DIMENSIONS OF MASCULINITY - RELATIONS TO DATE RAPE SUPPORTIVE ATTITUDES AND SEXUAL AGGRESSION IN DATING SITUATIONS

Sexual assault in general and date rape in particular are major issues for practitioners, educators, and researchers in counseling. This stu dy sought to extend and refine existing research on the links between masculine gender roles and date rape by exploring 3 masculinity-relate d constructs that, until recently, have received relatively little att ention in the context of rape research: masculinity ideology, attitude s toward feminism, and homophobia. In general, combinations of masculi nity-related constructs were found to predict self-reported acceptance or perpetration of sexually coercive behaviors. Specifically multiple regression analyses, revealed that attitudes toward feminism and vari ous, specific dimensions of masculinity ideology (vs. a global assessm ent, as in previous research) predicted unique variance in several typ es of date rape-supportive attitudes and beliefs; the Facade/Counterde pendence dimension of masculinity ideology also predicted unique varia nce in self-reported history of sexual coercion. Implications for prev ention, education, and future research are discussed.