NCJ Number
227557
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 15 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2009 Pages: 810-834
Date Published
July 2009
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This study examined how victims make sense of unwanted sexual contact and coercion within a culture that promulgates ideologies of male sexual aggression as natural, normal, and justifiable under certain circumstances.
Abstract
Results reveal that one in five respondents who claim to have been victimized by a broad range of unwanted sexual incidents use some type of account to excuse the offender's behavior, or justify the situation as not serious or their own fault. Although the majority of victims' narratives do not contain accounts, the fact that almost 200 excuses and justifications appear unsolicited in victim summaries may indicate that the actual frequency of victim accounts is much greater. The interviewers did not specifically ask victims whether they blamed the offender or whether they interpreted what happened to them as crimes. Future research that specifically addresses perceptions of severity and blame will be necessary to provide a more accurate measure of victims' overall usage of accounts. Data were collected from 944 victimization narratives from 1992 through early 2000, collected as part of the National Crime Victimization Survey. Tables, notes, and references