Women's Experiences of Impairment and Incapacitation During Alcohol/Drug-Related Sexual Assaults: Toward a Survivor-Informed Approach to Measurement

"I Think You Covered the Three Levels of Drugs and Consent": Qualitatively Testing Different Operationalizations of an Alcohol and Other Drugs-Involved Sexual Violence

Substance-involved rape is increasing among college students, particularly women (Koss et al., 2022). Addressing rape requires first measuring it accurately in surveys to understand its true scope and nature. We used cognitive interviews with 40 young adults to qualitatively test the construct validity of an alcohol- and other drugs (AOD)-involved rape item in the Sexual Experiences Survey by asking participants to comment on different operationalizations of this construct. Our findings revealed that different phrasings elicited different interpretations of the items by participants. Specifically, the results indicated that (1) respondents viewed the different operationalizations as a sequence of events with varying severity; (2) some participants focused on the intentionality and responsibility of the perpetrator as opposed to opportunistic perpetration; and (3) study participants consistently chose one of the operationalizations as describing "being roofied" (being drugged without consent). Participants also contributed additional scenarios not described in the questionnaire and shared their interpretations of the items. The results underscore the importance of refining survey language to properly measure AOD-involved rape and allow us to understand how to tailor appropriate questions for best comprehension. The findings indicate the benefit in including several items about AOD-involved rape in questionnaires such as the Sexual Experiences Survey, with each item addressing different scenarios of victim intoxication. The results could also have important implications for sexual violence prevention programs, which should discuss consent, intentions, and responsibility specifically in the context of AOD consumption.

Gender Differences in Sexual Violence Victimization Experiences and Validity of Victimization Reports: A Think-Aloud Study

This study compared the qualitative nature of women and men's sexual violence (SV) victimization, the types of experiences captured and missed on the Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) across genders, and common interpretations of the SES-SFV items. Fifty-four university students (31 women, 21 cis men, 2 trans men) who had recent unwanted (but not necessarily nonconsensual) sexual experiences thought out loud while privately completing the SES-SFV. They also typed descriptions of experiences reported on SES-SFV items or similar experiences when nothing was reported on an item. Results indicated that women's victimization was more frequent and severe than cis men's, except when men were victimized by men. Although verbal coercion was common across genders, event descriptions indicated that women's verbal coercion experiences were more often harsh and part of a partner's ongoing SV or coercive control. The findings suggest that quantitative measurement can mask important gender differences in victimization and (based on analysis of false positives and negatives) may underestimate rape and attempted rape experiences, especially women's. Findings suggested that responding to the SES-SFV was not traumatic or distressing. However, participants sometimes expressed confusion about the items and interpreted them in unintended ways.

Quantifying Criminal Sexual Acts: The Illegal Sexual Exploitation Module of the Revised Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V) Measure

Since the initial development of the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) four decades ago, the SES has been designed to measure a range of forms of sexual exploitation, including acts that are coercive but not legally sanctioned as well as acts that legally qualify as crimes. That feature was retained in the revised Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V) measure. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature that guided the development of the Illegal Sexual Exploitation module of the SES-V, which measures experiences of nonconsensual exploitation resulting in sexual contact and which is designed to correspond to legal definitions across multiple jurisdictions. This article addresses research and applied contexts in which the distinction between legal and illegal sexual exploitation is important and the challenges and limitations involved in writing survey items that correspond to legal definitions. It also discusses revisions made to the items that make up the Illegal Sexual Exploitation module of the SES-V as compared to the illegal items in prior versions of the SES, including a new operationalization of non-consent and an expansion of the sexual acts and exploitative tactics that are included. Finally, the article discusses directions for future research on the Illegal Sexual Exploitation module of the SES-V.

Mock Juror Perceptions of a Male or Female Adult Rape Victim Crying in the Courtroom

This study investigated the impact of victim crying and gender on perceptions of rape cases. Participants (N = 240, 51.5% male, 48.1% female) completed a 2 (victim crying) × 2 (victim gender) × 2 (participant gender) between-participants design with case judgments (e.g., verdict) as the DVs. Results found that a rape victim crying during testimony increased pro-victim judgments compared to when the victim did not cry, that female mock jurors were more pro-victim than males, but that victim gender was insignificant. Finally, the mediation model found that victim crying increased their credibility, increasing the likelihood of a guilty verdict.

Relational and Trait Factors Mediate the Associations between Women's Intoxication-Related Unwanted Sexual Experiences, Pleasure, and Desire

Despite documented negative sexual health sequelae of unwanted sexual contact (USC), it is unclear why individuals who have experienced USC within the context of intoxication (intoxication-related USC) are at particular risk for poor sexual functioning. Intoxication-related USC may impact relational factors like relationship satisfaction, as trauma symptoms interfere with emotional closeness during sex. Additionally, although individual traits - such as sexual excitation and sensation seeking - affect the relationship between trauma and sexual functioning, it is unknown whether these factors differentially impact those who have experienced intoxication-related USC. Finally, because presence of a partner may evoke trauma-related symptoms during partnered (dyadic) sexual activity, mediators may differ across solitary versus dyadic sexual pleasure and desire. We tested relational and individual trait mediators of the association between intoxication-related USC and solitary and dyadic sexual pleasure and desire in a sample of heterosexual and sexual minority women. Trait factors consistently mediated the association between intoxication-related USC and both dyadic and solitary desire and pleasure, while relational factors such as emotional closeness were inconsistently related to sexual wellbeing. If replicated, these findings would suggest that trait factors may be useful targets for clinical sexual wellness interventions among sexuality-diverse women who have experienced intoxication-related USC.

Differences in Women's Substance-Related Sexual Assaults: Force, Impairment, and Combined Assault Types

This study furthers previous research on sexual assaults (SAs) involving substances and/or force by examining effects of perpetrator behaviors of alcohol and/or drug impairment level (none, impaired, incapacitated) and/or force during SA in relationship to various assault and recovery outcomes. A diverse sample of 632 women from a large Midwestern city participated in a study on women's experiences with SA. Of this sample of substance-involved SAs, 37.3% (n = 236) reported a forcible-only unimpaired assault, 50.6% (n = 320) reported a combined impairment/incapacitation and force assault, and 12% (n = 76) reported an impaired/incapacitated-only assault. Multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) and chi-square analyses compared assault types as defined by combined alcohol and/or drug impairment level and/or force to determine how these assaults differed in demographics, other assault characteristics, and post-assault experiences. Assault types differed on several demographic, assault, and post-assault factors with most differences showing that the combined assault type was related to worse outcomes than forcible-type assaults, including greater reexperiencing, avoidance, and numbing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Implications for clinical intervention include recognizing that assaults involving substance use and force are traumatic and warrant individualized treatment.

#MeToo Online Disclosures: A Survivor-Informed Approach to Open Science Practices and Ethical Use of Social Media Data

With social media data widely available, researchers are increasingly incorporating tweets, posts, and blogs in their work. While easily accessible, the use of “public” posts raises important questions about the ethics of mining, storing, analyzing, and reporting publicly available social media data—especially when gathering sensitive information such as sexual violence disclosures. Online movements including #MeToo and #WhyIDidntReport emerged to shed light on gender-based violence. These movements generate large quantities of data with little consistency and oversight across research groups, disciplines, and review boards on data ethics. With the recent push in social science to publish data to open science databases, the concerns of feminist psychologists and ethical concerns of social media research with survivors have become more salient. In this article, we describe and address these ethical issues by reviewing existing social media sexual assault disclosure research and make concrete recommendations for authors seeking to use social media data. We also seek to address these ethical concerns by noting the work of some feminist researchers, but also by pushing researchers to do more for survivors through a survivor-informed approach to this research in an open science context. We propose four survivor-informed recommendations for research with this vulnerable population: (a) get input from survivors, (b) update ethics review boards, (c) maximize benefits to participants, and (d) utilize study-appropriate datasets with informed consent.

Internal and external sexual consent during events that involved alcohol, cannabis, or both

Background Substance-involved sexual activity is common. Even though people recognise that substance-related impairment can be a barrier to people's ability to consent to sexual activity, most do not believe that substance use automatically negates sexual consent. We extended previous work on substance-related effects on internal and external consent by investigating sexual events that involved alcohol, cannabis, or both.

METHODS

For 28 days, 113 participants (MAge = 29.2 years, 57.5% women, 70.8% White) responded to three surveys per day on their personal devices. At time points when participants reported having engaged in partnered sexual activity, they were asked to report their alcohol use, cannabis use, internal consent feelings, and external consent communication.

RESULTS

Across 1189 partnered sexual events, 31.5% involved alcohol, cannabis, or both. Sexual events that involved combined use were associated with diminished feelings of safety/comfort and feelings that the sexual act was consensual, compared with events that involved neither substance. Greater levels of alcohol consumption were descriptively associated with lower ratings of internal sexual consent.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that combined use of alcohol and cannabis may lead to lower internal sexual consent than using either substance alone - potentially due to greater levels of impairment associated with polysubstance use. Sexual health education programs should consider more nuanced approaches to teaching people how to navigate substance use and sexual consent.

Associations between Gender, Alcohol Use and Negative Consequences among Korean College Students: A National Study

This study examines Korean college students’ rates and the severity of various negative consequences resulting from the frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption and the unique factors that are affecting this problem in the Korean context in comparison to other countries. It assesses how much gender, age and other associated respondent characteristics mediate alcohol use and the resulting negative consequences among the population. A stratified representative sample of 4803 valid student respondents attending 82 colleges participated in the alcohol consumption survey, of which 95% reported drinking in past 12 months. Drinking is measured by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C) screening tool. Based on this test, composite scores for each participant were computed and students were grouped into four risk groups: (a) nondrinkers, (b) light drinkers, (c) moderate drinkers and (d) heavy drinkers. Outcome measures include 21 validated items evaluating self-reported alcohol-related negative consequences. Rates of negative consequences are reported for each drinking risk group stratified by gender. Descriptive statistics, stepwise regression, multivariate linear regression and MANOVA tests were used to analyze the data. The study found that female respondents in the sample who consumed alcohol in the past 12 months drank 11.5 percent less than males (AUDIT-C score μ = 6.0 and 6.7, respectively), and there was a greater proportion of females (5.1 percent) who were nondrinkers than males (4.6 percent). Yet, when females drank, they experienced 11.8 percent more negative consequences on average than males (μ = 1.9 and 1.7, respectively). The study attempts to explain this apparent contradiction. The self-reported rates for many individual negative consequences also varied discernibly by gender. The study concludes with suggestions for how alcohol prevention on Korean college campuses would benefit from targeting females and males differently.