1. Introduction
Unwanted sexual attention (UWSA) refers to any non-consensual sexual touching or unsolicited sexual comments or physical gestures [
1]. A growing body of research has provided evidence on the widespread occurrence of UWSA in late-night entertainment settings [
2,
3] and the potential factors influencing victimisation risk [
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9]. Within these environments, pervasive displays of aggression and overt sexual behaviours are often considered an accepted part of social behaviour that would not be tolerated in other public contexts [
7]. These environments overwhelmingly place patrons, particularly young women, at an increased risk for sexual victimisation and persistent UWSA [
7]. These experiences can have lasting impacts, increasing risk of distress, depression, anxiety or problematic alcohol use [
10,
11]. While evidence suggests that alcohol intoxication, masculinity, and sex expectations are associated with UWSA victimisation in the nightlife [
3,
6], less is known about whether experiences of childhood corporal punishment (CCP) are important underlying factors. While recent literature has identified that experiencing CCP increases such as the likelihood of experiences of verbal or physical aggression in the nightlife [
12], it is still unclear whether this relationship is present for experiences of UWSA victimisation.
CCP is commonly defined as the non-injurious physical discipline of a child, used as a means of behaviour modification [
13]. However, this practice is controversial, with 63 countries prohibiting its use within the home [
14]. The distinction between CCP and physical abuse is argued to be one of legality rather than difference, due to their rate of co-occurrence [
13,
15] and similar adverse outcomes in adulthood, such as mental health disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety), risky substance use, and aggressiveness [
16,
17,
18,
19,
20]. As such, it is believed that CCP is simply a part of the spectrum that is child abuse. Research suggests that child maltreatment or abuse may have an enduring impact on an individual’s self-esteem, increasing vulnerability to future victimisation [
21]. This increased vulnerability has been found in studies showing elevated risk of physical and sexual revictimisation [
21,
22] as well as increased risk of experiencing intimate partner violence victimisation among those with a history of childhood maltreatment [
23,
24]. Research within this field has examined the relationship between childhood maltreatment or abuse and lifetime UWSA victimisation [
21,
22]; however, it is unclear whether this continuing vulnerability is present after experiencing CCP. Vulnerability of CCP appears to be present for verbal and physical victimisation when measured on a single night in the nightlife [
12]. Only one cross-sectional study of university students in Finland was found on CCP and UWSA which showed a positive relationship between a history of CCP and experiencing UWSA in the nightlife environment [
25]. The current exploratory study aims to examine whether this relationship is present for UWSA victimisation among young people attending nightlife settings in Brisbane, Australia.
While the risk of UWSA perpetration in the nightlife is related to personality factors such as masculine norm adherence and trait aggression [
26,
27], it is unclear whether these factors are similarly associated with UWSA victimisation. Laboratory-based research has demonstrated that females and males who do not conform to stereotypical gender roles are more likely to be targets of physical victimisation [
28,
29,
30,
31]. For example, Reidy et al. [
29] found that hypermasculine men were more aggressive toward females who did not adhere to typically feminine gender role norms. As these findings are derived from laboratory-based aggression tasks, it is unclear whether this relationship would be present within the nightlife environment, where there is a high prevalence of UWSA [
2,
3]. Therefore, the current exploratory study aims to examine whether trait aggression proneness or tendency to act physically or verbally aggressive [
32,
33] and adherence or non-adherence to masculine norms of Winning (competitiveness) and Playboy (sexual promiscuity) [
34] are related to UWSA victimisation in the nightlife. As previous research has highlighted a relationship between sexual assault victimisation and some feminine norms [
35], we aimed to evaluate whether adherence to trait aggression and masculine norms, were negatively related to UWSA victimisation.
The Present Study
The current exploratory study aims to explore the associations between experiences of unwanted sexual attention in nightlife environments and experiences of childhood corporal punishment, self-reported rates of trait aggression, and conformity to masculine norms (specifically Playboy and Winning), controlling for age and intoxication. As the influence of trait aggression and masculine norm adherence is expected to differ depending on the victim’s gender, the study aims to assess relationships for females and males separately.
It is hypothesised that:
Unwanted sexual attention victimisation will be positively related to experiences of childhood corporal punishment.
Unwanted sexual attention victimisation will be negatively related to trait aggression and masculine norm conformity.
4. Discussion
The current exploratory study aimed to examine associations between UWSA victimisation in nightlife entertainment districts and experiences of CCP, self-reported rates of trait aggression, and conformity to masculine norms (specifically Playboy and Winning), controlling for age, intoxication, and hour of interview. Contrary to hypotheses, experiences of CCP and the included psychosocial variables were not significantly related to experiencing UWSA in the nightlife environment. A notable finding, however, is that approximately 20% of female patrons, whereas only 5% of male patrons, reported experiencing UWSA on the night they were interviewed.
This study is the first to our knowledge that explores associations between historical experiences of CCP and UWSA victimisation on a single occasion in nightlife settings. Prior literature on this topic suggest childhood punishment impacts the victim’s self-esteem, which may in turn increase their future risk of sexual harassment [
25]. Similar theories are shared in research examining the impact of childhood abuse on intimate partner victimisation, which suggests future victimisation stems from a learned acceptance or tolerance of abusive behaviour over time [
24]. As experiences of nightlife UWSA are commonly perpetrated by individuals not known to the victim [
47,
48,
49], and the current study focused on a single night, it is possible this longer term risk was not present. Rather, simply being present within the nightlife environment puts patrons at increased risk of UWSA, as they were likely exposed to external risk factors, such as overt displays of masculinity, peer dynamics, sex expectations and patron intoxication [
8,
50].
The present exploratory study found that trait aggression and the masculine norms of Winning and Playboy were also not associated with experiences of UWSA, indicating that those who violated traditional gender norms were not more likely to be victimised. As such, the current findings suggest that the measured personality variables are unrelated to sexual victimisation in the nightlife. Previous research has found a relationship between norm violation and victimisation; however, this latter research focused on physical victimisation, specifically in laboratory-based aggression tasks [
29,
30]. As such, it is likely that personality factors of the victim are unrelated to UWSA victimisation in the nightlife. Future research should explore the situational and social factors within the nightlife that place patrons at an increased risk of experiencing UWSA. This finding suggests that rather than focussing on characteristics of victims and what victims can do to prevent victimisation, prevention efforts would be more effective if they focus on perpetrators, venue management and environment to mitigate the risk of patrons experiencing UWSA [
6].
Finally, we found that 20% of females in the current sample experienced UWSA on a single night out compared with only 5% of males. While this disparity may be related to stigma of males reporting sexual victimisation [
51,
52], this high proportion of victimisation in females reflects the large body of literature demonstrating females are at a greater risk of victimisation within the nightlife environment compared with males [
3]. While there is limited evidence regarding effective UWSA prevention interventions [
3], a growing body of literature supports the notion that victimisation may be reduced through managing environmental factors [
53,
54]. For example, research has indicated an association between venue factors such as alcohol promotion and availability, and staff monitoring with nightlife aggression [
54,
55,
56]. Additionally, alcohol supply reduction policies such as outlet density and pricing have been associated with reductions in sexual crimes [
57,
58,
59]. As such, there is a need for venues and governments to utilise these protective factors to introduce effective strategies and policies to reduce incidence of UWSA and mitigate patron harm.
Limitations
The current study was unable to accurately assess whether alcohol consumption was related to UWSA, as BrAC was only recorded at the time of interview, but not at the time of victimisation. Victim intoxication or appearance of intoxication is associated with increased victimisation as perpetrators see the victim as more vulnerable or an easy target [
3]. As it is unclear whether the experiences of UWSA occurred before or after the BrAC recording during street interview, or whether the individuals BrAC were increasing or decreasing, the current study was unable to examine this relationship. Future research examining this relationship should inquire around the approximate time of incident, or conduct matched exit interviews [
60] to better understand how alcohol intoxication may interact with psychosocial and developmental risk factors in experiencing nightlife UWSA. Additionally, the current study was unable to conduct sex-based comparisons due to the low number of men who experienced UWSA. Future research should utilise substantially larger samples to ensure these relationships can be detected and analysed in male samples. Finally, the use of a subset of three items to measure each masculine norm factor in the current study may have impacted results, despite our internal reliability testing and prior research successfully using the same subset of items to measure Playboy and Winning norms [
45].