14 DAY TRIAL // 18 % of the young women were found to experience sexual victimization in a two-year research. Sexual victimization was characterized as unwanted sexual contact, verbally coerced sex, rape or attempted rape.
Most of these women (about 66 %) were victims of an intimate partner (boyfriend/dating partner, husband, ex-boyfriend or ex-husband), the rest of a stranger (acquaintances and friends) or relatives, groups and strangers, and these two types of perpetrators acted by different risk factors. "Because risk factors or predictors for the two different types of sexual victimization differ, considering them separately allowed us to see who is vulnerable to which type of experience," stated Dr. Maria Testa, lead investigator on the study at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.
The researchers focused on how the women's substance intake, sexual activity and lack of assertiveness in rejecting sexual advances made them vulnerable to sexual victimization.
927 women averaging 24 years of age (varying 18 to 30) at the beginning of the study reported their experiences of sexual victimization. 75 % were white, 17 % black and small percentages Hispanic, Asian, and Native American, with an average income of $35,000 and 40 % were studying in college; the majority were unmarried and employed.
What favored the intimate perpetrator was being married or living together, prior to victimization by the same partner and weakness in refusing a partner's sex request. That's why these women are at risk of experiencing multiple abuses due to maintaining their relationships with the aggressors.
Non-intimate aggressors were favored by the victim's drinking. "One explanation for this may be that a perpetrator who is not intimately acquainted with a victim is more likely to take advantage of a woman's intoxication as a way to facilitate having sex with her. Women who are heavy drinkers or binge drinkers typically drink outside the home and in the presence of others who are drinking, reflecting a lifestyle that poses greater risk from men they don't know", said Testa.
The risk was even higher when women engaged in sex with a greater number of sexual partners, due to a future exposure to a greater number of potential perpetrators.
Prevention strategies to reduce sexual victimization include decreasing heavy episodic drinking, the number of sexual partnerships (especially for female college students), assertiveness training about how to effectively refuse sexual advances and how to refuse or deny maintaining coercive relationships.