Study: Guys Who Play Sports Are More Likely to Pressure Girls Into Sex
Listen, we don’t make up the stats, we just report them. And a new study shows that one of the worst stereotypes about jocks — that they’re rape-ier than the average guy — might just have some truth to it.
A new study published in online Violence Against Women journal shows that guys who play sports in college are more likely to pressure women into sex acts than those who don’t play sports.
The study reports that more than half of guys who play either recreational or intercollegiate sports have admitted to coercing a partner into sex as compared to 38% of guys who don’t play sports in college, according to the Washington Post.
Those numbers are crazy, and while they might be limiting because the surveys were taken from just one Division I college campus in the southeast, sadly, this might just be one stereotype that exists for a reason.
The one silver lining: some of the people in power who allow recently, Baylor University fell into the spotlight for its own sexual assault scandal because the school admittedly covered up reports of sexual assault on campus, according to the Washington Post.
The survey that was taken by the students at the university listed out several situations in which they might have coerced a parter, including the response “I used threats to make my partner have oral or anal sex,” which if you didn’t know is basically the legal definition of rape.
This report is released at a very poignant time for the campus sexual assault movement, following the Brock Turner rape trial that concluded last week. Brock, who was an athlete at Stanford, was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman which strengthens the argument for athlete rape culture.
More fun news: Violence Against Women also reported that those admitting to using coercive measures to have sex tended to hold one (or both) of these beliefs about the culture. The first being the myth that “if a woman doesn’t fight back, it isn’t rape,” and the second reinstating traditional gender roles like, “women should worry less about their rights and more about becoming good wives and mothers.”
These misogynistic attitudes, which appear to reinforced through sport culture and acceptance of the rape myth, might partially explain the difference between athletes and non-athletes.
“[The idea of] comparing recreational and intercollegiate athletes — that’s filling a gap. That’s really important,” Kristy McCray, an assistant professor of health and sport sciences at Otterbein University, told the Washington Post. “This idea of engaging in athletic behavior, even if you’re not on an [intercollegiate] team — just being in a sports culture — is really interesting.”
“Sports are a hypermasculine endeavor, and there’s a lot that connects hypermasculinity to violence,” McCray went on to tell the Post.
Ah yes, hypermasculinity strikes again. Can’t wait to see what science uncovers next.
