The Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) assesses victimization and perpetration of unwanted sexual experiences (e.g., Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987). Revised versions of the SES that resulted from the work of the SES Collaboration are now available. This article reviews weaknesses of the SES that were identified, strengths that were preserved, and methodological considerations in the measurement of unwanted sexual experiences that informed the revisions. The primary changes include: more behavioral specificity; conversion to gender neutrality; full crossing of unwanted acts and coercive tactics; and revised and updated wording for assessing consent, alcohol‐related incidents, unwanted acts, and coercive tactics. For illustration, the full text of the revised victimization version and its scoring rules are provided. The article concludes with suggestions for future research. These suggestions aim to involve researchers in a coordinated agenda to develop data that clarify methodological questions and contribute to continued improvement in assessing sexual victimization and perpetration.

This review examines the psychological impact of adult sexual assault through an ecological theoretical perspective to understand how factors at multiple levels of the social ecology contribute to post-assault sequelae. Using Bronfenbrenner's (1979, 1986, 1995) ecological theory of human development, we examine how individual-level factors (e.g., sociodemographics, biological/genetic factors), assault characteristics (e.g., victim-offender relationship, injury, alcohol use), microsystem factors (e.g., informal support from family and friends), meso/ exosystem factors (e.g., contact with the legal, medical, and mental health systems, and rape crisis centers), macrosystem factors (e.g., societal rape myth acceptance), and chronosystem factors (e.g., sexual revictimization and history of other victimizations) affect adult sexual assault survivors' mental health outcomes (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidality, and substance use). Self-blame is conceptualized as meta-construct that stems from all levels of this ecological model. Implications for curbing and/or preventing the negative mental health effects of sexual assault are discussed.

In this study, 102 female rape survivors were interviewed regarding their first post‐assault disclosure. Qualitative analysis revealed that nearly 75% of first disclosures were to informal support providers and over one third of the disclosures were not initiated by the survivors themselves. Over half of the survivors received positive reactions and less than one third felt the disclosure had a detrimental impact on their recovery. Loglinear analysis suggested that survivors who actively sought help from informal support providers were more likely to receive positive than negative reactions. In contrast, survivors who actively sought help from formal support providers were more likely to receive negative than positive reactions. When disclosure to formal support providers was initiated by the formal support providers themselves, however, survivors received exclusively positive reactions. Implications for future research are discussed.

This study used a naturalistic quasi-experimental design to examine whether rape survivors who had the assistance of rape victim advocates had more positive experiences with the legal and medical systems compared to those who did not work with advocates. Eighty-one survivors were interviewed in two urban hospitals about what services they received from legal and medical system personnel and how they were treated during these interactions. Survivors who had the assistance of an advocate were significantly more likely to have police reports taken and were less likely to be treated negatively by police officers. These women also reported less distress after their contact with the legal system. Similarly, survivors who worked with an advocate during their emergency department care received more medical services, including emergency contraception and sexually transmitted disease prophylaxis, reported significantly fewer negative interpersonal interactions with medical system personnel, and reported less distress from their medical contact experiences.

This paper is a primer for community psychologists on feminist research. Much like the field of community psychology, feminist scholarship is defined by its values and process. Informed by the political ideologies of the 1970s women's movement (liberal, radical, socialist feminism, and womanism), feminist scholars reinterpreted classic concepts in philosophy of science to create feminist epistemologies and methodologies. Feminist epistemologies, such as feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism, recognize women's lived experiences as legitimate sources of knowledge. Feminist methodologies attempt to eradicate sexist bias in research and find ways to capture women's voices that are consistent with feminist ideals. Practically, the process of feminist research is characterized by four primary features: (1) expanding methodologies to include both quantitative and qualitative methods, (2) connecting women for group-level data collection, (3) reducing the hierarchical relationship between researchers and their participants to facilitate trust and disclosure, and (4) recognizing and reflecting upon the emotionality of women's lives. Recommendations for how community psychologists can integrate feminist scholarship into their practice are discussed.