Using cultural consensus analysis to study sexual risk perception: a report on a pilot study.

Recent research indicates that risk perceptions are shaped by social and cultural factors, and therefore it is important to study the cultural aspects of sexual risk understandings. This paper reports on a pilot study using consensus analysis to study the content and distribution of knowledge of sexual risk among a small sample of college students at a private university in western New York. Twenty men and 20 women were surveyed. The results of the subsequent consensus analysis suggest that the men, the women, and all the respondents combined share a model of what constitutes risky sex. The women showed a greater level of consensus and average competence than men. There were important differences between men and women in some aspects of the content of knowledge. In particular, men perceived sexual desire as more likely to prevent the practice of safe sex, whereas women saw alcohol in that role. One issue raised in this paper is the problematic assumption that culture as knowledge determines behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]