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Contacts - whether romantic or sexual - at places like bars is not positive and consensual in every case, a new study that examines bar-based sexual aggression has found. 

Using an observational design, the study has found that it often reflects intentional sexual invasiveness and unwanted persistence rather than misperceptions in sexual advances. 

"Recent data suggests that aggression related to sexual advances is very common nowadays," said Kate Graham, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto as well as corresponding author for the study, in the press release.

"Last year, we did a study of bargoers in Windsor, across the river from Detroit. Participants were recruited on their way to bars, and then asked additional questions about two common forms of sexual aggression we observed - unwanted sexual contact and unwanted persistence - when they were leaving the bar district: more than 50 percent of women reported experiencing one or both types of sexual aggression on the evening of the exit survey."

The study concluded that the sexual aggression has become a common experience in the bars and approximately 90 percent of the incidents involved male initiators and female targets. 

Researchers noted that the initiators' level of invasiveness was not related to their own intoxication but to intoxication of the targets. They collected narrative descriptions and quantitative data for more than 1,057 incidents that were observed during 1,334 visits in Toronto during the years 2000-2002. 

"I don't think you could get away with this sort of thing in most settings," added Graham. "If a stranger came up to a woman, grabbed her around the waist, and rubbed his groin against her in a university cafeteria or on a subway, she'd probably call the police. In the bar, the woman just tries to get away from him."

Results will be published in the May 2014 online-only issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.