Clark and Hatfield's evidence of women's low receptivity to male strangers' sexual offers revisited.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Secondary analysis of an informal, uncontrolled journalistic field project compared with historical study data.
PubMed 16279298 · doi:10.2466/pr0.97.1.11-20
What was done
The authors analyzed data from an informal, naturalistic journalistic project (N = 100) initiated by an Austrian magazine where male strangers approached women with offers of immediate sexual involvement. These findings were compared to three historical, identically designed naturalistic experiments by Clark and Hatfield (aggregated N = 144).
What was found
Women in the journalistic project showed a 6.1% acceptance rate (95% CI: 2.8% to 12.6%) for immediate sexual involvement with a male stranger, compared to the 0% acceptance rate observed across the original Clark and Hatfield studies.
Why it matters
The study indicates that female receptivity to casual sex offers from strangers is not universally zero, demonstrating the substantial influence of contextual factors in naturalistic mating behavior research.
Limits
The primary data came from an uncontrolled journalistic demonstration rather than a standardized scientific experiment. Contextual variables—such as setting, subject and requester age, physical attractiveness, and specific delivery—were unstandardized and likely confounded the comparison.