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Sexual Assault on College Hookups: The Role of Alcohol and Acquaintances

Article  in  Sociological Forum · March 2017

DOI: 10.1111/socf.12335

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Sociological Forum, Vol. 32, No. 2, June 2017
DOI: 10.1111/socf.12335
© 2017 Eastern Sociological Society

Sexual Assault on College Hookups: The Role of Alcohol and

Acquaintances*
Jessie V. Ford1

This article takes a new approach to the study of college sexual assault by conducting an analysis of female
students’ most recent “hookup.” By isolating a particular hookup event and examining the features of that
event, I am able to examine predictors of sexual assault during hookups. My analysis focuses on the implica-
tions of alcohol consumption and knowing a male partner before a hookup, while controlling for multiple
individual, school, and situational characteristics, using data from the Online College Social Life Survey col-
lected 2005–2011. In my sample, 2.4% of women experienced sexual assault during their most recent
hookup. Results show women do not experience an increased risk of physically forced intercourse until they
have consumed nine or more drinks. In addition, women were more likely to report sexual assault during a
hookup with a man they did not know well. Together, these findings suggest that men are more likely to
assault women who are drunk, possibly because the double standard has made them respect such women less,
or because they target women who are likely unable to resist or recall what happened. It also appears that
the “in-network stranger” may be the individual most dangerous to women in college hookups.

KEY WORDS: acquaintances; alcohol; deviance; gender; hooking up; sexual assault.

INTRODUCTION

Sexual assault of women on college campuses is currently of pressing concern

in the United States. Research indicates campuses may not be the Ivory Tower safe
havens that the public once perceived them to be but environments that pose sub-
stantial risks for sexual assault (Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney 2006). The
term sexual assault is often used in research to describe completed nonconsensual
sexual intercourse involving force or incapacitation (Armstrong and Budnick 2015;
Dijulio et al. 2015). Based on this definition, an estimated 14%–26% of women
report experiencing sexual assault sometime during college (Armstrong and Bud-
nick 2015; Ford and Soto-Marquez 2016; Krebs et al. 2007).
Participation in “hookups” is predictive of having experienced sexual assault
since the beginning of college (Dijulio et al. 2015; Flack 2007; Sutton and Simons
2015). The term hooking up is somewhat ambiguous, but students generally under-
stand it to mean any form of sexual activity, ranging from kissing to intercourse,
that occurs outside of a romantic relationship with no necessary assumption of
future contact (Bogle 2008). Research on the hookup scene has exploded in recent
years and suggests it is a part of college life in which a majority of students

* The author would like to thank Paula England for her support in putting together this paper. The
author would also like to thank David Greenberg, Mike Hout, Florencia Torche, and classmates for
their encouragement and feedback on the ideas presented here.
1
Department of Sociology, New York University, 295 Lafayette Street, 4th Floor, New York, New
York 10012; e-mail: jvford@nyu.edu.

381
382 Ford

participate. Hookups constitute an important site where college students have sex
and where sexual assault sometimes happens. As a site of sexual assault, hookups
have been studied qualitatively (Armstrong et al. 2006; Littleton et al. 2009; Swee-
ney 2011) but not quantitatively. In a related study, Flack et al. (2007) found that
78% of unwanted sex reported by college students occurred during hookups,
although the study did not collect data on the nature of the hookup. To my knowl-
edge, no study has directly examined risk factors for sexual assault during a
hookup. This lacunae exists despite the fact that many studies have examined sexual
assault “at some point” during college (Abbey et al. 2014; Dijulio, Norton et al.
2015). Given the prevalence of hooking up on campus, quantitative research is
needed to understand which factors increase the likelihood of sexual assault during
hookups.
College hookups usually involve drinking alcohol before or during the hookup.
Research shows that drinking is frequently involved in college sexual assaults and that
men and women who regularly drink are at higher risk for sexual assault perpetration
and victimization, respectively (for an overview, see Abbey et al. 2014). A few studies
have conducted an event-level or incident-level analysis of sexual victimization con-
cluding that alcohol use during a sexual event increases the likelihood of unprotected
or coerced sex (Neal and Carey 2007; Patrick and Maggs 2009; Scaglione et al. 2014).
However, these studies combine all sorts of events. To date, no study has examined
college hookups to determine how changes in alcohol consumption during the hookup
affect the likelihood of sexual assault during such encounters.
Prior research shows that sexual assault is more common with an acquain-
tance—a man whom a woman knows, rather than with a total stranger (Fisher,
Daigle, and Cullen 2010; Krebs et al. 2007). This is probably because men have
more of an opportunity to sexually assault women whom they know since they
have more access to them socially (i.e., as their friends, dates, boyfriends, etc.)
(Cohen and Felson 1979). While it is documented that most college women are sex-
ually assaulted by men whom they know, in this study my intent is to dig deeper
into this finding—to assess whether knowing a partner matters in the context of a
hookup. Once a heterosexual pair is already involved in a hookup, I want to know
whether a woman is more or less likely to experience a sexual assault if she does
not know her partner well.
Hookups provide a unique context to examine this question because hook-
ups do not always happen with acquaintances. Hookups sometimes occur with
men whom women do not know well (Ford, England, and Bearak 2015). For
example, Paul, McManus, and Hayes (2000) found a third of students reported
that, at least once, they had sexual intercourse with a stranger or brief acquain-
tance during a hookup. Also, many women report being at parties prior to hook-
ups (Fielder et al. 2013). This feature of hookups affects who hooks up with
whom. At a large college party, women may know some people very well (e.g.,
friends she attended with), some more distantly, and some not at all. Once men
and women are present at the same social function, all men have access to all
women, even if they were strangers before that evening. In the context of hook-
ups, I will investigate whether knowing a partner well lessens or heightens the
risk of sexual assault.
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 383

HOOKING UP AND GENDER INEQUALITY

The term hooking up, which gained popularity in the 1990s, is a relatively recent
phenomenon in the United States (Bogle 2008). Hookups reflect new social scripts
that have replaced or exist alongside traditional notions of dating. Hooking up is
common on college campuses; between 70%–75% of students report participating
in at least one hookup by their senior year of college (England, Shafer, and Fogarty
2007; Hamilton and Armstrong 2009).
Research suggests the college hookup scene may perpetuate gender inequality
(Dijulio et al. 2015; England et al. 2007). While hookups appear to be a gender
egalitarian endeavor, compared to men, women are more prone to emotional dis-
tress after hookups due their greater desire for a romantic relationship, an enduring
sexual double standard where women are judged more harshly for sexual behavior,
and pressure from men to go further than they want sexually (Allison and Risman
2013; Hamilton and Armstrong 2009; Heldman and Wade 2010; Owen et al. 2010).
Qualitative data show that college men sort women into types of women (e.g., sluts,
girlfriend material, etc.) through interactions during hookups and use these cate-
gories to decide if she “deserves” respect (Ray and Rosow 2010; Sweeney 2014).
Such categorizations, which draw on sexist stereotypes, may be related to sexual
assault. Studies of convicted male rapists, for example, have identified links between
sexist labeling and rape perpetration (Scully 2013). When describing their crimes,
rapists often claim that women signaled to them that they wanted to have sex
through their actions (i.e., “she was asking for it”). These beliefs by rapists (1)
served to legitimize violent impulses toward women and (2) drew upon sexist dis-
course familiar to any American (Schwalbe et al. 2000). Research suggests male
perpetrators in college settings may use similar justifications (Lisak and Miller
2002), although more research is needed to understand how college men’s catego-
rization of women relates to sexual assault perpetration.

THE ROLE OF ALCOHOL

Alcohol use is a very common prelude to hookups among college students.

Women consume a median of four drinks before or during a hookup (England et al.
2007). Studies combining sexual assaults of college women in all kinds of events have
found that between 50% and 75% of sexual assault incidents involve alcohol con-
sumption by the survivor, perpetrator, or both (Abbey et al. 2014; Dijulio et al.
2015), but these are not prospective studies that compare how likely assault is in
events with no, moderate, and high levels of drinking. Other studies also demonstrate
a strong association between alcohol and sexual assault, but they typically ask
respondents about general alcohol use and whether they have “ever” experienced sex-
ual assault, rather than whether they drank during a recent sexual encounter. For
example, Mohler-Kuo et al. (2004) found that heavy episodic drinking was the sin-
gle, strongest predictor of a woman having ever experienced sexual assault on cam-
pus. This study did not examine alcohol use on the day of the sexual assault but
looked instead at heavy episodic drinking as a predictor of whether women had ever
been assaulted. The authors concluded that women who regularly drink heavily are
384 Ford

more likely to be in situations that may afford the opportunity for sexual assault. One
event-level study on the effects of drinking during a sexual event found an important
within-person association, such that each drink consumed above one’s “mean” alco-
hol consumption was associated with a 13% increase in the likelihood of reporting
unprotected sex, regretted sex or unwanted sexual attention (Scaglione et al. 2014).
Studies of men’s drinking arrive at similar conclusions. Male college students
who report frequent heavy drinking on surveys are more likely than other men to
report sexual assault perpetration (Abbey et al. 2014). Experiments of male–female
interaction in simulated bar settings have found that women who consumed alcohol
were more likely to be perceived by sober men as sexual, energetic, and attractive.
These experimental studies also find evidence that men misperceive women’s gregar-
ious behavior while drinking as indicative of sexual interest. Finally, studies have
found that alcohol use of the victim is related to alcohol use of the perpetrator and
that each heightens the risk of assault (Abbey et al. 2014; Mohler-Kuo et al. 2004),
but these studies combine hookups with other kinds of events.
Why would alcohol be associated with sexual assault for women during a
hookup? One possibility is that women who are intoxicated are less able to defend
against perpetrators. Indeed, it is possible that some perpetrators target women who
are drunk for this reason. This is not implausible, as we know that alcohol inhibits
motor skills that can help a woman resist sexual assault. Research finds that heavy
alcohol consumption decreases women’s resistance to unwanted sexual advances and
increases their uncertainty about whether they needed to resist such advances
(Ullman 2007). Importantly, I am not arguing that a link, even one shown to be cau-
sal, between women’s alcohol use and sexual assault implies that women are to blame
for sexual assault. I am exploring whether it makes sexual assault more likely.
Another explanation is that men deliberately intoxicate women so that they
can have sex without resistance. One study found nearly three-fourths of college
men who self-disclosed as possible rapists admitted to purposely getting a date
intoxicated to facilitate sex (Kanin 1985). More recent research has concluded that
some perpetrators use alcohol incapacitation as a means to engage in sexual acts
that they know the victim does not want (Abbey et al. 2014; Lisak and Miller
2002). These perpetrators report not needing to use physical force because the
women’s incapacitation makes it possible to obtain sex without force. Finally, stud-
ies show that the behavioral changes that occur for women after drinking, such as
increased smiling and talking, can be misinterpreted as a sign of sexual interest
(Abbey et al. 2014).
Extensive research also shows people rely on stereotypes to draw conclusions
about others during interaction (Ridgeway 1993; Schwalbe et al. 2000). One exam-
ple of this stereotyping involves how college women who drink heavily are viewed.
Given the enduring presence of sexual double standards, some men may be more
likely to sexually assault women who are intoxicated because they see these women
as less deserving of sexual respect (Ray and Rosow 2010). That is, men may equate
“drunk” with “easy,” and, given their disrespect for women (but not men) who are
open to casual sex, they may use it to justify sexual assault.
Another way drinking may have an effect on victimization is that alcohol may
impair a woman’s judgment about what situations and people are unsafe.
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 385

Alternatively, women who have experienced past sexual assault may use alcohol as
a coping strategy to reduce the anxiety they feel around men; in this case, the alco-
hol use is a result of past assault (although estimates can be purged of this bias by
controlling for the woman’s experience of past victimization). Studies attempting to
assess the causal direction of effects between alcohol use and victimization generally
have concluded that the two are mutually reinforcing and reciprocal.
One feature of my study is that it ensures women are reporting on drinking
during this specific event, rather than drinking in general. To my knowledge, no
studies of hookup events have assessed whether the relationship between the num-
ber of drinks consumed and sexual assault is linear, or whether there is no effect
until a woman has consumed a certain, high number of drinks. One could imagine
the relationship might be linear in that each additional drink might make a
woman slightly more intoxicated, and thus more vulnerable to being targeted,
misperceived, disrespected, or misjudging the situation compared to not drinking.
Alternatively, if alcohol shows no effect until a woman consumes a high number
of drinks, this could suggest that it is only when women are very intoxicated that
they lose the ability to defend themselves. This could be true regardless of whether
certain men deliberately target intoxicated women or sexually disrespect them. Or
it could suggest that alcohol becomes more dangerous to women at high levels
because some men target and/or sexually disrespect drunk women, and these
women are less able to defend themselves. One contribution of this paper is to
examine this.

THE ROLE OF HOW WELL A WOMAN KNOWS HER HOOKUP PARTNER

Research has repeatedly shown that sexual assault frequently happens with an
acquaintance. As discussed above, this may be because men are in more situations
with acquaintances than with strangers, where they have an opportunity for sexual
assault, and that some men are willing to do so. While women often hook up with
friends or acquaintances, they also hook up with men known only distantly, if at
all, such as men at college parties. For example, in their sample of college women,
Fielder et al. (2013) found that 47% of hookups happened with friends, 23% with
acquaintances, and 14% with strangers.
Importantly, knowing someone might itself facilitate sexual assault. To resist
or avoid sexual assault, a woman must recognize she is in danger. Physical resis-
tance decreases the likelihood that a woman will experience a completed acquain-
tance rape (Ullman 2007). But studies show that women are less likely to perceive a
threat of sexual assault when they are with friends or acquaintances (Abbey et al.
2014; Armstrong et al. 2006). Thus, a diminished sense of danger might lead women
to be more at risk with men they know. Research also shows women are less likely
to report sexual assault from a close acquaintance, which could be an incentive for
perpetrators to target closer acquaintances (Estrich 1987).
In the hookup culture present on campuses today, students are expected to
have fun and party (Bogle 2008). If a woman assertively deters a man from interact-
ing sexually with her, she may risk being seen as not fun and therefore not deserving
386 Ford

of a social place in the college party scene. If she knows this man well, he may be
more likely to tell mutual friends that she is prude or not fun. Hence, the better she
knows him, the more difficult it may be to effectively resist sexual assault. This sug-
gests the risk of sexual assault might be greater with close acquaintances.
Alternatively, it is also possible that not knowing a male partner could
increase the risk of assault, conditional on his being in the situation to have the
opportunity to engage in sexual assault. Research shows people draw upon
stereotypes to make judgments about women during interactions (Ridgeway 1993;
Schwalbe et al. 2000). If a man does not know a woman well, he may be more
likely to use stereotypes to make assumptions about her. For example, research
shows, with an unfamiliar woman, a man is more likely to “see what he wants to
see” and interpret any positive gestures as signs of sexual interest (Schwalbe et al.
2000). More steady sexual partners also make mistakes, but they tend to be more
adept at deciphering their partner’s cues. Studies show alcohol increases the likeli-
hood of misinterpretation because it lowers individuals’ capacity to interpret com-
plex information, leading them to fixate on the most salient things in a situation,
which tend to fit into their preexisting beliefs (Abbey et al. 2014). This would
seem to imply that a combination of not knowing a partner and his drinking
alcohol might especially exacerbate the likelihood of misperception that results in
sexual assault.
Social capital explanations may also provide insight into how knowing a
partner might be protective against sexual assault. Social capital can be broadly
defined as the set of norms, rules, obligations, and trust implanted within local
social relations. Research shows that a strong sense of social capital in a commu-
nity can significantly reduce violence because community members are better able
to protect one another (Brehm and Rahn 1997; Lederman, Loayza, and Menendez
2002).
It is conceivable that knowing a hookup partner well might work against sex-
ual assault because of social capital among college students. That is, if a woman
knows a man well, it may cause problems in the community if he assaults her. She
might tell her friends, and he would be ostracized or stigmatized. If he were a frater-
nity member or an athlete, women might stop affiliating with that group (Ray and
Rosow 2010). In that way, familiarity with a partner might protect the woman.
Armstrong et al. (2006) found suggestive evidence of this in their ethnographic
work on college life, although their data did not allow for a systematic test of this
claim. The authors argue that women are safer around the men they know better
and that vulnerability to sexual assault relates to status in peer cultures. In particu-
lar, “high-status” women with more social capital are protected from sexual disre-
spect by their romantic and friendship liaisons with high-status men, while lower
status women more vulnerable to it.
To date, no research has focused on how increments of knowing a partner
affect the risk of sexual assault in a given hookup event. We do not know about
nonlinearities in this relationship; for instance, whether there is a certain point
between knowing someone very well and not at all where the risk of sexual assault
begins to rise. Another contribution of this paper will be to examine the extent to
which hookup partner familiarity predicts assault.
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 387

SEXUAL ASSAULT DURING HOOKUPS

Hookups are a predominate feature of college life. Given the attention currently
focused on college sexual assault and how common hookups are, it is essential to
understand the features of hookups that may contribute to sexual assault. This article
examines the effects of two event-specific variables—alcohol consumption and know-
ing a partner—on the risk of sexual assault during a recent hookup, while controlling
for a variety of individual-, situational-, and school-level variables. By isolating a
hookup event and then examining the features of that particular event, this article
provides an important contribution to the existing research on sexual assault.

DATA AND METHODS

This study uses quantitative data from the Online College Social Life Survey
(OCSLS), a self-administered online survey administered to 24,131 students on 22
college and university campuses between 2005 and 2011. The data set is unique in
that it includes variables aimed to capture the circumstances surrounding a stu-
dent’s most recent hookup.2 Undergraduate students were recruited for the survey
in courses that offered credit for its completion. Although these data are not based
on a probability sample, the response rate was nearly 100% in participating courses,
since nearly every student chose to complete the survey because extra credit was
usually offered for doing so. While a probability sample would be ideal, no other
data sets are currently available with as much information on college hookups. The
OCSLS collected data on both men and women; however, for the purposes of this
article, only the data on women are analyzed.
Given my focus on sexual assault in heterosexual encounters, my analyses began
with 8,005 self-identified straight women at four-year colleges/universities reporting
on a recent hookup with a man.3 (Women who had never hooked up are thus not in
the analytic sample; they constitute 38% of the sample.) After deleting women who

Table I. Percentage of Women Who Experienced Sexual Assault on Last Hookup

Physically Forced Intercourse: Did you have sexual intercourse that 0.9%
you felt was physically forced on you?
Incapacitated Sexual Assault: Did someone have sexual intercourse 2.0%
with you that you did not want when you were drunk, passed out,
asleep, drugged, or otherwise incapacitated?
Sexual Assault: Yes to either 2.4%
Total Number of Women Reporting on Whether Most Recent 7,481
Hookup Included These Types of Sexual Assault

2
This study examines sexual assault reported during an encounter described as a “hookup.” It is possible
that some women no longer call such an event a “hookup” if they are assaulted and thus my sample of
hookups does not include these cases. My data do not allow me to check this. If it were the case, the
percentage of women’s most recent hookups on which they experienced assault, provided in Table I,
would be underestimated.
3
Of note, 35 lesbian, 249 bisexual, and 142 “unsure” women reported an opposite-sex hookup, making
up 0.5%, 3.5%, and 1.8% of the overall female sample, respectively. Of these women, three lesbian,
seven bisexual, and four “unsure” women said yes to the assault questions. When I reran all regressions
including all opposite-sex hookups, the overall results were close to identical.
388 Ford

had missing values on any of the main variables of interest (N = 524, 6.5% of sam-
ple), I was left with 7,481 female respondents whose responses were used in all the
analyses for this article. Out of the 524 women dropped from the sample, 85 (16% of
those dropped) had a missing value on the sexual assault indicator variables.
Each woman in my sample was asked how many times she had hooked up in
college. Women were told to define hookups using “whatever definition of hookup
you and your friends generally use.” Any student who reported a past hookup was
asked questions about their most recent hookup, including how well they knew the
partner, how many drinks were consumed, whether they had intercourse, and
whether sexual assault occurred (see below for specific wording). Based on these
detailed questions about one single event, a hookup, I am able to ascertain whether
alcohol consumption or partner familiarity is associated with sexual assault in this
event, net of controls. My analysis is different from a typical cross-sectional study—
which might show that women who binge drink frequently are more likely to have
experienced sexual assault—because I am using the features of a specific hookup
event to predict the likelihood of that event ending in sexual assault. Within the
sample of 7,481 women who reported participation in hookups in this analysis, 77
percent were white and the average age was 19.8 (within a range of 18–24). The very
small proportion of women older than 24 were dropped from the sample because
these women are presumably less involved in the college hookup scene.4

Dependent Variables
Sexual Assault The dependent variables were recorded with these two yes or no
questions: (1) On this hookup: Did you have sexual intercourse that was physically
forced on you? and (2) On this hookup: Did someone have sexual intercourse with you
that you did not want when you were drunk, passed out, asleep, drugged, or otherwise
incapacitated? I examined predictors of each of these two types of sexual assault sep-
arately. I refer to these two types of assault as physically forced intercourse and
incapacitated sexual assault.
The same event could be described as both physically forced and incapacitated
sexual assault, as one of the two types of assault, or as neither. In the sample, 2.4%
of college women reported either one or both forms of sexual assault on their most
recent hookup with a man (see Table I). Incapacitated sexual assault (occurring on
2.0% of hookups) was more common than physically forced intercourse (0.9%),
and 0.5% of the women characterized the hookup as having involved both, imply-
ing that they were incapacitated and were physically forced to have sex.

Independent Variables
Alcohol Consumption Alcohol consumption during the hookup was recorded by
asking, How much alcohol did you drink before or during the hookup? Respondents
typed in a number of drinks. For my analyses, responses were recoded into 0 drinks
(the reference), 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, or 11 or more drinks. Most medical defini-
tions of “binge drinking” include five drinks in one sitting (Wechsler and Nelson
2001). In my sample, 43% of women consumed five or more drinks on their most
4
When I included women over age 24 (n = 170), overall results were virtually identical.
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 389

recent hookup. Therefore, I created the 1–2 and 3–4 drink categories to examine
those who did not binge drink. This discrete categorization allows me to examine
the shape of the relationship between alcohol and sexual assault.

Familiarity With the Male Partner Respondents were asked, How well did you know
the person you hooked up with before you hooked up? Respondents chose Not at all
(the reference), A little bit, Somewhat, Moderately well, or Very well. In my sample,
12% of women hooked up with someone they knew “not at all” and 19% hooked
up with someone they knew “a little bit” on their most recent hookup.

Independent Control Variables

The use of control variables is very important in this study due to the issue of
selection. Perhaps women with certain characteristics are more likely to select into
drinking and hooking up with a stranger. These women could be greater risk takers
in general, and such a propensity could lead to taking risks in the hookup, or an
unobserved variable could make a woman both more likely to drink/hookup with a
stranger and also more vulnerable to sexual assault. Because this selection issue is
important for making a claim about a causal effect of alcohol consumption or
knowing a partner on sexual assault in an event, I used a series of control variables
at the individual, school, and situational level to try to address this issue. These con-
trol variables, which are presumed to be exogenous to alcohol consumption or
familiarity with a partner, were selected based on their theoretical relevance to the
outcome of interest or their documented importance in past research. Because these
variables are included, I will interpret net associations of alcohol use or familiarity
with one’s partner as causal effects of these factors on the risk of assault. However,
I recognize that it is possible that other unobserved factors explain the associations,
challenging causal claims about alcohol or how well partners were known.

Individual Exogenous Variables In Model 1 in Tables III and IV, I include only
measures of individual characteristics that are presumably exogenous to the out-
come of sexual assault. These include her mother’s education (less than high school,
some college, bachelor’s degree, graduate degree) and race/ethnicity (recorded by
asking the respondent, If you had to pick one racial or ethnic group to describe your-
self, which would it be?). These were recoded into white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or
other;5 born in the United States (yes or no); and parents are married (yes or no).

School Variables Some college campuses may be more or less conducive to sexual
assault than others. To control for this, school selectivity, enrollment, private
school, percentage of a school involved in Greek life, and the school’s region
(Northeast, Midwest, South, West) were included in models. School selectivity mea-
sures how selective each institution is in its admission process. School selectivity
scores, ranging from 60 to 99, come from the Princeton Review (2013). Enrollment
is measured with a natural log transformation of the number of students at each
school as a measure of campus size. Private school measures whether the school is
5
“Other” included individuals who identified as Native American Indian/Native Alaskan or Other.
390 Ford

privately controlled/funded. Greek life is a school-level indicator of the percentage

of students involved in fraternities/sororities. Values for enrollment, private school,
and Greek life are from the publicly available Common Data Set Initiative (2014).
Including these variables helps avoid spuriousness. These variables are also presum-
ably exogenous to whether a woman drank and knew her partner.
I also include dichotomous variables for schools attended by 450 women or
more in the sample. These include the University of Arizona, Ohio State University,
Stanford University, University of California–Santa Barbara, University of Illi-
nois–Chicago, and University of Massachusetts. A variable for “other schools”
includes schools with fewer than 450 women.6

Individual Characteristics While at School Along with exogenous and school vari-
ables, measures for women’s characteristics at school are also added into models
(Model 3). These include year in college (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, older
undergraduate/graduate); educational ambition (less than BA/BS, bachelor’s
degree, master’s degree, JD/MD/PhD); residence (on campus, off campus, with par-
ents); athlete; in a sorority; her self-rated physical attractiveness (1–10); past experi-
ence of sexual assault prior to the hookup (yes or no to either physically forced
intercourse or incapacitated sexual assault anytime during college);7 and a count
variable (1–15) for number of past hookups with acquaintances and with strangers
(prompted with the questions, How many people have you hooked up with in the case
where you were not already in a romantic relationship with the person but you did
know him or her? and Since you started college, how many people have you hooked up
with whom you didn’t know before that night?).

Situational Variables Model 4 includes the above control variables as well as situa-
tional variables: where the hookup began (fraternity party, other party, another
location); whether the partner attended the same college; and the race of her and
her partner (this was recoded for all races into pairings, such as white–white, white–
nonwhite, etc.). The final models are the first to include the two independent vari-
ables of major interest—alcohol consumption and how well she knew her hookup
partner—because these may well be endogenous to all control variables.

RESULTS

Table II displays the means on all variables and their standard deviations,
showing differences in the mean characteristics of women who were sexually

6
Other schools included Beloit, Carroll University, Evergreen State, Framingham State, Harvard
University, Indiana University, Ithaca College, Middle Tennessee State University, Radford Univer-
sity, State University of New York-Stony Brook, University of California–Riverside, University of Cal-
ifornia–Merced, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, and Whitman College.
7
The question asked whether the respondent had ever experienced sexual assault since the beginning of
college (Never, Once, More than once). The survey also asked about sexual assault on the most recent
hookup. If a woman experienced sexual assault on her recent hookup and also responded that she had
experienced assault once, I assumed she was referring to the same event. Therefore, for those reporting
assault in this event, I coded past experience of sexual assault as 1 only if she responded “More than
once” on the question pertaining to all of college.
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 391

Table II. Means and Standard Deviations of Heterosexual Women on Recent Hookup

Did Not Did Not

Experienced Experience Experienced Experience
Physically Forced Physically Forced Incapacitated Incapacitated
Intercourse on Intercourse on Sexual Assault Sexual Assault on
Last Hookup Last Hookup on Last Hookup Last Hookup

Number of Drinks Consumed

None 0.26 (0.44) 0.32 (0.47) 0.05 (0.21) 0.33 (0.47)
1–2 0.06 (0.24) 0.09 (0.28) 0.01 (0.12) 0.09 (0.28)
3–4 0.10 (0.31) 0.16 (0.37) 0.11 (0.31) 0.16 (0.37)
5–6 0.13 (0.34) 0.20 (0.40) 0.22 (0.41) 0.20 (0.40)
7–8 0.18 (0.38) 0.12 (0.33) 0.18 (0.39) 0.12 (0.32)
9–10 0.15 (0.36) 0.07 (0.25) 0.23 (0.42) 0.06 (0.24)
11 or more 0.12 (0.32) 0.04 (0.21) 0.20 (0.40) 0.04 (0.20)
How Well the Female Knows the Male
Not at all 0.31 (0.47) 0.11 (0.32) 0.26 (0.44) 0.11 (0.32)
A little bit 0.24 (0.43) 0.19 (0.39) 0.32 (0.47) 0.18 (0.39)
Somewhat 0.19 (0.40) 0.21 (0.41) 0.16 (0.37) 0.21 (0.41)
Moderately well 0.21 (0.41) 0.24 (0.43) 0.18 (0.38) 0.25 (0.43)
Very well 0.06 (0.24) 0.25 (0.43) 0.08 (0.27) 0.25 (0.43)
Mother’s Educational Attainment
High school or less 0.32 (0.47) 0.22 (0.41) 0.25 (0.43) 0.22 (0.41)
Some college 0.21 (0.41) 0.25 (0.43) 0.25 (0.43) 0.25 (0.43)
Bachelor’s degree 0.19 (0.40) 0.32 (0.47) 0.30 (0.46) 0.32 (0.47)
Graduate degree 0.28 (0.45) 0.21 (0.41) 0.20 (0.40) 0.21 (0.41)
Respondent’s Race
White 0.59 (0.50) 0.73 (0.45) 0.72 (0.45) 0.73 (0.45)
Black 0.09 (0.29) 0.05 (0.22) 0.03 (0.16) 0.05 (0.22)
Hispanic 0.06 (0.24) 0.11 (0.31) 0.09 (0.28) 0.11 (0.31)
Asian 0.18 (0.38) 0.07 (0.25) 0.11 (0.31) 0.07 (0.25)
Other 0.09 (0.29) 0.04 (0.20) 0.06 (0.24) 0.04 (0.20)
Immigrant 0.15 (0.36) 0.07 (0.26) 0.07 (0.26) 0.08 (0.26)
Parents Are Married 0.68 (0.47) 0.68 (0.47) 0.67 (0.47) 0.68 (0.47)
School
Arizona 0.07 (0.26) 0.08 (0.27) 0.03 (0.18) 0.08 (0.27)
Stanford 0.03 (0.17) 0.06 (0.24) 0.01 (0.08) 0.06 (0.24)
UCSB 0.16 (0.37) 0.18 (0.39) 0.22 (0.41) 0.18 (0.39)
U Mass 0.13 (0.34) 0.17 (0.37) 0.13 (0.34) 0.17 (0.37)
Ohio State 0.10 (0.31) 0.06 (0.25) 0.11 (0.32) 0.06 (0.25)
UI-Chicago 0.09 (0.29) 0.07 (0.25) 0.07 (0.25) 0.07 (0.25)
Other schools 0.41 (0.50) 0.38 (0.48) 0.43 (0.50) 0.38 (0.48)
Private School 0.43 (0.50) 0.48 (0.50) 0.44 (0.50) 0.48 (0.50)
% School in 10.32 (9.40) 8.88 (8.65) 11.02 (10.21) 8.85 (8.62)
Fraternity/Sorority
Ln # Undergraduates 8.85 (1.22) 8.78 (1.16) 8.94 (1.22) 8.77 (1.16)
School Selectivity Score 85.34 (11.02) 85.67 (10.59) 85.99 (10.13) 85.66 (10.60)
Region of School
West 0.38 (0.49) 0.45 (0.50) 0.39 (0.49) 0.45 (0.50)
Northeast 0.25 (0.44) 0.32 (0.47) 0.27 (0.45) 0.32 (0.47)
Midwest 0.31 (0.47) 0.21 (0.41) 0.31 (0.46) 0.21 (0.41)
South 0.06 (0.24) 0.02 (0.13) 0.03 (0.18) 0.02 (0.13)
Ed. Aspirations
Less than BA/BS 0.04 (0.21) 0.02 (0.13) 0.02 (0.14) 0.02 (0.13)
BA/BS 0.21 (0.41) 0.26 (0.44) 0.23 (0.42) 0.26 (0.44)
MA/MS 0.28 (0.45) 0.43 (0.49) 0.40 (0.49) 0.43 (0.49)
JD/MD/PhD 0.47 (0.50) 0.29 (0.46) 0.35 (0.48) 0.30 (0.46)
Year of College
Freshman 0.31 (0.47) 0.33 (0.47) 0.32 (0.47) 0.33 (0.47)
392 Ford

Table II. (Continued)

Did Not Did Not

Experienced Experience Experienced Experience
Physically Forced Physically Forced Incapacitated Incapacitated
Intercourse on Intercourse on Sexual Assault Sexual Assault on
Last Hookup Last Hookup on Last Hookup Last Hookup

Sophomore 0.19 (0.40) 0.23 (0.42) 0.22 (0.41) 0.23 (0.42)

Junior 0.19 (0.40) 0.21 (0.40) 0.17 (0.38) 0.21 (0.40)
Senior 0.28 (0.45) 0.20 (0.40) 0.26 (0.44) 0.20 (0.40)
Older undergrad/grad 0.03 (0.17) 0.04 (0.19) 0.04 (0.20) 0.04 (0.19)
Residence
On Campus 0.53 (0.50) 0.58 (0.49) 0.51 (0.50) 0.58 (0.49)
Off Campus 0.38 (0.49) 0.35 (0.48) 0.36 (0.48) 0.35 (0.48)
With Parents 0.09 (0.29) 0.07 (0.26) 0.13 (0.34) 0.07 (0.26)
In a Sorority 0.15 (0.36) 0.17 (0.38) 0.10 (0.30) 0.17 (0.38)
Athlete 0.09 (0.29) 0.07 (0.26) 0.01 (0.12) 0.07 (0.26)
Self-Rated Physical 6.94 (1.83) 7.11 (1.35) 7.00 (1.62) 7.11 (1.35)
Attractiveness
# Hookups w/ 3.09 (3.30) 3.70 (3.47) 3.03 (2.79) 3.71 (3.48)
Acquaintances
# Hookups w/ 2.43 (3.26) 2.34 (3.31) 2.82 (3.46) 2.33 (3.31)
Strangers
Past Experience With Physically Forced Intercourse
Never experienced 0.35 (0.48) 0.91 (0.28) 0.59 (0.49) 0.91 (0.28)
Experienced once 0.47 (0.50) 0.07 (0.25) 0.31 (0.46) 0.07 (0.25)
More than once 0.18 (0.38) 0.02 (0.13) 0.09 (0.29) 0.02 (0.13)
Past Experience With Incapacitated Sexual Assault
Never experienced 0.51 (0.50) 0.89 (0.31) 0.27 (0.45) 0.90 (0.30)
Experienced once 0.34 (0.48) 0.09 (0.28) 0.53 (0.50) 0.08 (0.27)
More than once 0.15 (0.36) 0.02 (0.15) 0.20 (0.40) 0.02 (0.14)
Where the Hookup Began
Fraternity party 0.15 (0.36) 0.12 (0.33) 0.14 (0.35) 0.12 (0.33)
Other party 0.32 (0.47) 0.33 (0.47) 0.47 (0.50) 0.33 (0.47)
Another location 0.53 (0.50) 0.55 (0.50) 0.39 (0.49) 0.55 (0.50)
Respondent and Her Partner’s Race
White and white 0.47 (0.50) 0.64 (0.48) 0.63 (0.48) 0.64 (0.48)
White and nonwhite 0.12 (0.32) 0.09 (0.28) 0.09 (0.28) 0.09 (0.28)
Black and black 0.06 (0.24) 0.04 (0.19) 0.02 (0.14) 0.04 (0.19)
Black and nonblack 0.03 (0.17) 0.01 (0.12) 0.01 (0.08) 0.01 (0.12)
Hispanic and Hispanic 0.03 (0.17) 0.05 (0.22) 0.04 (0.20) 0.05 (0.22)
Hispanic and 0.03 (0.17) 0.06 (0.23) 0.05 (0.21) 0.06 (0.23)
Non-Hispanic
Asian and Asian 0.09 (0.29) 0.03 (0.17) 0.05 (0.23) 0.03 (0.17)
Asian and Non-Asian 0.09 (0.29) 0.04 (0.20) 0.05 (0.23) 0.04 (0.20)
Other race and 0.09 (0.29) 0.04 (0.20) 0.06 (0.24) 0.04 (0.20)
other race
Other race and 0.09 (0.29) 0.04 (0.20) 0.06 (0.24) 0.04 (0.20)
non–other race
Partner Attends 0.54 (0.50) 0.59 (0.49) 0.57 (0.50) 0.59 (0.49)
Same College
N 68 7,413 148 7,333

assaulted on a recent hookup compared to those who were not. On average (based
on a visual comparison of mean values in Table II), women who experienced physi-
cally forced or incapacitated sexual assault had consumed more drinks at the time
of the hookup and did not know their partner as well. Women who reported sexual
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 393

assault had less educated mothers and lower self-rated attractiveness. Sexual assault
survivors had higher educational aspirations, more past hookups with strangers,
and were more likely to have previously been sexually assaulted. There were no dif-
ferences in mean values for whether the respondents’ parents were married. For
physically forced intercourse, survivors were more likely to be immigrants or a
racial/ethnic minority. For incapacitated sexual assault, survivors were less likely to
be athletes. To see whether these variables were significant predictors of sexual
assault under controls, I turn to the logistic regression results.

Determinants of Sexual Assault in Women’s Hookups

I now review findings from logistic regressions predicting women’s experiences

of physically forced intercourse (Table III) and incapacitated sexual assault
(Table IV). In these tables, I begin with exogenous individual controls only, adding
in school, individual-at-school, and situational control variables to create final
models that estimate the effects of alcohol use and knowing a partner while control-
ling for factors that could conflate the effects of the independent variables of inter-
est. Because of the inclusion of all the controls, I try to approximate causal effects
of these two factors. The effects of the control variables are discussed in a later
section.
To help the reader visualize the effect of the two main variables of interest, pre-
dicted probability graphs (Figs. 1–2) were created based on the regression equations
in the models with all controls. These figures show the probability of a woman expe-
riencing physically forced intercourse as a function of the number of drinks con-
sumed (Fig. 1) and the probability of experiencing either form of sexual assault as a
function of how well she knew her partner (Fig. 2), controlling for all other vari-
ables, using the average marginal effects command in STATA.

Physically Forced Intercourse

Table III (Model 4) shows the importance of alcohol consumption and partner
familiarity for physically forced intercourse. The odds of experiencing physically
forced intercourse are 2.72 and 2.81 times higher for women who consumed 9–10
drinks and 11+ drinks, respectively, compared to women who did not drink (p ≤
.05). The relationship between alcohol use (≥ 9 drinks) and physically forced inter-
course is highly significant even in models with all controls. Of note, women who
had 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, and even 7–8 drinks did not exhibit a significantly higher likeli-
hood of physically forced intercourse compared to those who did not drink on the
hookup. It was only after nine drinks that the risk of physically forced intercourse
became significant.
Figure 1 graphs the predicted probability of physically forced intercourse
based on drinks consumed, holding all other variables in Model 4 constant. The
predicted probability of reporting physically forced intercourse appears to begin
increasing after a woman has had 5–6 drinks. However, this increase is not signifi-
cant until a woman has consumed nine or more drinks. After nine drinks, the
394 Ford

Table III. Odds Ratios From Logistic Regressions Predicting Physically Forced Intercourse on Most
Recent Hookup

Model 1: Model 3: Model 4:

Individual Model 2: Individual Individual,
Exogenous Individual + Factors at School, and
Factors School Factors School Situation

Number of Drinks Consumed

None (reference)
1–2 0.78
3–4 0.68
5–6 0.71
7–8 1.84
9–10 2.72*
11 or more 2.81*
How Well the Female Knows the Male
Not at all (reference)
A little bit 0.43*
Somewhat 0.37*
Moderately well 0.34**
Very well 0.09***
Mother’s Educational Attainment
High school or less 2.47* 2.32* 2.27* 2.11*
Some college 1.41 1.35 1.35 1.27
Bachelor’s degree (reference)
Graduate degree 2.16* 2.29* 2.10* 2.03
Respondent’s Race
White (reference)
Black 2.00 2.21 2.31
Hispanic 0.59 0.52 0.38
Asian 2.55** 3.44** 3.29**
Other 2.34 2.97* 2.77*
Immigrant 1.48 1.48 1.30 1.37
Parents Are Married 0.99 1.03 1.02 0.98
School
Arizona (reference)
Stanford 0.15 0.11 0.07*
UCSB 0.59 0.52 0.38
U Mass 0.65 0.58 0.54
Ohio State 0.52 0.44 0.54
UI-Chicago 0.26 0.23 0.17
Other schools 0.55 0.48 0.38
Private School 0.57 0.55 0.59
% School in Fraternity/Sorority 0.99 0.98 0.97
Ln # Undergraduates 0.80 0.76 0.78
School Selectivity Score 1.01 1.01 1.01
Region of School
West (reference)
Northeast 0.78 0.74 0.69
Midwest 2.25 2.71 2.83
South 4.66 3.82 4.40
Ed. Aspirations
Less than BA/BS 3.77* 3.97*
BA/BS (reference)
MA/MS 0.87 0.85
JD/MD/PhD 2.04* 2.10*
Year of College
Freshman (reference)
Sophomore 0.92 1.00
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 395

Table III. (Continued)

Model 1: Model 3: Model 4:

Individual Model 2: Individual Individual,
Exogenous Individual + Factors at School, and
Factors School Factors School Situation

Junior 1.07 1.25

Senior 1.53 1.94
Older undergrad/grad 0.77 1.03
Residence
On campus (reference)
Off campus 0.87 0.78
With parents 1.07 1.06
In a Sorority 0.90 0.88
Athlete 1.66 1.59
Self-Rated Physical Attractiveness 0.89 0.92
# Hookups w/ Acquaintances 0.90* 0.95
# Hookups w/ Strangers 1.02 0.93
Has Experienced Physically Forced Intercourse in the Past 6.55*** 6.81***
Has Experienced Incapacitated Intercourse in the Past 4.52*** 4.10**
Where the Hookup Began
Fraternity party (reference)
Other party 0.87
Another location 1.01
Respondent and Her Partner’s Race
White and white (reference)
White and nonwhite 2.07
Black and black 2.31
Black and nonblack 3.33
Hispanic and Hispanic 0.76
Hispanic and Non-Hispanic 0.56
Asian and Asian 5.11**
Asian and Non-Asian 3.34*
Other race and any race 3.30*
Partner Attends Same College 0.99
Intercept 0.00*** 0.04 0.07 0.12
N 7,481 7,481 7,481 7,481

Note: ***p ≤ .001; **p ≤ .01; *p ≤ .05.

probability of experiencing physically forced intercourse rises to over 0.02, com-

pared to a predicted probability of 0.01 for women who consumed eight or fewer
drinks. This chart suggests that light-to-moderate drinking is not a risk factor for
physically forced intercourse (Fig. 1).
As referenced above, one explanation for sexual assault is that men misperceive
women’s behavior while drinking as indicative of sexual interest. One plausible con-
jecture is that such misperceptions might be more likely to happen in the 1–8 drink
range rather than after nine drinks. After a handful of drinks women might be smil-
ing, laughing, and so forth, but after nine drinks, women may be very intoxicated.
If this is true, then these findings undercut the misperception hypothesis. However,
research is very much lacking regarding what behavior (e.g., flirting) is associated
with how much drinking, and what behavior leads to what assumptions by men of
her interest. These findings suggest that we need other explanations of why heavy
drinking predicts sexual assault.
396 Ford

Table IV. Odds Ratios From Logistic Regressions Predicting Incapacitated Sexual Assault on Most
Recent Hookup

Model 1: Model 2: Model 3: Model 4:

Individual Individual + Individual Individual,
Exogenous School Factors at School, and
Factors Factors School Situation

Number of Drinks Consumed

None (reference)
1–2 1.02
3–4 4.73***
5–6 7.46***
7–8 11.81***
9–10 28.83***
11 or more 32.11***
How Well the Female Knows the Male
Not at all (reference)
A little bit 1.07
Somewhat 0.53*
Moderately well 0.56*
Very well 0.29***
Mother’s Educational Attainment
High school or less 1.25 1.05 0.99 0.98
Some college 1.09 0.97 0.93 0.88
Bachelor’s degree (reference)
Graduate degree 0.96 1.02 0.94 0.94
Respondent’s Race
White (reference)
Black 0.50 0.52 0.52
Hispanic 0.75 0.84 0.75
Asian 1.62 1.88* 1.77
Other 1.44 1.68 1.79
Immigrant 0.86 0.88 0.71 0.82
Parents Are Married 0.90 0.93 0.92 0.92
School
Arizona (reference)
Stanford 0.19 0.20 0.17
UCSB 3.07 3.25 2.13
U Mass 3.01 2.78 1.80
Ohio State 1.20 0.97 0.92
UI-Chicago 0.21 0.23 0.25
Other schools 1.21 1.46 1.29
Private School 3.16 2.55 2.54
% in Fraternity/Sorority 1.05 1.04 1.03
Ln # Undergraduates 1.57 1.34 1.32
School Selectivity Score 0.92* 0.94 0.94
Region of School
West (reference)
Northeast 0.74 0.67 0.59
Midwest 1.97 2.19 1.57
South 2.03 1.52 1.49
Ed. Aspirations
Less than BA/BS 1.77 1.46
BA/BS (reference)
MA/MS 1.31 1.28
JD/MD/PhD 1.69* 1.71*
Year of College
Freshman (reference)
Sophomore 1.11 1.27
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 397

Table IV. (Continued)

Model 1: Model 2: Model 3: Model 4:

Individual Individual + Individual Individual,
Exogenous School Factors at School, and
Factors Factors School Situation

Junior 1.01 1.19

Senior 1.59 2.18*
Older undergrad/grad 1.14 1.69
Residence
On campus
Off campus 0.85 0.72
With parents 1.61 1.94
In a Sorority 0.55* 0.49*
Athlete 0.20* 0.16*
Self-Rated Physical Attractiveness 0.96 1.01
# Hookups w/ Acquaintances 0.86*** 0.88***
# Hookups w/ Strangers 1.06* 0.97
Has Experienced Physically Forced Intercourse in the Past 2.07* 2.31*
Has Experienced Incapacitated Intercourse in the Past 12.80*** 10.75***
Where the Hookup Began
Fraternity party (reference)
Other party 1.19
Another location 1.23
Respondent and Her Partner’s Race
White and white (reference)
White and nonwhite 1.28
Black and black 1.57
Black and nonblack 0.51
Hispanic and Hispanic 0.85
Hispanic and Non- Hispanic 0.82
Asian and Asian 3.07*
Asian and Non-Asian 1.44
Other Race and Any Race 1.94
Partner Attends Same College 1.15
Intercept 0.02*** 0.15 0.15 0.02
N 7,481 7,481 7,481 7,481

Note: ***p ≤ .001; **p ≤ .01; *p ≤ .05.

Another possible explanation is that men target extremely drunk women

because they are less able to get themselves out of the situation or remember what
happened. These findings could also be interpreted to suggest that men are more
likely to sexually assault women who are more intoxicated because they see these
women as less deserving of sexual respect. Again, research is needed to investigate
how drinking affects men’s sense of women’s deservingness of respect.
Table III also shows a strong effect of familiarity with a partner on women’s
odds of experiencing physically forced intercourse. The odds of experiencing forced
intercourse during a hookup were significantly (p ≤ .05) reduced when a woman
knew her partner A little bit, Somewhat, Moderately Well, and Very well compared
to not knowing him at all. The pattern is monotonic, showing decreased odds of
experiencing physically forced intercourse during a hookup for each increment in
increased familiarity. Specifically, if she knew her partner Very well before the
hookup, her probability of experiencing physically forced intercourse was 0.00. If
398 Ford

Fig. 1. Predicted Probability That a Woman Experiences Physically Forced Intercourse During
Her Most Recent Hookup by Number of Drinks Consumed

Fig. 2. Predicted Probability That a Woman Experiences Sexual Assault During Her Most
Recent Hookup by How Well She Knows the Man
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 399

the women knew him Not at all, the probability of forced intercourse was 0.02
(Fig. 2).

Incapacitated Sexual Assault

Table IV (Model 4) shows that the odds of experiencing incapacitated sexual

assault are higher for women who consumed three or more drinks compared to
women who did not drink (p ≤ .001). In order to experience incapacitated sexual
assault, a woman needs to have become incapacitated through drinking or con-
sumption of another drug. As such, these findings are of little substantive interest
because alcohol use is built into the dependent variable. In analyses not shown,
drug use was also included in the models, showing nonsignificant effects.
Table IV again highlights the strong effect of knowing a partner on women’s
odds of incapacitated sexual assault. The odds of experiencing incapacitated sexual
assault during a hookup were significantly (p ≤ .05) reduced when the woman knew
the partner Somewhat, Moderately well, and Very well compared to Not at all. These
findings were almost monotonic, although not as cleanly as they were for physically
forced intercourse. Figure 2 shows a woman’s predicted probability of experiencing
incapacitated sexual assault by partner familiarity based on Model 4 (Table IV).
Specifically, if she knew him Very well before the hookup, she had less than a .01
probability of experiencing incapacitated sexual assault. If she knew him A little bit
or Not at all, she had a .03 probability of experiencing incapacitated sexual assault
(Fig. 2).
Figure 2 shows that women who report knowing their partner better have a
lower probability of experiencing either type of sexual assault. This finding supports
the notion that knowing a man well is protective. This may be due to the way social
capital works to discourage men from sexually assaulting women in their social net-
work. Gender inequality, particularly the sexual double standard, may also explain
this finding. If a woman hooks up with a man whom she does not know at all, it is
possible this leads some men to categorize this woman in way that makes them
more likely to sexually assault her. What stands out about these findings is that even
after controlling for a variety of individual, school, and situational factors, not
knowing a partner is highly associated with the risk of both forms of sexual assault.

Effects of Individual, School, and Situational Control Variables

Controls for past experience of sexual assault were significant and positive in
the models. Women who reported sexual assault during their last hookup were sig-
nificantly more likely (p ≤ .05) to have experienced either physically forced or inca-
pacitated sexual assault in the past compared to women who had never experienced
sexual assault (Table III and IV). It also appears that women are likely to experi-
ence the same forms of sexual assault again. For example, women who experienced
incapacitated sexual assault on their most recent hookup were 10.75 times more
likely to have experienced incapacitated sexual assault in the past and 2.31 times
more likely to have experienced physically forced intercourse, compared to women
400 Ford

who had never experienced sexual assault. This finding is consistent with existing
literature.
Some other control variables were significant in models, yet a high number of
them were not significant at all. For example, having a partner who did not attend
the same college, immigrant status, where the hookup began, and self-rated physical
attractiveness had no effect in any models. Private school, school region, selectivity,
enrollment size, or school Greek life showed no effect in the final models. The col-
lege/university a woman attended showed almost no effect in the final models, with
the exception of Stanford (lower odds of physically forced intercourse compared to
Arizona). Year in school had no effect, with the exception that seniors were at
higher risk for incapacitated sexual assault compared to freshman. This finding con-
flicts with some research indicating a “red zone” of sexual assault risk for freshman
women (Cranney 2014; Krebs et al. 2007). However, it is consistent with research
showing incidence rates for sexual assault across all time periods in school tend to
be relatively flat (Fisher et al. 2010; Flack et al. 2008).
Women with the lowest (less than BA/BS) and highest (PhD/JD/MD) educa-
tional aspirations each had higher odds of experiencing either type of assault, com-
pared to women who aspired to attain a BA/BS degree. In a similar nonmonotonic
fashion, women whose mothers had less than a high school education and whose
mothers had a graduate degree were both more likely to experience physically
forced intercourse, compared to women whose mothers had a BA/BS degree.
Mother’s education was not a significant predictor of incapacitated assault.
Women reporting more past hookups with acquaintances were at lower risk
for incapacitated sexual assault. This could suggest that this kind of sexual
experience is protective against sexual assault. The effect of the number of past
hookups with strangers had no effect. Asian women with Asian male partners
had higher odds of experiencing both forms of sexual assault compared to white
women with white partners. Women whose race was other than white, black,
Hispanic, or Asian had higher odds of experiencing physically forced intercourse
with a partner of any race compared to white women with white partners. This
supports some findings in the literature that minority women may be at higher
risk than white women (Krebs et al. 2007), although I did not find a heightened
risk for black or Hispanic women.
Finally, being an athlete or in a sorority appeared to be protective against inca-
pacitated sexual assault, suggesting that being a part of an organized group may
protect against this type of assault. My finding that sorority women are at lower
risk for incapacitated assault runs counter to some recent results (Dijulio et al.
2015). To explore why this might be, I looked closely at sorority members’ hookup
behaviors. In analyses not shown, I find that women in sororities are more likely to
have ever hooked up compared to women who are not in sororities. However, con-
ditional on participating in a hookup, sorority women are less likely to have vaginal
sex and less likely to experience sexual assault during that hookup. These findings
together suggest that sorority women may be treated as high status and with more
respect during hookups.
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 401

Regression Diagnostics and Sensitivity Analyses

Given that only a small portion of the sample reported sexual assault during
their most recent hookup, I wanted to make sure the models were not attempting to
control for too many things. To do this, I carefully examined increases in standard
errors (SEs) when moving from a simple model (controlling for only 1–5 variables)
to the final multivariate models presented. The increases in SEs were moderate; they
were well in line with what one would expect with similar sample size and a more
common outcome. This is evidence that I am not overcontrolling.
To explore the possibility of other causal interpretations, various sensitivity
analyses were run. To test model fit, I used the STATA command linktest and lfit to
check model specification and goodness-of-fit, respectively. Linktest did not detect
any model specification error. Lfit indicated that the models fit the data well. Fur-
ther tests did not detect multicollinearity. Models, not shown, also controlled for
drug use and past sexual experience (number of partners), showing nonsignificant
effects. I tried including alcohol as a continuous variable and found significant posi-
tive effects. Interaction variables were tested for significance (e.g., interactions of
alcohol consumption with knowing a partner, where the hookup began with
whether the partner went to the same college, as well as other theoretically possible
combinations). Results showed no interactions. Nor did overall results change when
I included school sex ratio and percentage of commuters at a school. In addition,
more conservative regression models with robust standard errors for clustering by
school were run, and the main conclusions remained in terms of sign and signifi-
cance of effects. Finally, an analysis with imputation of all missing independent val-
ues was conducted, which showed no effect on my main findings with the exception
that consuming 11 or more drinks as a predictor of physically forced intercourse
became significant only at the p ≤ .10 level rather than the p ≤ .05 level, but 9–10
drinks remained significant (p ≤ .05).

CONCLUSION

It is often pointed out that most women are sexually assaulted by acquain-
tances and that most college sexual assaults involve drinking. Due to a lack of data,
we have not had an understanding of precisely how alcohol is related to sexual
assault or exactly what levels of acquaintanceship between victim and perpetrator
are particularly dangerous during hookups, the most common form of noncommit-
ted sexual activity on campuses. In this article, I show that heavy alcohol consump-
tion and not knowing a male partner are associated with an increased risk of sexual
assault, even after controlling for multiple other factors related to the woman, her
situation, and her school.
As I acknowledge above, it is possible that most sexual assaults happen with
men whom women know simply because these men have greater opportunity to
commit this crime. It is also possible that most sexual assaults involve drinking
because most sexual encounters in college involve drinking. In this article, I tried to
address the issue of opportunity by effectively holding it constant, whereby I
402 Ford

examine hookups where all male partners presumably had an opportunity to com-
mit sexual assault regardless of how well they knew the woman and how much she
drank. I also examined the effect of drinking by including hookups that involved
various levels of alcohol consumption. My analyses show that given a heterosexual
pair is already participating in a hookup, women were more likely to report sexual
assault with “in-network strangers”—men in their networks whom they did not
know at all (Abbey et al. 2014; Armstrong et al. 2006). I also find evidence for a
nonlinear effect of alcohol. The risk of physically forced intercourse did not signifi-
cantly increase until a woman had consumed nine or more drinks.
My findings have implications for sexual assault prevention curricula. Research
shows that college women are rarely sexually assaulted by a “stranger in the bushes.”
Instead, women usually know their attackers. This could be anyone from an ex-boy-
friend to an intimate partner, or a man that a woman just met and hooked up with.
In this article, I find that of the sexual assaults that happen in hookups—the predomi-
nant form of sexual behavior on campus—it is the men whom women know less well,
the in-network strangers, who are more likely to commit sexual assault. Women are
also more likely to report physically forced intercourse after nine drinks. In terms of
prevention, women could be made aware that if they are having sex in hookups, the
risk of sexual assault appears greater with men they know less well and after nine
drinks. Another implication is that moderate drinking does not seem to increase the
risk of physically forced intercourse.
The finding that sexual assault experiences were sequentially less likely to hap-
pen with someone the woman knew somewhat, moderately well, or very well suggests
social capital may have value in sexual assault prevention. Studies have found that
a strong sense of social capital among community members has a negative effect on
violent crime. It seems possible that social capital could work against sexual assault
during hookups through a mechanism whereby social capital enforces social norms.
That is, if a man is hooking up with a woman who knows him and he sexually
assaults her, she may tell their mutual friends. If this happens, he could be socially
ostracized. Therefore, men are less likely to sexually assault women they know
because (1) if he knows her, then they probably know many of the same people, and
(2) he cares what the people he knows think of him and does not want to be ostra-
cized. These two things work together to prevent sexual assault. The analyses above
provide support for this interpretation because knowing a man not at all carries the
most risk, while knowing him very well carries the least risk.
Some qualitative work also supports the finding that knowing a partner is
important. Research shows that women are most at risk of sexual assault from in-
network strangers, men whom women have seen around campus but do not know
at all (Armstrong et al. 2006). Knowing a partner becomes important because it
relates to social capital. According to Armstrong et al. (2006), some women have
more social capital than others in the party scene. These high-status women know
more people at social events; they may be in sororities or have public formalized
relationships with popular men. When these women hook up, they often know their
partners or have friends in common. If these women were to be raped, it would have
negative social repercussions throughout the community. For example, women
would boycott certain fraternities or report the event. My findings provide support
Sexual Assault on College Hookups 403

for this interpretation because I also found that sorority women had a lower risk of
incapacitated assault.
Another important interpretation of these findings relates to how gender
inequality is reproduced through social interactions. Despite women’s newfound
freedom to hook up with “no strings attached,” studies show gender inequality still
reigns through the prioritization of male pleasure and the maligning of women per-
ceived as promiscuous (England et al. 2007; Hamilton and Armstrong 2009). Men
may draw on sexist discourse on campus and use it to categorize their hookup part-
ners in certain ways (Ray and Rosow 2010; Sweeney 2014). If we combine and
extend these theories of sexual assault—social capital and sexist categorization—it
may provide a better understanding for why knowing a partner matters. For exam-
ple, if a woman hooks up with a man she does not know well, perhaps he catego-
rizes her as someone who is “low status” and, therefore, less deserving of sexual
respect (Armstrong et al. 2006; Sweeney 2014).
Findings in this article also confirm past research on the link between binge
drinking and sexual assault. However, drinking more only significantly impacted
physically forced intercourse after nine or more drinks. This finding could lend fur-
ther support to the notion that men are more likely to assault women who are intox-
icated because under the sway of the double standard, some men see drunk women
as less deserving of sexual respect. Equally consistent with my findings is the inter-
pretation that women who are inebriated may become targets for sexual assault.
Some studies suggest that men confuse women’s symptoms of alcohol intoxication
with genuine sexual interest and that this leads to sexual assault. One conjecture
from my findings is that women would be more likely to display effects from alcohol
that could be misinterpreted as romantic interest in the light-to-moderate drinking
range rather than after nine or more drinks. After a few drinks, women might be
smiling and so forth, but after nine drinks, most women may be very intoxicated. If
this is true, these findings undercut the misinterpretation hypothesis. They suggest
that some men use alcohol as a weapon to disable women in these social worlds.

LIMITATIONS

While these unique data enable an analysis of the predictors of sexual assault dur-
ing hookups, they also introduce important limitations. These survey data do not origi-
nate from a probability sample. The data are, however, based on a nearly full-
population response within the courses (mostly sociology courses) where survey recruit-
ment took place. As such, the sample is representative of students taking sociology
courses but may not be representative of all college students nationally. Of note,
around 90% of respondents were not sociology majors. Although I would prefer to use
a probability sample, no other data sets currently exist with equally detailed questions
on the nature of sexual assault amid the hookup culture of college campuses.
Another limitation involves the measurement of independent variables. It is
possible that if someone a woman knows well sexually assaults her, she may report
that she did not know him well. This could create reverse causation where the sexual
assault causes her to downgrade her assessment of how well she knew him. The
404 Ford

same could be true for drinking. If women are sexually assaulted during a hookup,
perhaps they overreport alcohol consumption. If this is happening, the models may
overestimate the effect of knowing a partner and number of drinks on risk of sexual
assault. However, to the extent that we believe in the accuracy of women’s reporting
and the adequacy of the controls, my findings provide evidence of a causal effect of
knowing your partner and alcohol consumption on the risk of a sexual assault dur-
ing a hookup.

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