Characterizing Sexual Violence in Intimate Relationships: An Examination of Blame Attributions and Rape Acknowledgment

Abstract

Rape by an intimate partner frequently involves a precedence of sexual consent between victim and perpetrator, often does not include the use of physical force, and may not fit societal definitions of rape. Given these unique characteristics, women who are assaulted by an intimate partner may be less likely to acknowledge the experience as a rape. In turn, they might make fewer blame attributions toward themselves and their perpetrators than victims of rape by a nonpartner. Consistent with these expectations, results from 208 community women reporting rape in adulthood revealed the presence of indirect effects of perpetrator type (nonpartner vs. intimate partner) on both behavioral self-blame and perpetrator blame through rape acknowledgment, even when controlling for both victim substance use at the time of the assault and coercion severity. Compared with women who experienced a rape by a nonpartner, women who experienced rape in the context of a marital or dating relationship were less likely to blame themselves or the perpetrator for the assault, in part because they were less likely to label their experience as a rape. Overall, these findings highlight the unique nature of intimate partner rape and provide further information about the relatively underresearched area of sexual violence in intimate relationships.

Using Digital Technology for Sexual and Reproductive Health: Are Programs Adequately Considering Risk?

“…They may also be reluctant to identify with some forms of abuse. For example, in the context of a relationship where there has been prior consensual sex, a woman may be more hesitant to label an event as coerced or forced sex, even if consent was not given 56 . However, even physical violence, the most tangible form of violence, is difficult to measure in different contexts and tools vary in their comprehensiveness, affecting calculated prevalence rates 53 …”

Intimate partner sexual violence and violent victimisation among women living homeless in Madrid (Spain)

“…It has been found that 8.8% of women in the United States of America have been raped by their partners (Breiding, 2015), indicating that IPSV is a serious problem across different cultural contexts. Given that sexual violence can exist alongside physical and psychological violence, the health repercussions can become highly dangerous (Alsaker et al, 2011;Jaffe et al, 2017). However, though the prevalence and consequences of physical violence by partners have been widely documented, little is known about IPSV (Pengpid et al, 2018).…”

Analysis of a Modification to the Sexual Experiences Survey to Assess Intimate Partner Sexual Violence

“…Participants could choose one response from the following: intimate partner, friend, acquaintance, and stranger. Follow-up questions after the SES-SFV have been commonly used for identifying IPSV and other assault characteristics (Littleton & Henderson, 2009;Jaffe, Steel, DiLillo, Messman-Moore, & Gratz, 2017).…”