Sexual boundaries: an examination of the importance of talking before touching.

This study examined a woman's clearly articulated sexual boundary and its effect on college students' discrimination of when a woman wants her date to stop making sexual advances. Male and female participants listened to an audio recording of a date rape vignette and signaled when the man should stop making sexual advances. Relative to participants in the no-boundary condition, participants who heard a discussion including a sexual boundary before intimate physical contact occurred displayed significantly shorter latencies to identify the inappropriateness of the man's behavior. No significant difference was observed between male and female participants.