Psychological symptoms, abuse characteristics, abuse disability, and coping were assessed in college women who either did or did not acknowledge victim status relative to rape or intimate partner violence. Women were asked directly whether they had experienced intimate partner violence or rape. They also completed the Conflicts Tactic Scale (CTS)…

Although male rape is being reported more often than before, the majority of rape victims continue to be women. Rape myths--false beliefs used mainly to shift the blame of rape from perpetrators to victims--are also prevalent in today's society and in many ways contribute toward the pervasiveness of rape. Despite this, there has been limited…

Violence and victimization inside the prison setting are accepted as facts, although the facts about their prevalence remain uncertain. Variation in the methods used to estimate rates of sexual and physical victimization contribute to the wide range in estimates appearing in the prison literature. This article focuses on the questions used in the…

Although there has been considerable empirical attention to the problem of dangers posed by certain college party environments, little attention has been given to attendees' perceptions of possible danger cues in party environments, how such perceptions may be linked to concern for personal safety, or variations in perceptions of personal safety…

Rape affects one in seven women nationwide. Historically, most rape victims do not report rape to law enforcement. Research is needed to identify barriers to reporting and correlates of reporting to guide policy recommendations that address such barriers. We investigated the prevalence of reporting rape among a national sample of women (N = 3,001)…

This study investigates the structure of Struckman-Johnson and Struckman-Johnson's Male Rape Myth Scale, examines gender differences in rape myth acceptance, and explores the underlying ideologies that facilitate male rape myth acceptance. A three-factor model, with rape myths regarding Trauma, Blame, and Denial as separate subscales, is the best…

Little attention has been given to repeat violent and sexual victimization among college women. Using two national-level data sets, the authors find that a small proportion of college women experience a large proportion of violent and sexual victimizations. Women are more likely to experience repeat sexual victimization than repeat violence…

Three pilot studies were conducted to obtain information about sexual assault perpetration from adult men in the United States. Each used the same random digit-dial sampling and recruitment strategy. One pilot was administered by telephone and two via the Web. Response rates in all pilots were low. Although results cannot be generalized beyond the…

This study investigates the effect of voluntary and involuntary drug use on attributions about sexual assault. The sample was composed of 280 randomly selected male and female undergraduate students. The type of drug used (GHB, alcohol, or none) and the voluntariness of the administration were varied in an unambiguous date rape scenario.…

Limited data from low-income countries are available on the continuum of coercive experiences, the contexts in which they occur, and how adolescent women perceive and respond to coercion. This article presents results from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with pregnant and never pregnant sexually active female adolescents, aged 15…

This is the first study of unwanted sexual experiences in the collegiate "hooking-up" culture. In a representative sample of 178 students at a small liberal arts university. Twenty-three percent of women and 7% of men surveyed reported one or more experiences of unwanted sexual intercourse. Seventy-eight percent of unwanted vaginal, anal, and oral…

The present study utilized a mixed retrospective and prospective design with an 8-month follow-up period to test a model of revictimization that included multiple childhood (i.e., child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse) and situational variables (i.e., substance use, sexual behavior) for predicting rape among 276 college women. It was of…

To what extent does the length of the marriage or the wife's faithfulness to the husband influence the perception of responsibility or trauma in marital rape? In the current study, each participant was presented with one of four marital rape vignettes. The vignettes varied only in the length of the marriage (3 years or 15 years) and the fidelity…

The primary purpose of this investigation was to assess the convergent validities of two measures of dating behaviors related to risk for sexual victimization, the Dating Self-Protection Against Rape Scale (DSPARS) and the Dating Behavior Survey (DBS). Three hundred seventy-seven women responded to measures assessing self-protective dating…

An 8-month prospective study examined behavioral, personality, and psychological variables thought to increase vulnerability for college women's experience of rape and verbal sexual coercion. Participants were 276 college women who completed self-report surveys. During 1 academic year, 9.5% of women were raped and 11.7% reported verbal sexual…