Women’s Health News reports on recent research of sexual victimization:
Sexual victimization can mean several things — verbal coercion to have sex with an intimate partner, rape by a stranger, a woman fondled in a bar or forced intercourse when a woman is too intoxicated to consent or object.
Researchers at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions report that 18 percent of young women recruited into a study experienced sexual victimization in a two-year period. Victimization was defined as unwanted sexual contact, verbally coerced sex, rape or attempted rape. Among this group, the majority (approximately 66 percent) stated that their victimization was perpetrated by an intimate partner.
Importantly, it was found that sexual victimization of women by intimate partners and non-intimate partners are two completely separate phenomena. Two different sets of risk factors exist for victimization by two different types of perpetrators.
The factors that predicted victimization from intimates were different than the factors that predicted victimization from non-intimates. Predictors of intimate partner victimization included being married or living together, prior intimate partner victimization and difficulty refusing a partner’s request for sex. Thus, women who experience this type of sexual victimization are at risk of experiencing it multiple times, by virtue of remaining in relationships with sexually aggressive men.
A predictor of victimization by a non-intimate perpetrator was binge drinking. “One explanation for this may be that a perpetrator who is not intimately acquainted with a victim is more likely to take advantage of a woman’s intoxication as a way to facilitate having sex with her,” according to Testa. “Women who are heavy drinkers or binge drinkers typically drink outside the home and in the presence of others who are drinking, reflecting a lifestyle that poses greater risk from men they don’t know.”
Another predictor of victimization by a non-intimate perpetrator was engaging in sex with a greater number of sexual partners. This behavior also increased risk for subsequent sexual victimization due to exposure to a greater number of potential perpetrators.
Many times women get drunk, choose to have sex, regret it later, and then blame the person with whom they had sex by calling it sexual victimization. I do not see that as sexual victimization. I highly recommend to all people: Don’t drink so much that you make bad decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make; If you do, blame yourself.
Statistics show that when using objective criteria (i.e. how much the person drank), men get “taken advantage of” just as much as women.
I doubt the accuracy of studies that rely on the allegedly victimized person’s definition of victimization – because this definition varies from person to person. In other words, a study that simply asks women if they have been victimized won’t get accurate numbers.
Nonetheless, predators do prey on easy targets such as drunk people. Additionally, women who party often obviously have more of a risk of victimization from a stranger than women who do not party as much.
Women need to take precautions to avoid sexual victimization, such as staying with trusted friends, not drinking too much, and taking self-defense classes. Society needs to reduce the threat to women by taking active steps to stop sexual victimization, which it can do by such methods as increasing awareness and jailing victimizers and assailants. Hosts of parties can ensure the safety of their guests. Other people, including men, can ensure the safety of their female friends (and any woman for that matter) by keeping an eye on them and making sure they have a safe way home.
What do you think?
