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26 May 2026

Sexual Touching While Sleeping: Occurrence, Context, Responses, and Perceptions of Sexual Assault Among Undergraduates

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1
Department of Psychology, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USA
2
Mirro Center for Research and Innovation, Fort Wayne, IN 46845, USA
3
Department of Psychology, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI 49401, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sexes2026, 7(2), 26;https://doi.org/10.3390/sexes7020026
This article belongs to the Section Sexual Behavior and Attitudes
Version Notes

Abstract

Sexual consent is central to cases of sexual assault and rape. Logically, sleeping persons cannot consent; yet there has been scant research examining the experience of sexual touching while sleeping. The current research is the first known to specifically examine sexual touching with a sleeping partner, with a goal of understanding the contextual features surrounding, responses to, and perceptions of the legality and acceptability of these behaviors. Undergraduate participants from two universities (N = 724) completed several measures assessing their experience of sexual touching while sleeping, the context, sexual precedence, responses, and their perceptions of such touching. A significant proportion reported waking up to someone touching them sexually (n = 233; 32.2%), including genital touching and penetration, and about one in ten (n = 71; 9.8%) reported completely sleeping through a sexual act. Participants had been touched sexually while sleeping by a range of individuals from spouses to strangers, but it was more common among established sexual partners. Perceptions of legality and acceptability of sexual touching while sleeping were influenced by relationship context and sexual precedence. Meanwhile, immediate, longer-term, and affective responses to specific sexual touching while sleeping incidents varied by both relationship type and sexual precedence. This research provides important avenues for education and prevention efforts, particularly in light of the discordance between perceptions of legality and acceptability and current conceptualizations of consent and legal statutes.

1. Introduction

Sexual assault is a global issue affecting millions of individuals worldwide each year. In the United States (U.S.) alone, approximately one in four women (27%) and one in ten men (8%) have experienced sex assault in their lifetime [1]. Outside of the U.S., the prevalence of sexual assault varies widely by region, sex, and methodology, with reported prevalence of sexual assault since adolescence/adulthood ranging from 0.6–77.6% for women and 0.3–65% for men [2]. College students may be at elevated risk for sexual assault; a recent systematic review and meta-analysis including 131 articles from 21 different countries involving students in higher education showed sexual assault prevalence rates of 17.5% for women, 7.8% for men, and 18.1% for gender-diverse and transgender individuals [3].
Ample data demonstrate that sexual assault is associated with a variety of negative psychological symptoms, including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and generalized psychological distress [4,5,6,7,8]. Hence, sexual violence poses a significant public health concern [9] and has drawn much empirical attention. As research has expanded in the field, contextual details surrounding sexual assault (e.g., types of acts, tactics used, relationship context, and incidents preceding and following the sexual assault) have become foci of recent research. One of the perpetration tactics that has gained attention in the extant literature is the sexual assault of a sleeping partner [10,11,12,13,14]. The few studies that have touched upon this topic have found that sexual touching with sleeping partners does occur, with both the law in many jurisdictions as well as victims perceiving these acts to be sexual coercion, sexual aggression, or sexual assault. However, methodologically, these studies have varied considerably, with some having individuals report on sexual touching while sleeping [13,15], one having individuals describe sexually coercive experiences [12], and another collecting contextual details from women who presented for a sexual assault exam [11]. Moreover, none of the studies specifically queried participants about their perceptions of the legality of these acts nor explored whether this varied by relationship context or sexual precedence. Therefore, in this study, we extend previous work by examining the occurrence of, perceptions of, and reactions to sexual touching while sleeping among undergraduates at two Midwestern universities.

1.1. Sexual Assault: Current Landscape

The limited, existing studies examining sexual touching while sleeping have been embedded within the wider sexual assault literature [10,11,12,13,14]. A robust body of research exists exploring the occurrence of sexual assault and resulting psychological sequelae and also the downstream effects, including the adjudication of reported cases. However, the legal landscape has been mired by changing definitions of rape and sexual assault over the last 50 years, with definitions and methodologies across the national crime and victimization surveys changing due to shifting political and social climates [16]. Within the scientific literature, similar discrepancies exist. For example, Brousseau et al. [17] suggested simply that sexual assault occurs when one or more partners engage in sexual activity despite their unwillingness to engage in said activity. However, across a wide body of research literature, the terms “rape,” “sexual assault,” and “sexual victimization,” have been used to describe a wide range of specific behavioral acts, including sexual touching, fondling, oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse, obtained through a range of tactics, including force or the threat of force, manipulation, pressure, incapacitation through substances, and coercion.
Adding further complexity to the landscape is the wide range of legal definitions of sexual assault endorsed by state and federal jurisdictions. As an example, the criminal justice system for the state of Indiana defines sexual assault as “…knowingly or intentionally having sexual intercourse with another person or knowingly or intentionally causing another person to perform or submit to other sexual conduct when the other person is compelled by force or imminent threat of force, is unaware that the sexual contact is occurring, or is so mentally disabled or deficient that consent to sexual contact cannot be given” [18]. Meanwhile, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the criminal justice system governing the service branches of the United States military, defines several facets of rape and sexual assault, including a sexual act through the use of unlawful force, force likely to cause grievous bodily harm, threatening or placing a person in fear, fraudulent representation, and without/incapable of consent, among other things [19]. Despite the challenges that these differences in definitions present across the fields of psychological research and the criminal justice system, sexual assault generally encompasses nonconsensual sexual activity obtained through force or threats, verbal coercion, and through intoxication or incapacitation, and that is how it will be conceptualized in the current paper.

1.2. Sexual Assault and Consent

Despite varying definitions of sexual assault, it has been well established that consent is central to issues of sexual assault and coercion. Consent encompasses three distinct components: an internal state of willingness to engage in a sexual act, communication of said willingness to their partner(s) through explicit or implicit words or action, and the receipt of those perceptual cues of their partner(s)’ willingness regarding the sexual act [20,21]. Consent interactions do not take place in a vacuum, however, and social constructivism suggests that cultural, relationship, and interaction patterns, and even situational contexts, affect conceptualization and communication of consent [22,23].
Regarding cultural factors, in the wake of the recent #MeToo movement, some U.S. jurisdictions (e.g., California) are adopting affirmative consent laws [24,25] which can be defined as the knowing, voluntary, and mutual decision among all participants involved to engage in sexual activity [26]. Within this affirmative framework, silence or lack of resistance, in and of itself, does not demonstrate consent [26]. However, there are legal risks to wide-scale adoption of affirmative consent in this simplified form [25], and legal analysts have highlighted an opposing position, namely that consent is actually communicated in more subtle, sometimes nonverbal and passive, ways [24]. This aligns with empirical studies wherein individuals report a preference to give and obtain consent via subtle behavioral cues rather than explicit verbal behavior [27,28], and may consider the absence of negative behavior, lack of resistance, or “not saying no” to constitute consent [29,30]. It is clear that despite an understanding of affirmative consent as manifesting from both behavioral and verbal responses, there continues to be potential for ambiguity or misinterpretation of these data by potential sexual partners.
Social constructivism may also underpin gender differences related to consent. For instance, one study showed that men are more likely to use nonverbal communication to convey consent and non-consent, such as body language, while women are more likely to use verbal communication to convey consent, such as explicitly stating that they want to engage in sexual intercourse [20]. Accordingly, men have demonstrated a tendency to look for non-verbal cues from their partner to ascertain non-consent, whereas women tend to utilize a combination of verbal and nonverbal cues from their partners [31]. However, a more recent study by Willis and Smith [32] showed that the most consistent sex difference is feelings and expression of consent, with women reporting less internal and external consent than men for a variety of sexual acts, including oral sex and vaginal–penile sex.
These gender differences in feelings about and communication of consent can lead to misunderstandings among sexual partners, and socialization differences might exacerbate these effects. According to sexual script theory, internalized scripts based on cultural and personal experiences guide behavior, which includes sexual behavior and the communication of consent [33]. Data suggest that men and women are socialized differently with regard to the appropriateness of initiation and communication of interest in sexual activity, which affects the ways in which they communicate and interpret consent cues [34]. Recent research suggests that these gender-based scripts have long included pressures for men to initiate sex and women to passively receive sex [35,36] which can contribute to sexual violence. This is not to suggest that all cases of heterosexual sexual assault result from miscommunication or interpretation based on gender socialization. Indeed, there is much data suggesting that both men and women manifest multiple ways of communicating willingness and refusing sexual encounters, and that these can be successfully received by their sexual partners [29].
In terms of situational contexts, relationship type and previous sexual history between partners may also influence communication of consent and perceptions of sexual assault. The vast majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by acquaintances and intimate partners [23], and data suggest that the presence of a committed relationship with someone is often utilized as a contextual cue for understanding and perceiving consent [37]. Utilizing a vignette in which the hypothetical actors were in a committed versus a casual sexual encounter, Humphrey [38] found that participants were more likely to assume consent was provided when the acts occurred within a committed relationship. Moreover, although recent, some research suggests that mental health (e.g., PTSD) symptoms following sexual assault do not differ based on relationship context [39], other research has shown that relationship context, including partner vs. nonpartner status, does influence mental health symptoms resulting from sexual assault [40,41,42]. Additionally, sexual precedence (i.e., the presence of previous sexual contact with a person) and increased time in a relationship may decrease active consent communication behaviors, increase assumption of consent, and increase reliance on relationship contextual cues as indicators of their partners’ consent [21,43]. Therefore, understanding of consent practices necessarily must include contextual variables, including relationship status and sexual precedence.

1.3. Consent Among Sleeping Persons

Understanding consent is critical to understanding sexual assault. However, across jurisdictions, including state, federal, and tribal justice systems as well as adjudication processes within college/university systems, unconscious persons cannot consent to sexual activity. In the criminal justice system, this is often explicitly noted in the penal code. For example, the Michigan penal code notes that sexual assault occurs when a person “knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless … physically helpless means that the person is unconscious, asleep, or for any other reason is physically unable to communicate unwillingness to an act” [44]. The Uniform Code of Military Justice states that committing a sexual act upon another person “when the person knows or reasonably should know that the other person is asleep, unconscious, or otherwise unaware that the sexual act is occurring” is sexual assault under Article 120 [19]. This is similarly true among most university and college policies under Title IX statutes mandated through the Office of Civil Rights, with institutions noting that if a person is asleep or unconscious, consent for sexual activity cannot be obtained.
While the premise that unconscious people cannot consent seems self-evident, this is far from an undisputed contention. Peterson et al. [14] recently surveyed U.S. prosecuting attorneys as to whether various sexually coercive acts would represent a criminal offense in their state, and approximately 67% indicated that starting sex while a person was asleep would be such an offense. Thus, while there is variability across countries and even states within a country (the U.S. as a representative example), many jurisdictions prosecute sexual assault criminal cases in which one of the participants alleges that sexual contact occurred while they were sleeping. A critical question in these cases appears to be whether or not it is possible to sleep through the precursors, beginnings, or entirety of sexual acts. Here, the sleep literature offers some insight, demonstrating that awakening from sleep is a process, and for some, this process is marked by a period of somnolence (drowsiness or a desire to fall asleep), confusion, and cognitive impairments. In fact, many individuals have marked difficulties in waking up, including more than 90% of adolescents, who are also more likely to report insufficient sleep as they head into adulthood [45]. To date, most of the extant research in this area has focused on sleep inertia, or “a transitional state between sleep and wake, marked by impaired performance, reduced vigilance, and a desire to return to sleep” or sleep drunkenness “a transitional period akin to markedly pronounced sleep inertia” [46]. According to Trotti’s [46] review, performance impairments include effects on cognition, vigilance, reaction time, and mood, and these are especially likely to occur when the person is woken from deep, slow-wave sleep or woken during the biological night or if the person is sleep-deprived or has a mood disorder; however, they can also occur without any of these conditions present.
Considering this marked time of sleepiness and difficulties waking up, it is perhaps not surprising, then, that some individuals report that they have been awoken to a range of sexual acts being performed on them. However, only recently have researchers begun to examine sexual behaviors while a person is sleeping. The most notable of these was a 2021 survey of more than 22,000 United Kingdom women that showed that 51% had woken up to a man performing sex acts on them while they were sleeping [15]. Additionally, Isaacs et al. [11] examined women who presented for a sexual assault forensic exam and found that 12% were asleep when penetrative and non-penetrative acts occurred, although many were intoxicated at the time of the assault. Kern and Peterson [12] asked participants to provide a narrative account of a coercive sexual experience and then, using thematic analyses, placed responses into nonoverlapping categories of coercion. One such category, “the person could not resist or was not given the chance to resist,” indicated that about 4% of participants reported that they could not consent because they were asleep when it was initiated.
Buday and Peterson [10] also tangentially touched on sexual assault while their partner is sleeping in a study designed to examine the convergent validity of two measures commonly used to assess sexual aggression. In this research, two participants described initiating a sexual act while their partner was asleep (not intoxicated from drugs or alcohol), which did not clearly fit within the established measures to assess sexual aggression. More recently, Kern et al. [13] added “starting sex while someone is asleep” as an item in their survey of U.S. adults examining sexual victimization and psychological symptomatology. These researchers found that 35.3% of their samples reported fondling or undressing, and 20.4% reported vaginal intercourse being initiated while they were sleeping. Further, they note “…people may view instances in which they are not given the opportunity to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a sexual experience as relatively more normative than an instance in which they are actively coerced or forced, particularly if it is in the context of an established sexual relationship where sexual consent may be assumed based on sexual precedence” [13] (p. 14). Both Buday and Peterson [10] and Kern et al. [13] conclude that sexual touching while sleeping is an understudied area of sexual assault, and future research should consider including this in assessing victimization of sexual aggression and coercion.

1.4. Current Study

Though previous studies have clearly suggested links between coercion and sexual assault with a sleeping partner [10,11,12,13,14], the current research is designed to better understand the phenomenon and contextual features related to sexual touching while sleeping. To date, there is a dearth of research on sexual acts while sleeping outside of sleep disorders, and no known studies focused exclusively on the experience of sexual touching while sleeping in a non-parasomnia population. This exploratory study is the first known of its kind to specifically examine the experience of sexual touching while sleeping, with a goal of understanding the contextual features surrounding, responses to, and conceptualization of the legality and acceptability of these behaviors with consideration for gender, relationship status, and sexual precedence. As college students, specifically women, are significantly more likely to experience sexual victimization [47] and sexual assault programming is common on college campuses [48], we explored this phenomenon with a university student sample. Because this is a nascent area of research, we had several general research questions, including:
RQ1: To what extent have men and women experienced various acts of sexual touching while sleeping and within which relationship contexts has sexual touching while sleeping occurred?
RQ2: What are the contexts surrounding and responses (i.e., immediate, longer-term, and affective) to specific incidents of sexual touching while sleeping, and do these vary by relationship context (partner vs. nonpartner)?
RQ3: What are the general perceptions of the legality and acceptability of sexual touching while sleeping, and do these perceptions vary by sexual precedence or relationship context of those involved?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Participants

Participants were 724 adults recruited from psychology department subject pools at two universities (n = 413 from University A, and n = 311 from University B) in the Midwestern United States. To be eligible, participants were required to be at least 18 years of age at the time of the study and reported a history of at least one romantic partner. From the original sample of 753, 29 participants were excluded because they did not meet the validation criteria. Of these excluded participants, 18 were excluded because they completed less than 50% of the survey and 3 were excluded for completing the survey in under 5 min. Additionally, 8 were excluded for failing the validity check delivered after the sexual touching while sleeping questions, wherein participants had to indicate (yes or no) whether they had ever walked from New Jersey to Los Angeles in one hour.

2.2. Procedure

We conducted a cross-sectional survey study with two independent samples of college students, which were combined into a single analytic sample. All procedures and methods were reviewed and approved by the IRB at the university associated with the first author. Participants were recruited through an online research portal for introductory psychology students, which advertised a study on “Sexual Behavior Among Adults,” and interested participants were provided an anonymous link to the online survey website that used encryption to maintain confidentiality, including disabling IP address collection. Following completion of the online informed consent document, participants were provided a survey containing several measures. At the conclusion of the study, participants were provided with the names and contact information of the principal investigators, as well as local and national resources supporting victims of sexual assault. Participants were allowed to skip questions and were granted one research credit for their participation.

2.3. Measures

As part of a larger study, participants completed a variety of measures related to their dating and sexual history, sleep and sexual experiences, perceptions related to sexual behavior, and personality and relationship characteristics. These survey items were developed based on prior literature on sexual violence, providing conceptual grounding for the constructs. Face validity was established through review by the authors, who are subject-matter experts in sexual violence and forensic psychology research. The measures relevant to the current study are listed below.

2.3.1. Demographics

Participants indicated their age, gender, race, and ethnicity.

2.3.2. Soundness of Sleep

Participants were asked about their soundness of sleep with two brief, targeted questions developed for this study that align with questions individuals might face during investigation or adjudication regarding their ease/difficulty in being roused prior to being awoken by sexual touching. We asked, “How sound of a sleeper would you consider yourself?” with response options of 1 = Light sleeper (I wake easily), 2 = moderate sleeper (moderately easy to wake up), and 3 = heavy/deep sleeper (it is difficult to wake me up). We also asked, “How often have you woken up to find that your clothes have been removed by a sexual partner, but you didn’t wake up when they were being removed?” with response options of 0 = never to 4 = very often. For those who indicated they had clothes removed, they were asked, “What clothing items had been removed?” and asked to select all that apply.

2.3.3. Occurrence of Sexual Touching While Sleeping

To examine the occurrence of sexual behaviors performed upon respondents while sleeping, we developed general questions including “How often have you been woken up by a person touching you sexually?” and “How often have you completely slept through a person touching you sexually?” and provided a Likert scale response option (0 = never to 4 = very often). To measure the occurrence of sexual touching by the respondent while they were sleeping, we asked a single item: “How often have you completely slept through yourself touching another person sexually?” (0 = never to 4 = very often). All responses for these items were also dichotomized into 0 = never experienced and 1 = had experienced.
For those who responded that they had completely slept through a person touching them sexually (i.e., a response of more than never), they were asked “How did you find out they touched you sexually?” Answer options included: They told me, Someone else told me, I felt different the next day and figured it out, I saw a video/photo, Other (please explain). Participants selected all that applied.
Sexual Acts Involved and Relationship Contexts of Sexual Touching While Sleeping
Those who had experienced sexual touching while sleeping indicated what specific sexual act(s) they had woken up to and within what types of relationships the sexual touching while sleeping occurred (participants selected all that applied for each).

2.3.4. Specific Past Experience of Sexual Touching While Sleeping

To more narrowly assess the context and impact of specific experiences, we asked individuals to “Think about your most recent partner by whom you were touched sexually while you were sleeping. Think back to the first time this happened.”
Context
Regarding context, respondents were first asked to indicate the relationship context within which this occurred (i.e., spouse, committed relationship partner, ongoing casual sex partner, one-time casual sex partner, stranger/“one-night stand,” or stranger). They were then asked about the relationship length (in days) prior to this first occurrence and how many times they had sex with that partner prior to the incident. Participants were also asked about the immediate context before they fell asleep (i.e., “Prior to falling asleep before this incident, please indicate all that occurred”) and were able to select all answers that applied.

2.3.5. Immediate Responses and Longer-Term Responses

To measure responses to the sexual touching while sleeping incident, participants were asked “What happened when you woke up?” (immediate response) and “After you were woken up to sexual touching by this partner, what did you do?” (longer-term response). Participants were provided with response options and were able to select all that apply. Regarding emotional responses, participants were asked “How did you feel when you were woken up to a sexual act the first time by this partner?” and were provided a scale from 0–100 and the options of six emotions (i.e., angry, sad, anxious/worried, calm, happy, and sexually aroused). For this question, participants used a slider bar that defaulted to 0; therefore, all responses with no slider bar response were coded as 0.

2.3.6. Perceptions of Legality and Acceptability of Sexual Touching While Sleeping

All participants were asked “Consider the situation where touches a casual sex partner in a sexual way while they are sleeping and starts to initiate sexual activity. Rate your agreement with the following: “and then they were provided with five statements about the legality (3 questions) and acceptability (2 questions) of this scenario. For acceptability, these questions focused on sexual precedence, and specifically the recency (within a day or ever) of consensual sexual activity. They were then provided the same scenario and response options for a committed relationship partner. Participants responded using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).

2.4. Analysis Plan

Prior to addressing our research questions, we first computed descriptive statistics to characterize the sample and conducted Chi-square analyses examining whether our soundness of sleep measures were associated with reports of sexual touching while sleeping. We then computed descriptive statistics for the occurrence of sexual touching while sleeping, as well as the specific acts and relationship contexts involved, with the whole sample and separately for men and women (RQ1). Again, Chi-square analyses were used to determine whether the occurrence of sexual touching while sleeping differed significantly for men and women. We then computed descriptive statistics for participants’ specific past experiences of sexual touching while sleeping (RQ2), focusing on the last partner by whom individuals had been sexually touched while sleeping. For these analyses, we focused only on those who had indicated they had been touched sexually by someone while they were sleeping (n = 173) and examined the relationship context within which the touching occurred, the immediate context prior to falling asleep, and responses (immediate, longer term, and affective) based on partner vs. nonpartner status. Independent samples t-tests were used to determine whether affective responses varied by relationship status. Finally, to address RQ3, we computed descriptive statistics for the legality and acceptability vignette using paired-sample t-tests to uncover differences between the casual sex and committed partner scenarios. Additionally, we used a repeated-measures ANOVA to examine whether the association between sexual precedence and relationship status affected perceptions of acceptability of sexual touching while sleeping.

3. Results

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for the demographic and soundness of sleep measures. Most individuals were moderately heavy sleepers, and a small minority (7.8%) reported sleeping through the removal of any item of clothing. Chi-square analyses showed that self-perceived soundness of sleep was not related to having ever being awoken to sexual touching (χ2 (2, N = 719) = 4.11, p = 0.13) or sleeping entirely through a sexual act (χ2 (2, N = 717) = 0.50, p = 0.78). However, comparing those who did and did not sleep through having clothing items removed, those who had slept through clothing removal were significantly more likely to report being woken by sexual touching while sleeping (χ2 (1, N = 717) = 46.75, p < 0.001) and sleeping entirely through a sexual act (χ2 (2, N = 716) = 75.37, p < 0.001).
Table 1. Sample Characteristics Including Demographic Characteristics and Sleep Soundness Measures.

3.1. General Past Experiences Related to Sexual Touching While Sleeping

Regarding RQ1, we examined men and women’s past experiences of sexual touching while sleeping and the contextual details surrounding those incidents. As shown in Table 2, nearly one third of the total sample had been woken up by a person touching them sexually, one in ten had completely slept through a person touching them sexually, and a small minority even reported that they had sexually touched someone else while they (themselves) had been sleeping. The most common sexual acts participants slept through were sexual touching of non-genitals, sexual touching of genitals, and penile–vaginal penetration. Regarding relationship context, almost one-fourth of the sample had been sexually touched while sleeping by a committed relationship partner, whereas relatively few reported ever being sexually touched while sleeping by a stranger or stranger/one night stand. Chi-square analyses showed that there were no significant differences between men and women in their reports of being woken by sexual touching (χ2 (1, N = 700) = 0.18, p = 0.67) or sleeping entirely through sexual acts (χ2 (1, N = 698) = 0.49, p = 0.48); however, men were more likely than women to report sleeping through the perpetration of sexual touching (χ2 (1, N = 699) = 4.57, p = 0.03). Meanwhile, independent samples t-tests showed no significant differences between men and women (all ps > 0.09) in the frequency of these incidents (Woken up to sexual touching, Men M = 1.45, SD = 0.77, Women M = 1.50, SD = 0.83; Slept through someone sexually touching them, Men M = 1.15, SD = 0.47, Women M = 1.13, SD = 0.48; and Slept through sexually touching someone else, Men M = 1.11, SD = 0.44, Women M = 1.06, SD = 0.33).
Table 2. Occurrence of and Contextual Details Surrounding Different Types of Sexual Touching While Sleeping.
Among the 71 individuals who indicated they had completed slept through someone sexually touching them, 44 indicated they found out about it because the person who had touched them told them, 9 stated they felt different the next day and figured it out, 5 stated another person told them, 1 saw a photo or video, and 17 indicated they found out about it another way, including waking up during an act, waking up with no clothes on, and waking up to someone’s hands in their pants (Note: individuals were able to select all that applied).

3.2. Contexts Surrounding and Responses Related to Sexual Touching While Sleeping

Regarding RQ2, participants reported a wide array of relationship categories for the last person who had sexually touched them while they were sleeping, including spouses (n = 12, 6.9%), committed relationship partners (n = 116, 67.1%), ongoing casual sex partners (n = 15, 8.7%), one-time casual sex partners (n = 10, 5.8%), stranger/“one night stand” (n = 5, 2.9%), and stranger (n = 14, 8.1%). They reported being with that person for an average of 260.00 days (SD = 365.42, range = 0–2782) prior to being touched sexually while sleeping; though 17/167 (10.2%) reported being with that person for 0 days, and an additional 8/167 (4.8%) reported being with that person for only 1 day. On average, they had engaged in sexual behavior with that person 51.89 times (SD = 100.04, range = 0–720) prior to being woken up to sexual touching; however, some (24/167, 14.4%) had never engaged in sexual behavior with that person prior to being woken up to sexual touching.
Prior to falling asleep before this incident, many of the participants had either engaged in sexual acts with the person or made or received sexual advances (see Table 3), with many (48.8%) reporting engaging in sexual behavior with that person and then stopping, having a conversation about engaging in sex (26.2%), or having sexual behavior initiated by the other person (20.9%) or themselves (9.3%). As Table 3 shows, as opposed to those touched by partners, those who were touched by nonpartners were more likely to report having rejected the other’s sexual advances and less likely to report having engaged in sexual conversation or sexual behavior prior to falling asleep.
Table 3. Contexts and Responses to Sexual Touch While Sleeping Incident.
With regard to their immediate behavioral responses to being touched sexually while sleeping, most participants indicated that they did not stop the activity and either started actively participating (57.0%) or just allowed the person to finish (17.4%). See Table 3. A lesser number indicated they resisted the activity in some way, such as immediately telling them to stop (11.6% stopped and 8.7% didn’t stop) or getting out of bed or removing themselves from the situation (6.4%). Meanwhile, after the incident occurred, individuals exhibited very different longer-term cognitive and behavioral responses. Many thought it was not a big deal (41.3%) or told their partner they liked it or wanted it again (39.5%). Others had more negative responses, telling the person they did not want it again (7.0%) or perceiving it to be a sexual assault (7.0%). Finally, in terms of disclosure of the event to others outside of their partner, many indicated they did not tell anyone about the incident (23.3%), but some told friends (10.5%), family members (2.3%), and some even made a report to authorities (1.7%). Here again, differences emerged between those touched by partners and nonpartners, with those who were touched by nonpartners less likely to react by actively participating and more likely to react by telling the person to stop or by removing themselves from the bed/situation. Additionally, those touched by nonpartners were less likely to think it was not a big deal, less likely to tell their partners they wanted it again, and more likely to tell others about the incident (i.e., friends, parents, family members, or authorities) as well as tell no one about the incident.
Finally, there were significant differences in affective responses to being awoken by sexual touching varying by both relationship type (partner vs. nonpartner). Independent samples t-tests showed that the first time individuals were sexually touched while sleeping by a nonpartner (as compared to a partner) they reported significantly greater negative emotionality (i.e., anger, sadness, and anxiousness/worry) and significantly less positive emotionality (i.e., calmness, happiness, and sexual arousal). See Table 4.
Table 4. Affective Responses to First Time Being Touched Sexually While Sleeping by Relationship Type.

3.3. Perceptions of Legality and Acceptability of Sexual Touching While Sleeping

As shown in Table 5, average responses hovered around the midpoint of the scale (i.e., 4), with responses trending towards disagreement that sexual touching while sleeping was illegal and considered sexual assault, and trending towards agreement that it is acceptable based on sexual precedence between the individuals. To provide more context to these averages, we dichotomized the data using the midpoint of the scale to determine how many individuals agreed with the statements. Averaged across both relationship contexts, a minority agreed that sexual touching while sleeping was a rights violation (172/724, 23.8%) or a form of sexual assault (134/724, 18.5%), and even fewer thought it should be illegal (83/724, 11.5%). Meanwhile, averaged across both relationship contexts, 29.0% (210/724) agreed that sexual touching while sleeping was acceptable if the partners ever had sex, and 50.0% (340/724) agreed sexual touching while sleeping was acceptable if the partners had consensual sex recently, within a day or two of the incident.
Table 5. Perceptions of Legality and Acceptability based on Relationship Status of Individual Initiating Sexual Touching While Sleeping.
Perceptions of legality and acceptability of sexual touching while sleeping were influenced by relationship context and sexual precedence of those in the scenario. Specifically, paired-samples t-tests showed that the scenario in which the individual was being woken by sexual activity by a casual sex partner (as compared to a committed relationship partner) was significantly more likely to be rated a violation of the other person’s rights, a form of sexual assault, and an action which should be illegal (see Table 5). Additionally, participants rated sexual touching while sleeping more acceptable with sexual precedence in the committed relationship as compared to the casual sex relationship context. A repeated measures ANOVA showed main effects for relationship type (F (696, 1) = 55.66, p < 0.001) and sexual precedence (F (696, 1) = 180.09, p < 0.001) for ratings of acceptability of being awoken by sexual activity. There was also a significant interaction effect between sexual precedence and relationship type (F (696, 1) = 29.71, p < 0.001), such that in casual sexual relationships, the recency of the previous sexual activity mattered more than it did for committed relationships. More specifically, as shown in Table 5, more recent sexual activity was associated with a greater increase in acceptability for casual sex partners than for committed sex partners.

4. Discussion

Sexual violence is common [1,2,3] and has a variety of negative psychological consequences [4,5,6,7,8]. A handful of researchers have examined sexual activity with a sleeping partner within the context of violent, coercive, and/or illegal behavior [10,11,12,13,14]; however, this is the first study to systematically evaluate sexual touching while sleeping, the contexts in which it occurs, and perceptions of this behavior as a function of relationship context and sexual precedence. The results of this investigation suggest that sexual activity with a sleeping partner is common: approximately one-third of our sample of undergraduates from two Midwestern universities indicated they had been sexually touched while sleeping, most often by a committed partner. Different types of sexual touching were reported, including non-genital and genital touching, as well as penile–vaginal penetration. Thus, it is clear that a range of sexual behaviors can, and do, happen to individuals while they are sleeping.
Our findings that 32.2% of our American undergraduate sample had awoken to sexual touching while sleeping align fairly well with the statistics reported by Kern et al., [13] (i.e., 35.3% of their U.S. adult sample reported waking to fondling or undressing, and 20.4% reported waking to intercourse) and by Taylor and Shrive [15] (i.e., 51% of British women had woken up to a man performing sex acts on them). Notably, the occurrence of sexual touching while sleeping in our sample did not vary significantly by gender, except for the perpetration of sexual touching while the perpetrator was sleeping, which men reported engaging in significantly more than women. Therefore, although generally more women than men report being victims of sexual assault [1,2,3] men and women use and interpret consent cues differently [20,31,32] and men and women adhere to different sexual scripts [35,36], these gender-related effects did not generalize to being on the receiving end of sexual touching while sleeping.
Regarding specific contexts and reactions to sexual touching while sleeping, many of those who reported sexual touching while sleeping had been engaging, resisting, or discussing sexual behavior prior to the incident. This is an important finding, as it suggests that clear communication regarding affirmative consent, which is gaining traction in legal jurisdictions [24,25] might be especially important in those circumstances wherein some sexual behavior, discussion, or resistance occurs before sleep. Moreover, it points to potential education topics for sexual violence prevention programming (e.g., that sexual acts or discussions before sleep could increase potential for sexual touching while sleeping).
In line with previous work suggesting that sexual precedence and length of relationship increase consent assumptions [21,43] our data suggested that the context and impact of sexual touching varied significantly by relationship context and sexual precedence. The vast majority of individuals reported a committed, longer-term relationship context as well as sexual precedence prior to the manifestation of sexual touching while they were sleeping. Regular relationship partners also reported more reciprocated active participation, greater desire for reoccurrence, more positive feelings (e.g., sexual arousal), and fewer negative feelings (e.g., anxious/worried), suggesting that in established relationships, initiating sexual behavior while a partner is sleeping may be received in a much more positive way than in nonpartnerships. Certainly, sexual behavior and sexual communication in relationships are complex, and it may be that one partner believes initiating sexual behavior while a partner is sleeping could have a relationship-enhancing effect. However, there were also many individuals in established partnerships who did not welcome the sexual touching while sleeping and asked their partners to stop. This emphasizes the importance of explicit conversations about boundaries—the communication and receipt aspects of consent communication [20,21]—even within established couples. Notably, in casual sexual encounters, sexual touching while sleeping resulted in more negative and less positive reactions, including reporting the incident to family, friends, and authorities, exemplifying that these may be perceived as unwanted and/or illegal sexual contacts in nonpartner situations. This conceptualization aligns with research that has characterized sexual touching while sleeping as sexual violence/sexual assault [11,13,15]. Typical behavioral responses aligned with this notion; in incidents with nonpartners, few individuals indicated they reciprocated the sexual contact, and a good number asked their partner to stop or removed themselves from the situation. Overall, this pattern of results suggests that with regard to sexual touching of a sleeping partner, relationship context is critically important. This is another opportunity for future sexual violence prevention programming.
Our data also provide novel insight into perceptions of the legality and acceptability of sexual touching while sleeping. Consistent with the conclusions of Kern and Peterson [12], participants did not de facto perceive sexual touching while sleeping as sexually coercive or violent, which increases the likelihood that it is not reported in traditional sexual assault research. In fact, fewer than one-fourth of our undergraduate participants agreed that sexual touching while sleeping (averaged across both relationship contexts) was a rights violation or a form of sexual assault, and only about one in ten agreed it should be illegal. Moreover, many individuals agreed that it was acceptable with sexual precedence, with almost a third agreeing that sexual touching while sleeping was acceptable if the partners ever had sex and half agreeing sexual touching while sleeping was acceptable if the partners had consensual sex recently. These perceptions also varied by relationship context, with sexual touching while sleeping perceived as less likely to be a rights violation, sexual assault, and illegal and more acceptable in noncommitted sexual encounters as opposed to committed sexual encounters. Again, this speaks to the complexity of sexual communication and interactions between individuals, and the role that sexual precedence plays in the evaluation of said behaviors [43]. Clearly, additional research is necessary in order to understand these nuances, even in couples in established relationships and with some sexual precedence.
This pattern of results aligns with beliefs regarding the initiation of sexual behavior and consent and the absence of an overt “no” as indicative of consent to sex [29,30]. It also echoes recent research by Peterson et al. [14] which found that although the majority of prosecuting attorneys agreed that touching a sleeping person would represent a criminal offense, some noted that “(It depends on) the type of relationship and if this is a form of dominance or control in the relationship” and others reported that initiation of sexual contact while a partner is sleeping is not a crime. However, these results also need to be interpreted with consideration of the current state of the law, which, in many jurisdictions (e.g., U.S. Military, Indiana, and Michigan) prohibits engaging in sexual behavior with individuals who cannot consent. The incongruence between legal statutes and individual perceptions is important to explore in more depth, not only for the sake of preventing sexual assault, but also in helping couples navigate their sexual encounters in ways that allow for novelty and spontaneity while still respecting their partners’ right to consent to sexual activity.
Despite these general trends, it is worth noting that a small minority of participants reported that they had little/no sexual precedence or had not been in an established relationship with the person who touched them sexually while sleeping. Given the data on sexual precedence and consent behavior [43] indicating that consent behavior tends to be more explicitly communicated for newer relationships with less sexual precedence, it would be important to understand the manifestation of these behaviors within these situations. These data suggest the need for continued sexual violence prevention education with regard to sexual contact while a person is sleeping, particularly for those with little/no sexual or relationship history but also for those in established sexual relationships. Additionally, researchers and practitioners should continue to consider how sexual contact while sleeping is conceptualized by couples, particularly in light of the potentially discordant nature of typical consent practices and legal statutes.
Applying the social constructivist lens to these findings adds both clarity and complexity to the issue. While social constructivism aligns with continuous adaptations in perceptions of sexual consent based on shifts in cultural norms [22,23], discordance between young adults’ behaviors and perceptions and affirmative consent laws and consent programming creates a competing tension between real-world action and potential consequences. Moreover, sexual precedence and relationship context are nuances within this ecosystem of action that add situational context to the discordance. Our findings emphasize that individuals’ beliefs and scripts regarding appropriate sexual activity are embedded within relationship contexts, and decisions to engage in sexual activity do not necessarily align with current legal statutes. Instead, social ties and situational contexts affect consent perceptions and sexual behavior, mirroring broader societal scripts on sexual access within relationships and inferred consent [49].

4.1. Limitations

This research is the first known of its kind and provides an important contribution to the understanding of consent and sexual assault. However, these results should be interpreted in light of their limitations. First, the sample of participants was relatively homogeneous in terms of age, racial/ethnic identity, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The nature of the sample prevented additional analyses on how experience and perceptions of sexual contact while asleep may vary as a function of age, sexuality, race, culture, or romantic relationship history, and importantly, the intersection of these variables. As an example, the sample was composed mainly of young adults recruited exclusively from two universities in the Midwestern U.S., who self-selected into the study for course credit and may have had conceptions about sexuality, relationships, and sexual violence that are particular to this population; these findings may not generalize to other populations. Additionally, this research was cross-sectional, involved only one partner, and relied exclusively on self-reported measures. Although we were careful to frame the research as a study examining sexual behaviors, it is possible that participants would respond in a socially desirable manner or minimize their own experiences related to sexual activity to which they did not explicitly consent.
Also, while outside the scope of this paper, we did not explore specific instances of the perpetration of sexual touching while sleeping, which may be important given the emerging field of sexsomnia [50,51,52,53] in which a person may be sleeping at the time of initiation of the sexual contact. Similarly, because the focus of this paper was to examine the generalized prevalence of sexual touching while sleeping, we did not assess sleep disorders, including parasomnia and confusional arousal disorders. Future research would be needed to further explore how sexual touching is differentiated in these contexts. Alcohol blackouts and alcohol use were also not analyzed in this study. As alcohol consumption is related to both sexual activity and consent [54,55,56], it would be important to conduct more in-depth analyses of the role of alcohol in these experiences. Finally, because this research is seminal, we used experimenter-derived measures for soundness of sleep and sexual touching while sleeping. Future studies could use validated measures of sleep soundness; however, our measures were designed to be contextually driven to understand the incidence, behavioral features, and surrounding circumstances of sexual assault while sleeping. Thus, it represents the first step and a useful launching point for expanding this line of research and developing standardized ways in which to measure these behaviors.

4.2. Future Directions

Whilst our data provide an initial, exploratory examination of the occurrence of sexual contact with a sleeping person, future research is needed to continue to understand the nuances of coercion, contextual control, and gender in instances of sexual touching and sexual assault while sleeping. Two areas that were touched upon but not central foci of our study were the effects of sleep characteristics and gender on the experience of sexual touching while sleeping. Our preliminary analyses provided some evidence that at least some sleep characteristics (i.e., ability to sleep through clothing being removed) are associated with a greater frequency of sleeping through sexual touching. Thus, individuals who are able to sleep this soundly may be more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, and exploring this topic with consideration for other sleep characteristics and disorders is a promising line of research. Additionally, men and women did not differ in the occurrence of waking up to or sleeping through sexual touching; however, larger samples including more men and individuals who identify as transgender may help to elucidate gender differences in the contexts surrounding and responses to specific incidents of sexual touching while sleeping. Finally, this study assessed perceptions of sexual touching and did not assess the presence of initiation behaviors for sexual contact. An important area for future research is to better understand the behavior and perceptions of those who touch a sleeping partner. Specifically, given the research on the cues involved in consenting practices [20,21] the potential for subtle “non-no” cues from a partner [29,30], and decreased explicit consent in established relationships [21,43], it may be that the “perpetrator” was unable to detect their partner’s sleeping state. This would be important to examine in the context of sleep inertia [46], in that a person may engage in behaviors that imply wakefulness and are interpreted as indicators of consent by their partner. The research needs to elucidate various aspects of sexual contact while sleeping, including possible cues that partners, particularly in established relationships, may attend to as indicative of wakefulness and consent.
Collectively, this work has potential implications for campus health educators and counselors, who may consider providing information and support on different perceptions of sexual touching while sleeping and how these perceptions might be shaped by relationship context and sexual precedence. Moreover, as laws may not always align with perceptions, campus and organizational policies may need to adopt specific language regarding sexual touching while sleeping, keeping in mind that the majority of our sample touched by partners while sleeping started actively participating and nearly half told their partner they wanted it again. Indeed, it appeared to be a positive experience for many of our young adult college students, and this needs to be further explored in terms of healthy sexual expression in couples.

5. Conclusions

The dichotomy of the reactions to sexual touching while sleeping is striking. Although some individuals may have experiences where sexual touching while sleeping is received positively by an established partner, this is not always the case, and those same reactions do not seem to translate to a nonpartner (e.g., a one-night stand). In fact, the reactions of the sleeping person may be far from positive and instead swing in the opposite direction, with those awoken by sexual touching while sleeping leaving the bed or removing themselves from the situation and experiencing anger, fear, and worry. This duality, coupled with the research that suggests that verbal consent decreases as a function of sexual precedence [43], presents a potential divide between the practices of sexual behavior of some individuals within established sexual relationships and legal statutes. Sexual violence prevention programming should incorporate these findings; it is critical that individuals understand that some people consider sexual touching while sleeping to be a form of sexual assault. These adverse perceptions, coupled with legal statutes in most jurisdictions that explicitly define sexual touching while sleeping as sexual assault, present an urgent need to better understand and educate individuals on how these behaviors may manifest, how they may be perceived by sexual partners, and the potential discordance between common perceptions, behaviors, and the law.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.D. and T.C.; methodology, M.D. and T.C.; formal analysis, M.D. and T.C.; investigation, M.D. and T.C.; resources, M.D. and T.C.; data curation, M.D. and T.C.; writing—original draft preparation, M.D. and T.C.; writing—review and editing, M.D. and T.C.; visualization, M.D. and T.C.; supervision, M.D. and T.C.; project administration, M.D. and T.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Purdue University (protocol IRB-2022-1019 on 15 August 2022).

Data Availability Statement

The data will be made available by the authors on request.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Raina Alvarez and Blake Richards, who assisted in the formatting of this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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