Gunby et al. BMC Public Health 2012, 12:216 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/216 Table 1 Bivariate comparison of male and female students?’? alcohol consumption and sexual activity (Continued) Person A is mildly drunk; person B is severely drunk and too drunk to give consent. They have sex. Next day B states rape has occurred. Should A be held responsible for rape? Person A is moderately drunk; person B is severely drunk and too drunk to give consent. They have sex. Next day B states rape has occurred. Should A be held responsible for rape? Person A and B are severely drunk: A too drunk to establish if consent is present, B too drunk to consent. They have sex. Next day B states rape. Should A be held responsible for rape? Agree How would you describe this scenario? Person A and B are severely drunk: A Consensual too drunk to establish if consent is present, B too drunk to consent. They have sex. Next day B states rape. A significant number of rapes reported to the police are false allegations Being drunk when having sex increases the likelihood of a false rape allegation Who do you have sex with? Only variables which differed significantly by sex are displayed. that the other person flirting with them was relevant compared to 22.4% of men and 39.9% of women who felt this was irrelevant (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.83, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.24-2.71). Simi- larly, 90.3% of men reported that another person remov- ing some of the respondent’s clothes was relevant to them deciding if that person wanted to have sex with them compared to 3.1% who felt this was irrelevant. Comparable figures for women were 74.2% and 14.6% respectively (AOR = 3.04, 95% CI = 1.15-8.00). While the majority of participants (90.0%) knew that consent involved agreeing to engage in sex through choice, men were significantly less likely to know this is the case than women (AOR = 0.30, 95% CI = 0.13-0.69) or were unsure whether this was the case (AOR = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.11-0.90). Approximately half of respondents thought that consent needed to be verbally agreed; a larger Agree Disagree Undecided Agree Disagree Undecided Agree Disagree Undecided Rape Mid-point Undecided Disagree Undecided Agree Disagree Undecided Agree Opposite sex Same sex Both sexes 218 (20.4) 291 (27.1) 207 (19.3) 577 (53.7) 503 (46.8) 238 (22.1) 334 (31.1) 857 (79.7) 153 (14.2) 65 (6.0) 149 (13.9) 32 (3.0) 720 (67.4) 168 (15.7) 436 (40.7) 239 (22.3) 396 (37.0) 130 (12.1) 73 (6.8) 869 (81.1) 950 (89.0) 58 (5.4) 59 (5.5) 143(17.6) 198(24.3) 164 (20.1) 454 (55.6) 353 (43.3) 199 (24.4) 264 (32.4) 637 (78.1) 132 (16.2) 47 (5.8) 102 (12.5) 21 (2.6) 560 (68.9) 130 (16.0) 356 (43.7) 185 (22.7) 274 (33.6) 109 (13.4) 65 (8.0) 641 (78.7) 725 (89.5) 36 (4.4) 49 (6.0) Page 5 of 12 75 (29.1) 16.22 < 0.001 93 (35.9) 43 (16.6) 123 (47.5) 13.52 150 (57.9) 39 (15.1) 220 (84.9) 70 (27.0) 18.55 < 0.001 21 (8.1) 18 (6.9) 10.62 47 (18.4) 11 (4.3) 160 (62.5) 80 (31.3) 54 (21.1) 21 (8.2) 8 (3.1) 228 (88.7) 13.59 225 (87.5) 22 (8.6) 10 (3.9) 7.81 38 (14.8) 7.97 0.047 122 (47.7) 18.00 < 0.001 0.001 0.005 0.001 0.020 proportion of women than men incorrectly believed this was the law (AOR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.44-0.90). Men were less likely to agree that being drunk affects one’s capacity to consent to sex than to disagree (AOR = 053, 95% CI = 0.35-0.79). Presented with three scenarios depicting sex between two intoxicated people (in two scenarios the level of intoxication was disproportionate), female respondents were more likely than male respondents to state that the scenario depicted rape. Both men and women were more likely to disagree that rape occurred if both parties were equally intoxicated. In the multivariate analysis, where one person was moderately drunk and the other severely so, compared to women, men were more likely to say they were undecided whether it was rape than to disagree (AOR = 0.50, 95% CI = 0.32-0.79). Male respondents were significantly more likely than female