Study finds that college men's attitudes are linked to ignoring rejections from bisexual women

Alexis Sheffield, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, recently published a research article about a study exploring factors that contribute to the elevated rates of sexual assault for bisexual women and better understand that disparity.

The article stemmed from her own thesis and is a topic she's passionate about. Research on this same topic has previously looked at how higher rates of drinking and higher numbers of sexual partners factor into these scenarios.

"I'd describe this research as hoping to look at this from a more minority stress focused approach and working to look at it more creatively than just thinking bisexual women are drinking more and having more sexual partners," Sheffield said. "I think there's more to it happening than that and I think the way it's been framed in the past can shame these women and stigmatize the group."

Sheffield went about this research with a vignette approach. She came up with a scenario that included features that undergraduate women have described when discussing their own sexual assault. Men were randomized to conditions that described the woman in the vignette as bisexual or straight. She had men rate how they would be most likely to react within the presented scenario.

The study looked at various attitudes that might influence these perceptions, including sexual dominance, casual views about sex, belief in rape myths, and hostility toward women. One key finding was that sexual dominance was the only factor clearly linked to justifying sexual aggression, and this result did not change based on whether the woman was bisexual or straight.

The negative blindness construct is a key component when discussing this topic. It is a deficit in men perceiving when a woman is rejecting them and being primed to notice any signals that indicate a woman might be sexually interested. This is where differences appeared within the study.

The study found that men who had more casual attitudes about sex were more likely to ignore signs of disinterest-but only when the woman was described as bisexual. Men who believed in rape myths were also more likely to ignore signs of disinterest - but this effect was stronger in the bisexual condition.

The study also looked at how men judged a woman's sexual availability. Men who scored higher in hostility toward women or rape myth acceptance were more likely to assume that a woman was sexually available. This effect was stronger when the woman was bisexual, suggesting that these attitudes lead to more biased assumptions about bisexual women compared to straight women. When hostility toward women was low, men still tended to rate bisexual women as more sexually available overall, though the differences between conditions decreased with higher levels of hostility towards women.

The takeaway being men who believed in the rape myths or had casual attitudes toward sex viewed them differently than heterosexual women and tended to ignore rejections from bisexual women more often.

Sheffield hopes more studies will be conducted on this topic that can pave the way for future intervention development. "I'm not sure exactly in what way I'll continue this work, but I think there's a lot of avenues for future possibilities," Sheffield said.