Allocating Consent: Rape Myths Amid Sex and Gender Roles

Consent is a purposive agreement to engage mutually in specific actions, given freely and without coercion. In the context of sexual interactions, active consent refers to an unambiguous and freely given agreement to participate, absent of any coercion by either party. Conversely, rape myths, stemming from rape culture, are false beliefs and misconceptions about sexual assault that typically frame women as victims and men as perpetrators.. The current study assessed how rape myth disavowal connects to positive perceptions of active consent and how acceptance of active consent practices is mediated by personal context (i.e., gender, personality, and sexual victimization experience) and ideologies (i.e., adherence to socialized sex roles, feminism, and liberalism). The current study utilized a purposive sample of university students (<i>n</i> = 667) from six universities in the United States. Hypotheses were tested using a series of ordinary least squares regression models. Rape Myth disavowal was found to be a significant predictor of active consent controlling for several ideological and personal context variables. Sexual victimization experience was not found to be a significant predictor of active consent.