In this study, 102 rape survivors were interviewed about the social reactions they received from family and friends post-rape. Results supported Ullman’s (1996b) conclusion that the overall contribution of positive social reaction (e.g., providing support, listening, believing) on victims’ recovery is negligible, but that negative social reactions (e.g., blaming) hinder recovery. In contrast to Ullman’s (1996b) work, this research also examined whether rape victims have similar perceptions as to what constitutes a “positive” and “negative” social reaction. Results indicated that victims often agree as to what reactions are healing (positive), but that they do not agree as to what is hurtful (negative). By taking victims’ perceptions into account, this study was able to compare the relative contributions of social reactions that were considered healing, social reactions that were considered hurtful, and the absence of social reactions. Results indicated that survivors who had someone believe their account of what happened or were allowed to talk about the assault—and considered these reactions to be healing—had fewer emotional and physical health problems than victims who considered these reactions hurtful, or victims who did not experience these reactions at all. Implications for future research on social reactions are discussed.

This research examined how contact with the legal, medical, and mental health systems affects rape survivors' psychological well-being. Although community services may be beneficial for some victims, there is increasing evidence that they can add trauma, rather than alleviate distress (termed secondary victimization). This study examined how secondary victimization affects rape survivors' posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. Adaptive and snowball sampling were used to recruit a sample of 102 rape survivors. Victims of nonstranger rape who received minimal assistance from either the legal or medical system, and encountered victim-blaming behaviors from system personnel, had significantly elevated levels of PTS. This high-risk group of rape survivors had PTS levels significantly higher than all other victims in this study, including those who did not seek community assistance postrape. However, for these high-risk rape survivors, receiving sustained mental health services after these negative experiences was associated with a significant decrease in PTS. "They were raking me over the coals, making me feel like a slug, making me feel guilty for doing all the actions I did that day, and treating me like I was the one who raped, the offender, not the victim."-A rape survivor on filing a police report "Worst experience ever. And it was because of the doctor. He was very rough. And he was saying, 'Open your legs. Stay still. Open them further.' I'm saying, 'Excuse me?' I feel like saying, 'I have just been raped!' He was just so crass, so rude about it. Really cold.. .. And then when he scraped [taking the vaginal swabs], I jumped, and he says, 'You gotta stay still!'"-A rape survivor on the medical rape exam "My therapist kept talking about my need for attention. How I made bad choices in life because of my need for attention. How I got myself raped for attention. Those words hurt as much as the rape itself."-A rape survivor on mental health counseling These rape survivors' narratives speak to the detrimental effect community services may have on women's psychological wellbeing. 1 To date, the rape victimology literature has focused primarily on assessing the prevalence of rape and its impact (

Although prevention efforts aimed at eliminating the occurrence of sexual assault are clearly needed, it is also important to consider how we can prevent further trauma among those already victimized. Prior research suggests that rape survivors may experience victim-blaming treatment from system personnel ( termed secondary victimization or the second rape). This research examined how postassault contact with community systems exacerbated rape victims' psychological and physical health distress. Findings revealed that the majority of rape survivors who reported their assault to the legal or medical system did not receive needed services. These difficulties with service delivery were associated with both perceived and objective measures of negative health outcomes. Contact with the mental health system, rape crisis centers, or religious communities was generally perceived by victims as beneficial. This study suggests that the trauma of rape extends far beyond the assault itself, as negative community responses can significantly elevate distress.

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Next‐generation sequencing methods, such as RNA‐seq, have permitted the exploration of gene expression in a range of organisms which have been studied in ecological contexts but lack a sequenced genome. However, the efficacy and accuracy of RNA‐seq annotation methods using reference genomes from related species have yet to be robustly characterized. Here we conduct a comprehensive power analysis employing RNA‐seq data from Drosophila melanogaster in conjunction with 11 additional genomes from related Drosophila species to compare annotation methods and quantify the impact of evolutionary divergence between transcriptome and the reference genome. Our analyses demonstrate that, regardless of the level of sequence divergence, direct genome mapping (DGM), where transcript short reads are aligned directly to the reference genome, significantly outperforms the widely used de novo and guided assembly‐based methods in both the quantity and accuracy of gene detection. Our analysis also reveals that DGM recovers a more representative profile of Gene Ontology functional categories, which are often used to interpret emergent patterns in genomewide expression analyses. Lastly, analysis of available primate RNA‐seq data demonstrates the applicability of our observations across diverse taxa. Our quantification of annotation accuracy and reduced gene detection associated with sequence divergence thus provides empirically derived guidelines for the design of future gene expression studies in species without sequenced genomes.