Infidelity and women’s coerced first sexual intercourse in Chinese college students’ dating relationships

Abstract

Sexual coercion in intimate relationships is an important research problem which has been investigated within evolutionary perspectives. This study aims to test one of sperm competition hypotheses by examining the relationship between infidelity and women‘s coerced first sexual intercourse (CFSI) in Chinese college students‘ dating relationships. Total 927 Chinese college students from 8 universities in 5 cities who are currently in a dating relationship attended the study. Results showed that the prevalence of women‘s CFSI was 16.4% (men‘s self report) and 20.1% (women‘s partner report). In the male virgin sample, infidelity positively correlated with total CFSI and its three components (emotional manipulation, rival threat and violence threat). In the female non-virgin sample, infidelity positively correlated with violence threat. But in the male non virgin and female virgin sample there was no such significant correlation. The implications of applying sperm competition theory in women‘s CFSI and within Chinese culture are discussed.