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Quantitative and interview data on rape victims' self-evaluation and attributions of personal responsibility were studied to explore the relevance of theories of "defensive attribution" and maintenance of belief in a "just world." Clinical implications of the findings for adjustment of victims, counseling, victim compensation, and the legal system are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to assess predictors of injury in a preliminary model with victim and forensic characteristics as variables. Assessment of predictors will fill gaps in the literature, help clinicians improve data-gathering methods, and identify characteristics associated with rape-related injury of women who may be at higher risk for subsequent poor health.
Transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) from a male accused of rape and deliberate transmission of HIV-1 was investigated by sequencing of the HIV-1 pol and gag genes from virus obtained from the male and from the female victim. Parts of the reverse transcriptase and p17gag genes were amplified and directly sequenced from uncultured peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The sequences were compared with sequences from 21 unrelated HIV-1-infected controls from the same geographic area (Stockholm, Sweden). Bootstrap analysis of phylogenetic trees demonstrated that the sequences from the female were significantly more closely related to the sequences from the male than to sequences from the controls. Furthermore, we found that the male and female shared two distinct genetic variants of HIV-1. In p17gag the major variant had an unusual, out-of-frame deletion of 3 nucleotides which the minor variant lacked. These results indicated that the male had transmitted more than one infectious unit to the female. From this study we concluded that it was highly likely that the HIV-1 strains carried by the male and female were closely epidemiologically linked.
Rape challenges a woman's ability to maintain her defenses and thus arouses feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy. Women's individual responses are determined by life stage considerations as well as their defensive structures: concerns about separation-individuation may be aroused in the young woman; a divorced or separated woman may find her credibility questioned; older women's fears of sexual inadequacy may be compounded. In counseling, the victim's previous adjustment should be assessed, she should be given support and reassurance, and specific considerations related to her life circumstances should be acknowledged and dealt with.
The Rape Crisis Intervention Program at Beth Israel Hospital utilizes volunteer multidisciplinary counseling teams drawn from psychiatry, social work, psychology, and nursing staffs. The premise of the program is that early crisis intervention can prevent later development of psychological disturbances in later development of psychological disturbances in victims. Counselors accompany victims throughout emergency room procedures: follow-up begins 48 hours after the initial contact and continues at regular intervals for at least a year. The authors discuss the problems of implementation, which include staff resistance, finding questions, and varying levels of counseling sophistication, and describe how these difficulties have been handled in their program. They note that this program is becoming a resource center for the community.
The Debbie Smith or "Justice for All" Act was passed on November 1, 2004. The act addresses the problem of collecting and analyzing DNA evidence from backlogged rape kits sitting in crime laboratories around the country. Presently, no empirical data exist by which to assess the soundness of the legislation. However, the act clearly affects discrete operations within the forensic and criminal justice systems. This article explores the relative merits of the Debbie Smith law, highlighting changes in Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) programs, law enforcement, court administration, correctional treatment, and juvenile justice practices. Concerns linked to the likely impact of the "Justice for All" Act raise significant questions about its overall programmatic utility and treatment efficacy.
Over the past 20 years, research has uncovered the many types of sexual victimizations women experience. Findings regarding the victim-offender relationship in such incidents have undoubtedly been among the most striking. Particularly salient is the revelation that the sexual abuse of and violence against women-including rape-most often are perpetrated not by a stranger but by someone known to the victim. Without the innovation and implementation of victimization surveys with behaviorally specific questions, this knowledge may have remained unknown. Instead, armed with such knowledge, prevention and education efforts can be fashioned to address sexual victimizations committed by someone known to the victim. In this article, we address these issues related to key developments in sexual victimization research.
This article examines the sequential, temporal, and interactional aspects of sexual assaults using sequential analysis. Fourteen statements taken from victims of bedroom-based assaults were analyzed to provide a comprehensive account of the behavioral patterns of individuals in sexually charged conflict situations. The cases were found to vary in the sexual severity of assault, distinguishing a variety of motivations and behavioral repertoires of offender and victim. Two quite distinct styles of offense were identified: multiple and single, which may have very different implications for research into rapist taxonomies and rape prevention strategies.
In a survey of 1,439 female college students, 24% reported that they had what they considered consensual sexual intercourse between ages 13 and 15 (2% at age 13, 7% at age 14, and 15% at age 15). Contrary to the impression left by studies of teenage mothers, the majority of their male sexual partners were not substantially older than them but instead were more typically "somewhat older" (2-4 years apart) or similar aged (less than 2 years apart). The percentage of "much older" partners (5 or more years older) was 31% for those who had intercourse at age 13, 17% for those who had intercourse at age 14, and 13% for those who had intercourse at age 15. Women who had intercourse at age 13 endorsed more current symptoms of psychological distress than those who first had intercourse at age 14 or 15. There were no significant differences between the groups in current levels of sexual satisfaction. Partner's age difference was not significantly associated with current levels of either psychological distress or sexual satisfaction. The implications of these results were discussed in light of recent calls in the United States for more strict and rigorous enforcement of statutory rape laws.
This study examined the impact of the psychological and pharmacological effects of alcohol on the ability of sexually coercive and noncoercive men to discriminate when a female wants a partner to stop sexual advances. In a 2 (alcohol vs. no alcohol) x 2 (expectancy vs. no expectancy) x 2 (sexually coercive vs. noncoercive status) randomized factorial design, male college students were exposed to an audiotape of a date rape. Participants who consumed, or expected to consume, alcohol took significantly longer to determine that the man should refrain from attempting further sexual contact. In addition, nonsexually coercive participants assigned to conditions in which they expected to consume alcohol responded similarly to their sexually coercive counterparts in their responses. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Mosher and Bond (this issue) suggest experimental designs that are not appropriate for the research purposes they criticize. In defending their own research, they make contradictory statements about the realism of their guided imagery procedure for simulating rape. They present data that we believe provide evidence for the possibility that wrongful harm occurred in their previous research. We assert our right to study the ethics of research and object to specious charges of having threatened sexual freedom and being associated with ideologues of the right and left.
Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), also known as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, is a known cause of sudden unexplained death in young, otherwise healthy adults. In the forensic setting, several cases of fatal ARVC have been reported, mostly occurring during physical exercise. However, a very few cases present where the death scene is mistaken for a homicide. We report here the case of a 23-year-old woman, found dead, lying in the snow on an isolated property. The woman's genitals were exposed, with her trousers down over her thighs. Rape homicide was strongly suspected, but autopsy findings proved otherwise.
This article will explore the increased prevalence of rape and sexual assault among people with a learning disability and identify factors that exist which increase this client group's vulnerability to becoming a victim of sexual abuse. There is significant under-reporting of such incidents and very few cases end up in prosecution. Within the nursing profession, there is much more that can be done to help decrease the level of vulnerability of people with a learning disability and to work with other agencies to advocate for legal justice and therapeutic redress for individuals.
The Social Work Department at B'nai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel worked with health care professionals within the hospital and in community organizations to establish a rape crisis center in the emergency room. The department developed procedures, guidelines, and protocols for the center; developed and conducted training seminars for hospital and community organization staff; and created a plan for crisis intervention.
The relationship between the Greek goddess Athena and her father Zeus, together with the competitive hostility she displays towards other females, is presented as illustrating some previously neglected aspects of triangular developmental conflicts in the little girl. Literature on "the Oedipus complex in the female" is reviewed and discussed. The mythological early histories of both Athena and the female monster Medusa are examined for the light they can shed on female developmental vicissitudes and resultant conflicts in both women and men. Unconscious split representations of women as assertive, phallic and dangerous, or alternatively passive, castrated and receptive result in defensive repudiation of the idea that a woman can be both actively assertive and also feminine and sexual. Athena's enraged action of transforming the beautiful young maiden Medusa into a monster as punishment for the "crime" of having been raped in her temple is discussed as illustrating an outcome of the lack of resolution of the little girl's early triangular conflicts.
This paper describes the effect of rape and the impact of sexually predatory environments on young boys and the resulting sequelae in adulthood. It presents the literature and the case histories of Jeff and Todd to illustrate the psychic devastation that occurs, and the ensuing attempts at reestablishing boundaries and regaining a sense of autonomy and male identity. Issues including facing powerlessness, betrayal by trusted adults, and the effect of emasculation on developing sexual identity are explored. A study of almost 4,000 siblings by Nelson et al. (2002) showed that a twin who was not sexually abused himself but who grew up in the same milieu as his sexually abused twin, suffered similar psychopathologic symptoms, such as suicide attempts, alcohol dependence, and social anxiety. Todd spent his formative years in a Catholic boarding school where boys were physically and sexually abused by priests. His history illustrates the severe psychological damage this causes and is consistent with the findings of Nelson's study.
Either victim or rapist or both were drinking prior to 72% of the rapes occurring in Winnipeg from 1966 through 1975, and the presence of alcohol increased the likelihood that the victim would be injured prior to sexual intercourse.
OBJECTIVE: The effects of alcohol consumption, alcohol expectancy set and self-reported alcohol expectancies on college students' perceptions of a potential date rape situation were examined. It was hypothesized that the effects of alcohol consumption on perceptions of the likelihood of forced sex would be mediated by cognitive factors and perceived sexual arousal. METHOD: 90 female and 90 male college students were randomly assigned to drink alcohol, a placebo beverage, or a nonalcoholic beverage. Participants read a story about a couple that had been drinking together at a party. The story ended with the woman saying "no" to sexual intercourse and the man exerting verbal pressure. RESULTS: Participants' alcohol consumption during the study, self-reported alcohol expectancies, attitudes about casual sex and usual drinking on dates had significant effects on their perceptions of the story. Participants' alcohol expectancy set and gender did not have significant effects on perceptions of the likelihood that the male character would force the female character to have sex. CONCLUSIONS: Intoxicated participants perceived the woman in the vignette as being more sexually arousedand the man in the vignette as behaving more appropriately, and both of these variables were negatively related to ratings of how likely it was that forced sex would occur. These findings highlight the importance of mediating cues in intoxicated decision making.