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Publication Date

2023-5

First Advisor

Lauren Duncan

Document Type

Honors Project

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Keywords

Sexual Agency, Social Dominance, Heteronormativity, Gender Roles, Postfeminism, Neoliberalism

Abstract

Recent research on sexual agency has argued that the construct assumes a single manifestation of agency and overestimates the ability of individuals’ willpower to counteract sexual vulnerability shaped by social injustices. This study is the first to create and validate a measure of prescriptive sexual agency which assesses the extent to which individuals endorse neoliberal and postfeminist sexual norms that consider sexual agency as a societal prescription. Further, past work has predominantly used the concept of sexual self-efficacy as the primary operationalization of sexual agency; in this work, I highlighted and examined how the construct of prescriptive sexual agency is distinct from sexual self-efficacy. Using Multi-Group Path Analysis, I examined beliefs about sex, gender, and power, including Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), heteronormative sexual beliefs, and entitlement to receive sex and pleasure, as predictors of prescriptive sexual agency and sexual self-efficacy. The results indicated that across gender, endorsement of SDO was positively associated with heteronormative sexual beliefs, which in turn predicted higher prescriptive sexual agency and lower sexual self-efficacy. Entitlement to receive sex and pleasure was positively associated with both types of agency. For women, SDO was also negatively associated with entitlement to receive sex and pleasure and positively associated with prescriptive sexual agency. Findings provide insight into how two types of sexual agency are enacted differently based on heterosexuals’ beliefs about power. The thesis suggests that the prescriptive side of sexual agency established under the current neoliberal and postfeminist discourse should be taken into account in future studies.

Rights

©2023 Meredith Zhang. Access limited to the Smith College community and other researchers while on campus. Smith College community members also may access from off-campus using a Smith College log-in. Other off-campus researchers may request a copy through Interlibrary Loan for personal use.

Language

English

Comments

48 pages: colors illustrations, charts. Includes bibliographical references (pages 30-38).

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