Hunt Geoffrey, Sanders Emile, Petersen Margit Anne, Bogren Alexandra
Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Institute for Scientific Analysis, Alameda, California.
Contemp Drug Probl. 2022 Mar;49(1):84-105. doi: 10.1177/00914509211058900. Epub 2021 Nov 22.
Social concern about sexual practices and sexual consent among young adults has increased significantly in recent years, and intoxication has often played a key role in such debates. While many studies have long suggested that alcohol plays a role in facilitating (casual) sexual encounters, intoxication has largely either been conceptualized as a risk factor, or researchers have focused on the pharmacological effects of alcohol on behaviors associated with sexual interaction and consent. To date little work has explored how young adults define and negotiate acceptable and unacceptable levels of intoxication during sexual encounters, nor the ways in which different levels of intoxication influence gendered sexual scripts and meanings of consent. This paper explores the latter two research questions using data from 145 in-depth, qualitative interviews with cisgender, heterosexual young adults ages 18-25 in the San Francisco Bay Area. In examining these interview data, by exploring the relationship between intoxication and sexual consent, and the ways in which gender plays out in notions of acceptable and unacceptable intoxicated sexual encounters, we highlight how different levels of intoxication signal different sexual scripts. Narratives about sexual encounters at low levels of intoxication highlighted the role of intoxication in achieving sexual sociability, but they also relied on the notion that intoxicated consent was dependent on the social relationship between the partners outside drinking contexts. Narratives about sexual encounters in heavy drinking situations were more explicitly gendered, often in keeping with traditionally gendered sexual scripts. In general we found that when men discussed their own levels of intoxication, their narratives were more focused on sexual performance and low status sex partners, while women's and some men's narratives about women's levels of intoxication were focused on women's consent, safety, and respectability. Finally, some participants rely on 'consent as a contract' and 'intoxication parity'- the idea that potential sexual partners should be equally intoxicated - to handle relations of power in interpersonal sexual scripts. Since these notions are sometimes deployed strategically, we suggest that they may serve to "black-box" gendered inequalities in power between the parties involved.
近年来，社会对年轻人的性行为和性同意问题的关注显著增加，而醉酒在这类讨论中往往起着关键作用。长期以来，许多研究表明酒精在促成（随意的）性接触方面发挥作用，但醉酒在很大程度上要么被概念化为一个风险因素，要么研究人员专注于酒精对与性互动及同意相关行为的药理作用。迄今为止，几乎没有研究探讨年轻人在性接触中如何界定和协商可接受与不可接受的醉酒程度，也没有研究探讨不同程度的醉酒如何影响性别化的性脚本及同意的含义。本文利用对旧金山湾区18至25岁的顺性别、异性恋年轻人进行的145次深入定性访谈数据，探讨后两个研究问题。在审视这些访谈数据时，通过探究醉酒与性同意之间的关系，以及性别在可接受与不可接受的醉酒性接触观念中如何体现，我们强调不同程度的醉酒如何标志着不同的性脚本。关于低醉酒程度下性接触的叙述突出了醉酒在实现性社交方面的作用，但它们也依赖于这样一种观念，即醉酒时的同意取决于饮酒情境之外伴侣之间的社会关系。关于大量饮酒情况下性接触的叙述更明显地带有性别色彩，通常与传统的性别化性脚本一致。总体而言，我们发现当男性讨论自己的醉酒程度时，他们的叙述更多地集中在性表现和低地位性伴侣上，而女性以及一些男性关于女性醉酒程度的叙述则集中在女性的同意、安全和体面方面。最后，一些参与者依靠“同意即契约”和“醉酒平等”——即潜在性伴侣应同等醉酒的观念——来处理人际性脚本中的权力关系。由于这些观念有时是策略性地运用，我们认为它们可能会“掩盖”相关各方之间权力的性别不平等。
