The purpose of this study was to assess the cues college students use to determine a sexual partner is refusing vaginal-penile sex (i.e., refusal interpretations). As a secondary aim, we explored the influence of item wording (not willing/non-consent vs refusal) on college students’ self-reported refusal interpretations. A sample of 175 college students from Canada and the United States completed an open-ended online survey where they were randomly assigned to one of two wording conditions (not willing/non-consent vs refusal); students were then prompted to write about the cues they used to interpret their partner was refusing. An inductive coding procedure was used to analyze open-ended data. Themes included explicit and implicit verbal and nonverbal cues. The refusal condition elicited more explicit and implicit nonverbal cues than the not willing/non-consent condition. Frequency results suggested men reported interpreting more explicit and implicit verbal cues. Women reported interpreting more implicit nonverbal cues from their partner. Our findings reflect prior research and appear in line with traditional gender and sexual scripts. We recommend researchers consider using the word refusal when assessing the cues students interpret from their sexual partners as this wording choice may reflect college students’ sexual experiences more accurately.

这项研究的目的是评估大学生用来确定性伴侣拒绝阴道阴茎性行为的线索（即拒绝解释）。作为次要目标，我们探讨了项目措辞（不愿意/不同意与拒绝）对大学生自我报告拒绝解释的影响。来自加拿大和美国的 175 名大学生的样本完成了一项开放式在线调查，他们被随机分配到两种措辞条件之一（不愿意/不同意与拒绝）); 然后提示学生写下他们用来解释伴侣拒绝的暗示。使用归纳编码程序来分析开放式数据。主题包括明确和隐含的语言和非语言线索。拒绝条件比不愿意/不同意条件引发更多明确和隐含的非语言线索。频率结果表明男性报告解释了更明确和隐含的语言线索。女性报告说，她们从伴侣那里解释了更多含蓄的非语言暗示。我们的发现反映了先前的研究，并且符合传统的性别和性脚本。我们建议研究人员考虑使用拒绝一词在评估学生从他们的性伴侣那里解释的线索时，因为这种措辞选择可能更准确地反映了大学生的性经历。