Women's self‐defense and sexual assault resistance: The state of the field

Public attention to sexual assault has increased dramatically over the last decade, spurring questions about how it can be prevented. One approach that has received scant attention is women's self‐defense training (sometimes known as sexual assault resistance training). This neglect is curious because empowerment‐based women's self‐defense (ESD) training is so far the only approach that has produced substantively significant decreases in victimization rates. In this article, I review the research evidence on women's self‐defense training. Does resisting a sexual assault affect the outcome of sexual violence? Does self‐defense training further reduce women's risk of violence? What are the other consequences of self‐defense training? How does self‐defense work for different groups of women—for example, those who have survived prior victimizations? Are the critiques of women's self‐defense training valid? Finally, what do we still need to learn about women's self‐defense? Overall, I argue that this evidence presents a compelling case that women's self‐defense training should be central to any efforts to prevent sexual violence.     

Problematic alcohol use and sexting as risk factors for sexual assault among college women

ABSTRACT

Sexual assault is a major public health concern and college women are four times more likely to experience sexual assault than any other group. We investigated whether sexting is a mechanism by which alcohol use increases risk for college women to be targeted for sexual assault. We hypothesized that sexting would mediate the relationship between problem drinking and sexual assault, such that drinking (T1 = beginning fall semester) would contribute to increased sexting (T2 = end fall semester), and in turn increase the risk of being targeted for sexual assault (T3 = end spring semester). Results: Among 332 undergraduate women (M(SD)age = 19.15(1.69), 76.9% Caucasian), sexting (T2) predicted sexual assault (T3; b = 3.98, p = .05), controlling for baseline sexual assault (b = 0.82, p < .01). Further, sexting (T2) mediated the relationship between problem drinking (T1) and sexual assault (T3) (b = 0.04, CI[.004,.12]). Conclusion: Findings suggest that sexting is one mechanism through which drinking increases the risk of college women being targeted for sexual assault.     

Facial emotion identification and sexual assault risk detection among college student sexual assault victims and nonvictims

Objective: High rates of sexual victimization among college students necessitate further study of factors associated with sexual assault risk detection. The present study examined how social information processing relates to sexual assault risk detection as a function of sexual assault victimization history. Participants: 225 undergraduates (M_age = 19.12, SD = 1.44; 66% women). Methods: Participants completed an online questionnaire assessing victimization history, an emotion identification task, and a sexual assault risk detection task between June 2013 and May 2014. Results: Emotion identification moderated the association between victimization history and risk detection such that sexual assault survivors with lower emotion identification accuracy also reported the least risk in a sexual assault vignette. Conclusions: Findings suggest that differences in social information processing, specifically recognition of others' emotions, are associated with sexual assault risk detection. College prevention programs could incorporate emotional awareness strategies, particularly for men and women who are sexual assault survivors.     

Discrepant Responding across Self-Report Measures of Men's Coercive and Aggressive Sexual Strategies

Researchers have worked to refine the measurement of women's experiences with sexual victimization. Less is known about the validity and reliability of measures that assess men's use of sexual coercion and aggression. These studies explore the consistency of men's responses to two distinct, but similar, measures of sexual coercion and aggression. The two measures both assess historical use of verbal coercion, sexual assault involving drugs or alcohol, and sexual assault through threat or force. Study 1 used college men as participants (N = 398), whereas Study 2 used a mixed sample of college and community men (N = 184). In both studies, participants’ responses were largely inconsistent across the two measures. This article explores potential measurement issues that may account for the observed reporting discrepancies and offers suggestions for future research.     

College Women's Experiences with Physically Forced,Alcohol- or Other Drug-Enabled,and Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Before and Since Entering College

Objective: Research has shown associations between college women's alcohol and/or drug consumption and the risk of sexual assault, but few studies have measured the various means by which sexual assault is achieved.

Participants: The authors' Campus Sexual Assault Study obtained self-report data from a random sample of undergraduate women (N = 5,446).

Methods: The authors collected data on sexual assault victimization by using a cross-sectional, Web-based survey, and they conducted analyses assessing the role of substance use. The authors also compared victimizations before and during college, and across years of study.

Results: Findings indicate that almost 20% of undergraduate women experienced some type of completed sexual assault since entering college. Most sexual assaults occurred after women voluntarily consumed alcohol, whereas few occurred after women had been given a drug without their knowledge or consent.

Conclusions: The authors discuss implications for campus sexual assault prevention programs, including the need for integrated substance use and sexual victimization prevention programming.     

Does Drinking Alcohol Prior to Sexual Activity Influence College Students’ Consent?

Objectives: This study assessed the extent to which consuming alcohol prior to sexual activity influenced college students' verbal/behavior cues utilized to communicate consent (external consent) as well as their feelings associated with consent (internal consent). Methods: Data was collected via paper-and-pencil surveys administered to heterosexual college students (N = 794) in the United States. Results: After controlling for gender, relationship status, rape myth acceptance, and alcohol expectancies, findings indicated that alcohol consumption prior to sexual activity was associated with both internal and external consent. Conclusions: Current findings can help inform sexual assault prevention education programming given the high rates of sexual assault occurring on college campuses that involve alcohol consumption.     

Patient Problems Encountered at a Student Health Service

Abstract

Objective: To assess how Ohio colleges conform to recommendations that address barriers to reporting sexual assault. Participants: A study sample of Ohio 4-year colleges (N = 105). Methods: College Web sites were examined between March and November 2011 for their availability of sexual assault policies using 8 measures. Results: Of the colleges in the sample, 66% had an online sexual assault policy. Less than 1% of colleges included definitions for applicable sexual offenses in the Ohio Revised Code. All colleges with a policy included on-campus personnel to whom a victim could report. Approximately 25% and 31% of colleges included confidential or 24/7 reporting options, respectively. Conclusions: Many colleges are failing to offer basic reporting options to victims of sexual assault. Having a clearly labeled sexual assault policy on a campus Web site that includes 24/7 reporting options and defines acts of sexual assault can aid victims in the reporting process.     

Generational Sexualities,Subterranean Traditions,and the Hauntings of the Sexual World: Some Preliminary Remarks

In this article I argue that generation is a relatively neglected concept for thinking about both the social and the sexual, and that symbolic interactionism has much to offer in developing our understanding of this idea. Using both personal experience and the wide‐ranging literature on sexualities, I explore the role of synchronic and diachronic time in organizing both the flow of sexual lives and the hierarchy of age‐sexual orders. The core organizing concepts are those of generational sexualities and subterranean traditions; the approach is seen to provide a further complication to standpoint, queer, and intersectionality theory. The core of the article suggests an array of sensitizing concepts and research areas that might sharpen future analyses. Schematic and exploratory, the article draws from a wide range of examples. Careful the things you say, Careful the tale you tell, Children will listen. Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods (1986) Reality exists in a present … we look forward with vivid interest to the reconstruction, in the world that will be, of the world that has been for we realize that the world that will be cannot differ from the world that is without rewriting the past to which we now look back. George Herbert Mead, The Philosophy of the Present (1932) Generations are in a constant state of interaction. Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (1997) How long is a man's life, finally? A thousand days or only one? One week or a few centuries? How long does a man's death last? And what do we mean when we say, “gone forever”? Brian Patten, “So Many Different Lengths of Time,” Selected Poems (2007) To study social life one must confront the ghostly aspects of it. Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters (1997)     

Legal discourse and the cultural intelligiblity of gendered meanings1

This paper considers the methodological challenges that ‘post-modern’ approaches to gender ( Cameron 2005 ) pose for the field of language and gender. If we assume that gender cannot be ‘read off’ the identities of speakers, but rather is a social process by which individuals come to make cultural sense, then how do we best investigate this process? As Stokoe (2005) and Stokoe and Smithson (2002) have argued, it is problematic within such frameworks to conduct research that pre-categorizes individuals as women and men, since it is individuals' constitution as women or men that should be the issue under investigation. Indeed, for Butler (1990: 145), to understand ‘identity as a practice … is to understand culturally intelligible subjects as the resulting effects of a rule-bound discourse’ (emphasis in original). This suggests that we attend to cultural norms of intelligibility (i.e. the ‘rule-bound discourse’) and their effects. Following Blommaert (2005) and Woolard (forthcoming) , in this paper I investigate a speech event, a courtroom trial dealing with sexual assault, where understandings of social identities and categories (i.e. ‘norms of intelligibility’) are not only evident in the local talk of speakers and hearers, but also in the recontextualizations of this local talk by powerful institutional representatives (i.e. judges). By examining such recontextualizations of courtroom talk, gender is not ‘read off’ the identities of individuals (i.e. courtroom participants) but rather investigated as it appears in the cultural sense-making frameworks of judges. Moreover, given that judges are the ultimate interpreters of the linguistic representations of courtroom talk, this paper also demonstrates some of the social consequences associated with the performance of culturally intelligible and unintelligible gendered identities.     

Forcible,Drug-Facilitated,and Incapacitated Rape and Sexual Assault Among Undergraduate Women

Abstract

Objective: To examine the prevalence of drug-related sexual assaults, identify the frequency of assaults that occur following voluntary versus involuntary drug or alcohol consumption, and identify contextual correlates of drug-related assaults. Participants: College-student females (n = 314). Methods: Volunteers reported experiences with forcible and drug-related sexual assaults in the spring semester of 2004. Follow-up queries regarding the most severe drug-related assaults determined whether the assaults followed voluntary or involuntary alcohol or drug consumption. Results: 29.6% (n = 93) of the respondents reported a drug-related sexual assault or rape; 5.4% (n = 17) reported a forcible sexual assault or rape. Voluntary incapacitation preceded 84.6% of drug-related assaults and involuntary incapacitation preceded 15.4% of drug-related assaults. The majority of drug-related assaults (96.1%) involved alcohol consumption prior to assault. Conclusions: Drug-related sexual assaults on college campuses are more frequent than are forcible assaults and are most frequently preceded by voluntary alcohol consumption.     

Perceptions of Effectiveness of Responses to Sexual Harassment in the US Military, 1988 and 1995

This analysis compares patterns of response to the harassment experiences that had the greatest effect on the respondents to the ‘1988 Department of Defense (DoD) Survey of Sex Roles in the Active‐Duty Military’ and Form A of the ‘1995 Armed Forces Sexual Harassment Survey’. We analyse the respondents’ perceptions about effectiveness of their responses, and respondents’ opinions about the efforts of senior military leadership, and their own immediate supervisors’ efforts to ‘make honest and reasonable efforts to stop sexual harassment in the active‐duty military’ ( DoD, 1988 ; Bastian et al., 1996 ). Results indicate that while the military has been somewhat successful in attempts to lower actual incidence of sexual harassment, the percentage of those experiencing such uninvited and unwanted behaviours remains high. Similar patterns of responses in both years, with most employing personal solutions and few filing complaints with officials, may reflect the fact that official DoD policy focuses on individual behaviour and does not address the masculine environmental context that promotes such behaviours (see also Harrell and Miller, 1997 ). Findings also suggest that the ‘no tolerance’ policies adopted by the military may concentrate on the military image but ignore the wishes of the complainants who fear reprisals. If the rights and wishes of all parties involved are not taken into account, policies are unlikely to be successful (see, for example, Rowe, 1996 ).     

Identifying Demographic and Attitudinal Correlates of Young Adults’ Safer-Sex Self-Efficacy

Objectives: Using data from young-adult college students (N = 207), we identified demographic and attitudinal correlates of safer-sex self-efficacy. Female respondents reported higher levels of safer-sex self-efficacy than males. Methods: Participants completed a self-report survey about their sexual attitudes, values, and experiences. Results: In regression analyses only, the importance of safer-sex practices was related to safer sex self-efficacy in both men and women. Women's safersex self-efficacy was associated with additional demographic factors and sexual beliefs. Conclusions: The factors identified in this study may serve as intervention targets for young-adult sexual health programs. Reinforcing the importance of safer-sex practices may be particularly effective in increasing young adults’ safer-sex self-efficacy.     

Black Lives/White Backgrounds: Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric and Critical Race Theory

How do you criticise a hierarchical racial formation that is rendered nearly invisible by its colour (white) and positioning (background) in the contemporary, so-called colour-blind or post-racial US? The reading of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric that this essay will undertake seeks to offer a response to this question utilising some key insights from Critical Race Theory (CRT). As they are understood here, both CRT and Citizen offer counter-stories by ‘call[ing] out’ to what you ‘don’t see’, specifically to America’s racial formations so as to promote colour-consciousness and an anti-racist critique. Beginning with a discussion of the relationship between literary and legal narratives, followed by two sections on Rankine’s rhetorical strategies, this essay ends by closely reading her texts about Trayvon Martin, who was murdered on 26 February 2012.     

Sexual Assault Risks Among Gay and Bisexual Men

The goal of this study was to examine lifetime patterns of sexual assault and associated risks among a purposive sample of gay and bisexual men (N = 183; 18 to 35 years old, M = 24.3). Cross-sectional data were collected via written, self-administered questionnaires and face-to-face, event-based qualitative interviews. Alcohol severity scores indicated high rates of hazardous drinking (53.0%) and possible dependence (14.2%) among participants. One-half of men (50.8%) reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and 67.2% reported adult sexual assault (ASA). Average age at most recent ASA was 21 years. Most perpetrators (83.9%) of recent ASA incidents were male; 67.0% of participants reported consuming alcohol and/or drugs prior to the most recent incident. Regression findings indicated more severe CSA experiences and past alcohol-related problems predicted recent severe ASA. Although we found similarities between gay and bisexual men in lifetime sexual assault history, we found some distinct differences in ASA risk factors. Bisexual men reported higher alcohol severity scores, more female ASA perpetrators, higher internalized homophobia scores, and fewer male sexual partners than gay men. Findings suggest the need for interventions that reduce ASA risk among sexual minority men—and the potential benefits of focusing on alcohol consumption in risk reduction efforts.     

Reporting Child Sexual Abuse within Religious Settings: Challenges and Future Directions

The sexual abuse of children within religious settings is an issue that has gained increased popular and professional attention over the past two decades. Various reports have highlighted the scale of such abuse, along with shortcomings in reporting practices. In this article, we outline some contemporary research that sought to understand the psychology that underpins variable reporting practices. In line with this research, we set out two conceptual frameworks that have some potential to help to explain such practices: system justification theory and moral foundations theory. Further, we describe how these frameworks could be adopted in research moving forward in order to make sense of the ways in which members of religious groups respond to allegations of child sexual abuse within their institutions. We close the article by arguing that by gaining a deeper understanding of the psychology underlying reporting practices, it may be possible to communicate more effectively about child sexual abuse within religious institutions, and therefore encourage more widespread reporting of allegations before more children are harmed.

‘We outline some contemporary research that sought to understand the psychology that underpins variable reporting practices’

Key Practitioner Messages

• Those most likely to observe or suspect child abuse in religious settings are themselves likely to participate in such settings.
• The challenge for these ‘onlookers’ is to overcome the psychological dynamics that push against the recognition and reporting of child abuse in religious settings.
• These dynamics can be understood via established psychological theories and frameworks.
• Practitioners concerned with improving reporting practice in these contexts can draw on this work to inform training and intervention strategies.

     

Examining the Institutional Features Influencing Sexual Assault at Small Colleges and Universities*

This article explores the relationships between institutional features of small college and university campuses and the levels of reported sexual assault. Using the mandated reporting of crime on campus through the Clery Act, we look at the combined levels of reported sexual assault for the years 2012 and 2013 at the main campuses of all accredited non‐profit, four‐year, residential, undergraduate colleges and universities in the United States that have a student body size of 2,000–2,999 students, N = 198. We find that the presence of a Greek life system, alcohol policy, religious affiliation, and the proportion of male students all influence the levels of reported sexual assault at colleges and universities, with alcohol policy being the strongest influence.     

Mediating potency and fear: action movies’ affect

ABSTRACT

Action movies participate in the administration of fear [Virilio, P., 2012. The administration of fear. Translated by Ames Hodges. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e)], and the networked affects of contemporary warfare [Anderson, B., 2013. Targeting affective life from above: morale and airpower. In: P. Adey, M. Whitehead, and A.J. Williams, eds. From above: war, violence and verticality. London: Hurst & Company]. Through a sensory assault of intense bass soundtracks, kinetic camera movements, and intense CGI effects action movies work to produce what Steven Shaviro has termed ‘intensity effects’ [Shaviro, S., 2010. Post-cinematic affect. Winchester: Zero Books]. These intensity effects mediate between the age of terror's ecology of fear [Massumi, Brian, 2002. Parables for the virtual: movement, affect, sensation. Durham: Duke University Press] and our bodies. Rather than producing fear, action movies work to dispel fear by producing potency and bolstering resolve. We can thus understand action movies as participating in the biopolitical effects of contemporary warfare. Affect is globalized and intensified through action movies’ aesthetics, with the aim of producing a kind of drone subject. Robin James significantly posits a drone atmosphere where our perceptual limit reconfigures through ‘droning’ – the creation of an affective timbre [James, R., 2013. Drones, sound, and super-panoptic surveillance. Cyborgology]. As James argues, ‘[d]roning rivets you to material conditions, affects, and sensations that compel you to behave in specific ways, and not in others’ (n.p.). So while drones currently work overseas to target morale, action movies work on the home front to target our potency and resolve and so engender a mode of sensation that also functions as action. Affect works as a translator, where sensation is displaced into the feeling of having acted. In having acted, we are led to believe that we are safe from fear, which can be understood as a pharmakon. We are kept safe by action movies’ mediation of potency and fear.     

The Role of Sex-Related Alcohol Expectancies in Alcohol-Involved Consensual and Nonconsensual Sex Among Women of Asian/Pacific Islander and Women of European Race/Ethnicity

Alcohol-involved sexual experiences, including incapacitated sexual assault and alcohol-involved sex, are major public health concerns among college women. Further, racial/ethnic diversity among college students is increasing, particularly with regard to increases in college students of Asian/Pacific Islander (API) race/ethnicity. Of relevance, evidence suggests differences in sexual assault rates across ethnicities and cultures; however, no known study to date has examined differences by ethnicity and first language in expectancies and experiences specifically surrounding alcohol and sex. The current study sought to examine differences in incapacitated sexual assault, alcohol-involved sex, and heavy episodic drinking, as well as differences in sex-related alcohol expectancies among native English-speaking college women of European (EU) race/ethnicity, native English-speaking women of API race/ethnicity, and non–native English-speaking women of API race/ethnicity (NNES-API). EU reported higher frequency of heavy episodic drinking, alcohol-involved sex, and incapacitated sexual assault compared to API and NNES-API. In addition, API reported more frequent alcohol-involved sex and incapacitated sexual assault compared to NNES-API, in part due to API’s stronger endorsement of sexual disinhibition–related alcohol expectancies (indirect effects: β = ?.04, p = .04, and β = ?.07, p = .04, respectively). Findings highlight the important role of expectancies in acculturation and influence on actual alcohol-involved sex and sexual assault.     

Prevalence of Sexual Trauma History Using Behaviorally Specific Methods of Assessment in First Year College Students

There are several challenges associated with evaluating the prevalence of sexual trauma, including child sexual abuse and adult sexual assault. The aim of this study was to assess sexual trauma prevalence rates among first year college students (N = 954) using behaviorally specific questions and a more representative recruitment sample that did not rely on self-selection. Participants completed a list of sexual trauma questions, including general questions containing labels such as “rape” or “abuse” as well as behaviorally specific questions that describe specific behaviors that qualify as sexual trauma without labels. Results indicated that 6.7% of the sample reported at least one incident of child sexual abuse, with similar rates for men and women. Women were more likely to report a history of adult sexual assault, which was reported by 12.4% of the total sample. Participants were also more likely to endorse a history of sexual trauma when answering behaviorally specific rather than general “label” questions. Women survivors in particular were more likely than men to identify their experiences as abuse/assault (66.7% versus 21.1% for child sexual abuse), which may help explain prevalence differences between men and women in prior research. Men may be less likely than women to label their experiences as abuse and may be underidentified in sexual trauma research without the use of behaviorally specific questions. Overall, the results of this study suggest that the prevalence of sexual trauma is better assessed using behaviorally specific questions and that this is an important topic of study among both men and women.     

Differential perceptions of a hypothetical sexual assault survivor based on race and ethnicity: Exploring victim responsibility,trauma, and need for social support

Objective: Explore the ways in which a sample of college women interpret racially/ethnically coded vignettes to understand their perceptions of responsibility and trauma experienced by a hypothetical female sexual assault survivor and her need for social support. Participants: Convenience sample of college women (N?=?51) attending a large, predominately white university in the Southeastern United States recruited between January and March 2013. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned one of three vignettes describing a hypothetical date rape scenario. Vignette scenarios were identical except for discrete statements coded to signify either an African American, Latina, or white female student. Participants responded to open-ended questions that gauged their interpretations of responsibility, trauma, and social support. Results: Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses revealed six overarching themes, including overt victim blaming/shaming, justification of the sexual assault, and perceived need for social support. Conclusions: Findings point to the significance of including race in discussions about and programs that address sexual assault on college campuses to ensure that all women who experience sexual violence receive the support that they need.