicts subtle sexual scripts regarding sexual consent communication. We conducted a content analysis of 50 20-minute segments within best-selling pornographic films from 2015. We systematically coded the presence of various consent communication cues in these films. Consent communication was often depicted; nonverbal cues were more frequent than verbal cues. We found that the films either directly or indirectly supported several sexual scripts: Explicit Verbal Consent Isn't Natural, Women are Indirect/Men are Direct, Sex Can Happen Without Ongoing Communication, Lower-Order Behaviors Don't Need Explicit Consent, and People Receiving Sexual Behaviors Can Consent by Doing Nothing. Further research is needed to examine whether viewers are acquiring, activating, or applying these scripts. Sex education programs could benefit from acknowledging how consent communication is modeled in pornography and by teaching about pornography literacy.

Attitudes toward abortion have historically been characterized via dichotomized labels, yet research suggests that these labels do not appropriately encapsulate beliefs on abortion. Rather, contexts, circumstances, and lived experiences often shape views on abortion into more nuanced and complex perspectives. Qualitative data have also been shown to underpin belief systems regarding abortion. Social media, as a form of qualitative data, could reveal how attitudes toward abortion are communicated publicly in web-based spaces. Furthermore, in some cases, social media can also be leveraged to seek health information. This study applies natural language processing and social media mining to analyze Reddit (Reddit, Inc) forums specific to abortion, including r/Abortion (the largest subreddit about abortion) and r/AbortionDebate (a subreddit designed to discuss and debate worldviews on abortion). Our analytical pipeline intends to identify potential themes within the data and the affect from each post. We applied a neural network-based topic modeling pipeline (BERTopic) to uncover themes in the r/Abortion (n=2151) and r/AbortionDebate (n=2815) subreddits. After deriving the optimal number of topics per subreddit using an iterative coherence score calculation, we performed a sentiment analysis using the Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner to assess positive, neutral, and negative affect and an emotion analysis using the Text2Emotion lexicon to identify potential emotionality per post. Differences in affect and emotion by subreddit were compared. The iterative coherence score calculation revealed 10 topics for both r/Abortion (coherence=0.42) and r/AbortionDebate (coherence=0.35). Topics in the r/Abortion subreddit primarily centered on information sharing or offering a source of social support; in contrast, topics in the r/AbortionDebate subreddit centered on contextualizing shifting or evolving views on abortion across various ethical, moral, and legal domains. The average compound Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner scores for the r/Abortion and r/AbortionDebate subreddits were 0.01 (SD 0.44) and -0.06 (SD 0.41), respectively. Emotionality scores were consistent across the r/Abortion and r/AbortionDebate subreddits; however, r/Abortion had a marginally higher average fear score of 0.36 (SD 0.39). Our findings suggest that people posting on abortion forums on Reddit are willing to share their beliefs, which manifested in diverse ways, such as sharing abortion stories including how their worldview changed, which critiques the value of dichotomized abortion identity labels, and information seeking. Notably, the style of discourse varied significantly by subreddit. r/Abortion was principally leveraged as an information and outreach source; r/AbortionDebate largely centered on debating across various legal, ethical, and moral abortion domains. Collectively, our findings suggest that abortion remains an opaque yet politically charged issue for people and that social media can be leveraged to understand views and circumstances surrounding abortion.

Background The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) state “abortion is healthcare” in their advocacy statement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare services were limited to those deemed “essential,” and some conservative states’ attorneys general classified abortion as “nonessential,” against ACOG recommendations. Subsequent to the pandemic, the 2022 U.S. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision eliminated the federal right to abortion, and many states have severely restricted abortion access, making it important to ask—do people consider abortion essential healthcare? Thus, we explored U.S. adults’ opinions on abortion as an essential medical procedure. Methods We collected data via IPSOS’s KnowledgePanel ® from September 2020 to January 2021 in four waves, three of which are included in the present study. We asked, “Do you think abortion is an essential medical procedure?” (yes, no, unsure) with a follow-up open-ended question: “Please describe why you [think/do not think/are unsure] abortion is an essential medical procedure.” Our sample comprised 1523 closed-ended and corresponding open-ended responses. We used descriptive statistics to examine closed-ended responses by wave and inductive qualitative content analysis to analyze open-ended responses collapsed across waves. Results Among closed-ended responses, 44–46% indicated abortion was an essential procedure, 32–35% indicated abortion was not essential, and 19–22% indicated unsure. Among open-ended responses, 49% stated abortion was an essential medical procedure because abortion is time-sensitive, a right, and prevents suffering. Of open-ended responses, 43% indicated the essentiality of abortion as a medical procedure depends on the reason. And 32% of open-ended responses said abortion is not an essential medical procedure because abortion is elective, wrong/murder, and other procedures should take precedence. We noted instances where closed-ended responses did not correspond with open-ended reasons. Conclusions Findings highlight the nuance in conceptualizing abortion as an essential medical procedure. Reasons provided by participants on the extent abortion is an essential medical procedure underscore the contextual nature of abortion attitudes found in previous research. Notably, people indicating abortion was not an essential medical procedure but providing explanations suggesting reasons to consider abortion essential, point to the need for more nuance in assessing abortion attitudes.

Young adults have limited access to comprehensive sex education. As such, they may seek sexuality information through such alternative sources, such as mass media. Previous research suggests that media, including films and television shows, can influence sexual behaviors and attitudes. Because sexual consent communication is important to sexual experiences, the purpose of this study was to assess how sexual consent and refusal communication were depicted in films. We also examined contextual factors that influence consent and refusal communication, such as gender, relationship status, location, and types of sexual behaviors. Four researchers analyzed popular mainstream films (N = 50) from 2013 based on a codebook developed inductively and deductively. The most common consent and refusal communication cues were nonverbal or implicit. The majority of scenes portrayed consent immediately before sexual activity. We also conducted chi-squared analyses to assess differences in consent and refusal communication based on gender and relationship status. There were no gender differences in the portrayal of consent cues; however, characters in established relationships used nonverbal cues more often than those in novel relationships. Mass media can normalize behaviors, and our results suggest that films may further normalize nonverbal or implicit consent cues.

Sexual consent is one’s voluntary, sober, and conscious willingness to engage in a particular sexual behavior with a particular person within a particular context. Sexual precedent theory posits that people believe that engaging in consensual sex at one point in time implies consent to later sexual encounters with that person. By assuming consent once a sexual precedent is set, people may rely less on communication cues. We sought to provide quantitative support for the claim that sexual precedent influences sexual consent in people’s sexual relationships. To capture variability across sexual experiences, we collected daily sexual behavior data from each participant ( n  = 84) over a period of 30 days. We found a curvilinear relationship between sexual history with a partner and how people perceived consent during sexual activity with that partner ( p  = .003, ∆ R 2  = .089). A piecewise regression revealed that participants were less likely to report consent communication cues as sexual precedent increased until about 575 previous sexual behaviors ( p  = .003, R 2  = .122); after this point, participants were more likely to report consent communication cues as sexual precedent increased ( p  = .028, R 2  = .179). Overall, we provide the first quantitative evidence that consent conceptualization varies both within the person and across relationships regarding sexual precedent. In our discussion, we emphasize that sexual consent is contextual and cannot be assumed even after previous sexual encounters.

Although media response to the decision was widespread in the United States, the extent to which people were aware of the Mississippi law leading to the decision, the case, is unclear, as are the resulting effects of the decision on legal abortion. As such, we examined people's awareness of abortion legality prior to and after the decision announcement, as well as the potential implications associated with the decision (i.e. overturning of ). We also examined people's attitudes toward abortion legality, specifically focusing on 15 weeks' gestation to correspond with the Mississippi law that led to . Data were collected across two studies at different times. In Study 1, a 15-minute survey was administered to IPSOS' KnowledgePanel ( = 1014) prior to the decision announcement. A shorter version of that survey was administered to a second sample using NORC's AmeriSpeak Omnibus panel ( = 1002). Nearly half of that sample (42.2%) completed the survey prior to the decision announcement. People were generally unaware of the Mississippi law, the case, and implications associated with the decision (e.g. overturning ). People generally endorsed abortion being legal at 15 weeks or later, but this varied by circumstance. We did not find meaningful effects of the decision announcement on people's knowledge and attitudes. Our findings suggest that the intense response to the decision from the media and people involved in the abortion movement may not represent the general public's reaction.

Background The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade , has given individual states more capacity to legislate abortion. State legislators have and continue to design and pass laws that restrict or ban abortion, often naming exceptions based on specific reasons (i.e., fetal health, woman’s health, rape). Given that these reasons often do not align with those reported by abortion-seekers, it is crucial to assess whether the U.S. public accurately understands why people seek abortions. This study explored a sample of U.S. adults’ perceptions of the three most common reasons why someone might get an abortion. Methods We analyzed open-ended data from two waves of a 2022 longitudinal survey ( n  = 681 participants; n  = 2,043 responses per wave; n  = 4,086 total responses) collected before and after the Dobbs decision in English and Spanish via Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel®. We explored three main research questions: (1) What does the U.S. public perceive to be the most common reasons for someone to seek abortion? (2) Are there differences in perceived reasons before and after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision? (3) Are there differences in perceived reasons across languages? Results Findings indicated that people perceive the three most common reasons to seek abortion to be: unwanted/unplanned pregnancy reasons , violence-related reasons , and health reasons . After the Dobbs decision, there was an increase in respondents mentioning that people have abortions for health reasons and financial reasons , and a decrease in responses related to unwanted/unplanned pregnancy reasons, not ready/unprepared reasons, and partner-related reasons . Additionally, we found significant differences in perceptions between languages (i.e., English and Spanish). We also note discrepancies between perceived reasons among our sample and reasons reported by abortion patients in national studies. Conclusions This study underscores the public’s misconceptions of reasons for seeking abortion and the importance of correcting such misunderstandings to ensure alignment of public sentiment and legislative and judicial policy post- Dobbs .

In 2014, U.S. president Barack Obama announced a White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, noting that \"1 in 5 women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted during their time there.\" Since then, this one-in-five statistic has permeated public discourse. It is frequently reported, but some commentators have criticized it as exaggerated. Here, we address the question, \"What percentage of women are sexually assaulted while in college?\" After discussing definitions of sexual assault, we systematically review available data, focusing on studies that used large, representative samples of female undergraduates and multiple behaviorally specific questions. We conclude that one in five is a reasonably accurate average across women and campuses. We also review studies that are inappropriately cited as either supporting or debunking the one-in-five statistic; we explain why they do not adequately address this question. We identify and evaluate several assumptions implicit in the public discourse (e.g., the assumption that college students are at greater risk than nonstudents). Given the empirical support for the one-in-five statistic, we suggest that the controversy occurs because of misunderstandings about studies' methods and results and because this topic has implications for gender relations, power, and sexuality; this controversy is ultimately about values.

Landmark legislative events can shift public opinion. We conducted a longitudinal survey examining abortion attitudes before and after which overturned in 2022. Wave 1 (  = 1,014) was conducted in June 2022, and Wave 2 (  = 792) in October-November 2022. Using bivariate analyses, we assessed people's attitudes towards the Dobbs decision and potential changes in abortion attitudes over time, across different abortion identity sub-groups (e.g. pro-life, pro-choice). Results indicate that people were informed about (90%) and disagreed (56%) with the decision, and did not report or experience a change in attitudes after the decision (68-73%). However, among those who did change, respondents were more inclined to endorse legal abortion after the decision (19-22%) than indicate abortion should not be legal (6-13%). Through analysing open-ended data, we found that participants more inclined to endorse legal abortion described the ruling as eroding personal rights, government intrusion, and threatening access to healthcare. Participants less inclined to endorse legal abortion indicated the ruling reinforced their belief in defending fetal rights. While not necessarily advocating outright illegality, such participants favoured stricter regulations. Notably, people who identified as \"both/neither/prefer not to answer\" tended to disagree with the Dobbs decision and lean towards greater endorsement of legal abortion. Uncertainty regarding (dis)agreement with the Dobbs decision was also higher among people who identified as pro-life and \"both/neither/prefer not to answer\" than among those who identified as pro-choice. These findings highlight important nuances that exist in abortion attitudes beyond the perceived dichotomy of the pro-life/pro-choice spectrum.