Close to 50 percent of all teenage boys and college men say they've been coerced into sex or sexual behavior -- a majority by females they knew.

New research conducted by the University of Missouri asserts 43 percent of all high school boys and young college men report having unwanted sexual experiences and, of those, 95 percent said a female acquaintance was the aggressor, according to a study published online in the American Psychological Association's journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.

"Sexual victimization continues to be a pervasive problem in the United States, but the victimization of men is rarely explored," lead author Bryana H. French, PhD, said in a news release. "Our findings can help lead to better prevention by identifying the various types of coercion that men face and by acknowledging women as perpetrators against men."

Out of 284 high school and college students surveyed for the sexual encounter research, about 18 percent reported sexual coercion by physical force, 31 percent said they were verbally coerced, 26 percent described unwanted seduction by sexual behaviors and 7 percent said they were compelled to engage in sexual activity after consuming alcohol or drugs, the study explained.

The study participants consisted of 54 high school teens and 230 college students, ages 14 to 26.

High school students completed the surveys on paper in the classroom and college students completed them electronically or in the classroom.

Among the high school students, 42 percent were white, 17 percent black, 15 percent Asian-American, 15 percent Latino and 11 percent multiracial. The college students were 46 percent white, 21 percent black, 18 percent Asian-American, 10 percent Latino and 5 percent multiracial.

To differentiate sexual coercion from possible incidents of child abuse, the researchers told participants not to include experiences with family members.

Half of the respondents said their coerced encounters ended up in intercourse, while 10 percent reported an attempt to have intercourse and 40 percent said the sessions resulted in kissing or fondling.

According to the written descriptions submitted by study participants, an estimated 40 percent of Latinos reported sexual coercion, compared to 22 percent of African Americans, 19 percent of whites and 8 percent of Asian American students.

The study found a link between being coerced into having sexual intercourse and other types of risky sexual behaviors, as well as greater consumption of alcohol by the victims themselves.

Students who were sexually coerced while drunk or drugged demonstrated notable distress, according to the findings, although engaging in unwanted sex did not appear to alter the victims' self-esteem.

"It may be the case that sexual coercion by women doesn't affect males' self-perceptions in the same way that it does when women are coerced. Instead it may inadvertently be consistent with expectations of masculinity and sexual desire, though more research is needed to better understand this relationship," French said.

The type and frequency of sexual coercion was found to vary according to the ethnicity of victims.

Asian-American students, for instance, reported significantly fewer sexual coercion experiences compared with the other groups. Whites reported a much greater proportion of coercion that resulted in attempted sex, as compared to multiracial victims.

The findings determined a need for greater scientific study of the often-subtle differences between sexual seduction and sexual coercion, the authors said in the study.

"While not typically addressed in sexual violence research, unwanted seduction was a particularly pervasive form of sexual coercion in this study, as well as peer pressure and a victim's own sense of an obligation, French said. "Seduction was a particularly salient and potentially unique form of coercion for teenage boys and young men when compared to their female counterparts."