Over 40 Percent Of Young Men Have Had Unwanted Sex

Nearly half of high school and college-aged men have reported having unwanted sex at least once in their life, according to a recent study.

Rape and coerced unwanted sexual contact is a problem for young women that contemporary society is very familiar with. Educators and social groups have been fighting for decades to dissuade the perpetuation of a "rape culture" in high schools and college campuses. However, efforts to help men avoid the same problem are far less common, despite the fact that rape and sexual coercion where men are the victims is reportedly very common.

A study published in the American Psychological Association journal, Psychology of Men and Masculinity, finds that over 43 percent of adolescent and college-aged men say that they have felt forced to have "unwanted sexual contract" at least once in their lives. What's more, 18 percent of the same demographic claim that women have used physical force to make them have sex against their will.

Researchers behind the study reached these conclusions after analyzing the data collected from a survey of 284 male high school students and undergraduates.

According to the study, 18 percent of these men have had sex as the result of force. Thirty-one percent of these men also reported that they had been verbally coerced into having unwanted sex at least once, and 26 percent said they have experienced "unwanted seduction by sexual behavior" such as fondling and other intimate advances.

Nearly half of these unwanted sexual advances or coercion resulted in the man having unwanted sex, and 10 percent resulted in the man giving into pressure and attempting and failing to have unwanted sex.

Surprisingly, in 95 percent of the rape or unwanted sexual coercion reported in the survey, a female was identified as the aggressor.

According to Dr. Bryana French, the lead author of the study, it is a common misconception that women wont rape or attempt to initiate sex via coercion with an unwilling male because of a lack of erection. However, French says that the study defined  "sex" as oral, vaginal, or anal and did not have to necessarily involve male genitalia.

French told TIME magazine that the concept that men cannot be raped by women is "an unfortunate myth," and she hopes her study, despite its small sample-size, can help shed light on alarming trends of rape culture in high schools and universities.

The study was published for early online release in Psychology of Men and Masculinity on March 17.