Summary: Alcohol-Related Sexual Assault

ALCOHOL-RELATED sexual assault is a common occurrence on college campuses. A college student who participated in one of our studies explained how she agreed to go back to her date's home after a party: "We played quarter bounce (a drinking game). I got sick drunk; I was slumped over the toilet vomiting. He grabbed me and dragged me into his room and raped me. I had been a virgin and felt it was all my fault for going back to his house when no one else was home." A male college student who forced sex on a female friend wrote that, "Alcohol loosened us up and the situation occurred by accident. If no alcohol was consumed, I would never have crossed that line."

This article reviews the literature on college students' sexual assault experiences.
For example, in Abbey et al. (1998), 47% of the sexual assaults reported by college men involved alcohol consumption. In 81% of the alcohol-related sexual assaults, both the victim and the perpetrator had consumed alcohol. Similarly, in Harrington and Leitenberg (1994), 55% of the sexual assaults reported by college women involved alcohol consumption. In 97% of the alcohol-related sexual assaults, both the victim and the perpetrator had consumed alcohol. The fact that college sexual assaults occur in social situations in which men and women are typically drinking together makes it difficult to examine hypotheses about the unique effects of perpetrators' or victims'
Thus, if a woman feels that this is a platonic relationship or that she has made it clear that she is not interested in sexual intercourse at this point in time, alcohol will make her less likely to process potentially contradictory cues and realize that her partner is misperceiving her. For example, imagine a man and a woman who have been dating several weeks. After seeing a movie together, the man may suggest going back to his apartment for a drink. His underlying message is "let's go back there to have sex" but he does not say that directly. The woman may respond, "Well, I guess I could come back for one drink, but I really can't stay long." Her underlying message is "I'd like to get to know you better but I'm not spending the night." However, she is also being indirect. Cognitive deficit theories (Steele and Josephs, 1990; Taylor and Chermack, 1993) suggest that when drinking it is very easy to focus only on the part of the message that one wants to hear. In this example, the man may hear only the confirming part of the message, "I'll come to your apartment," and ignore the disconfirming part of the message, "I won't stay long." In contrast, the woman focuses on the message she wants to hear, "I want to spend more time with you," rather than the message the man is trying to send, "I want to be alone with you so we can have