Conceptualizing the 'wantedness' of women's consensual and nonconsensual sexual experiences: Implications for how women label their experiences with rape

Many people---both the public and researchers---conceptualize sex as "wanted" or "unwanted," reflecting a one-dimensional, dichotomous model of wanting. This model also frequently conflates wanting and consent. Evidence suggests that a more complex model would better characterize people's actual feelings about their sexual experiences. For example, some women who have experienced rape report that, although they did not consent, they had feelings that could be interpreted as wanting to have sex (e.g., feeling sexually aroused).;This study had three purposes: (a) contributing to the development of a multidimensional model and a questionnaire for conceptualizing the wantedness of a sexual act, (b) using this model to compare women's experiences with nonconsensual versus consensual sex, and (c) assessing whether this model explains women's cognitive appraisals of their nonconsensual sexual experiences (e.g., whether they label the experiences as "rape") better than the old model.;Participants were two groups of college women: (a) a group of women who had experienced rape, as defined in Kansas law (n = 77), and (b) a comparison group of women who had experienced consensual sexual intercourse (n = 87).;Participants were asked to describe their sexual experiences. They were also asked about the labels that they applied to their experiences. Finally, they were asked about their reasons for wanting and not wanting the sexual experiences via an objective Wanting Questionnaire based on the multidimensional model of sexual wanting.;Results provided support for the idea that there are multiple gradations and multiple dimensions of sexual wanting and that wanting or not wanting a sexual act is often distinct from wanting or not wanting the consequences of sex. Additionally, there was evidence for a wanting-consenting distinction, in other words, individuals sometimes consent to sex that is unwanted in some ways, and individuals sometimes do not consent to sex that is wanted in some ways. Finally, the results suggested that unacknowledged rape victims (i.e., victims who do not label their nonconsensual sexual experience as "rape") had more reasons for wanting and fewer reasons for not wanting their nonconsensual sexual experience than did acknowledged rape victims.