Sexual Violence Perpetration and Victimization: Providing Prevalence Rates for Understudied Populations

Procedure

The data used in this article came from two separate data collections led by the first and second authors. ^† Both research protocols originated from Canadian universities, were of cross-sectional designs, pertained to human sexual behaviors, and used online questionnaires with the same measures to assess sexual violence perpetration and victimization. Both protocols had received ethics approval from their university's institutional review board.

Participants

Participants represented a combined convenience sample of 1796 individuals 16–83 years of age. See Table 1 for the complete demographic characteristics.

Measures

Prevalence

Tables 2 and 3, respectively, provide prevalence rates for perpetration and victimization according to gender and sexual orientation.

Group comparisons

Following best practice (McHugh 2013), between-group statistical comparisons were performed using the Chi-square test of independence (χ²). To achieve greater statistical power, non-monosexual and homosexual men were merged into a “combined men sexual minority group.” The same procedure was used with women participants to produce a “combined women sexual minority group.” Prevalence rates for these groups are available in Tables 2 and 3. Comparisons were made between five groups (heterosexual men and women, sexual minority men and women, and transgender/nonbinary individuals) using the heterosexual men subgroup as the reference category for perpetration and the heterosexual women subgroup as the reference category for victimization. The statistical significance level was adjusted to 0.01 (0.05/5) to account for multiple between-group comparisons.

Perpetration

When looking at pooled-together sexual violence perpetration, heterosexual men recorded the highest prevalence rates of all groups at ∼38%, a rate consistent with the existing literature (Anderson et al. 2019; White and Smith 2004; Widman et al. 2013; Wiscombe 2012). The only group that showed statistically different rates of sexual violence perpetration than heterosexual men were heterosexual women, with 23.5%. This rate is similar to those reported by Struckman-Johnson et al. (2003), and fall between the 9% (e.g., Krahé et al. 2003) and 49% range (e.g., Parent et al. 2018) reported in other studies. Consistent across all subgroups, verbal strategies were the most commonly used strategy to force someone into sexual interactions compared to intoxication and physical force. These results, obtained with a heterogenous sample in terms of gender and sexual orientation, constitute an extension of findings emerging from studies on heterosexual men identifying verbal strategies as the most common (Abbey et al. 2014; Widman et al. 2013; Wiscombe 2012). Although heterosexual men remain the primary group to use coercive strategies to obtain sexual interactions, results indicate that heterosexual women, as well as sexual and gender minorities, are also perpetrators of sexual coercion.

It is noteworthy that men and women sexual minority, as well as transgender/nonbinary individuals, recorded pooled-together rates of sexual coercion that were statistically similar to the heterosexual men reference group. The statistical similarity held when perpetration was further analyzed by type of sexual interaction and by strategies used. It is important to remember that although combined for statistical purposes, sexual minorities of different sexual orientation as well as gender minorities are far from homogeneous and monolithic groups. These results nonetheless provide a first estimate of the base rates for sexual violence perpetrated by gender and sexual minorities, highlighting the need to consider coercive sexual behaviors outside of a heteronormative frame of reference.

Taken together, these results emphasize the relevance for future research to continue to focus on sexual coercion perpetrated by men on women, but to also aim to study sexual violence outside of the heterosexual dynamics and traditional sex roles. While we must acknowledge that sexual violence occurs within a context and interpersonal dynamics that go well beyond the behavioral elements measured by the SES-P these results reflect the fact that sexual violence encompasses a wide range of behaviors that do not fall into the traditional rape script (which typically includes the use of physical force by a men to force a women to have sex) or meet the legal definitions of sexual assault or rape. More insidious strategies such as showing insistence, lying, or inducing guilt or fear to coerce someone into nonconsenting sexual interactions of any nature are far more common than the use of physical force and also represent sexual violence.

Victimization

When looking at pooled-together victimization, heterosexual women from our sample reported higher rates than what is commonly reported. Both data sets were collected during or immediately after the #MeToo Movement, which might have contributed to greater acknowledgment and disclosure. Although heterosexual men reported significantly lower rates of victimization than other subgroups, one in four reports being subjected to nonconsenting sexual interactions, suggesting that heterosexual men victimization is an issue that requires more attention from both researchers and practitioners.

Sexual victimization rates recorded by sexual and gender minorities were all statistically equivalent to the heterosexual women reference group. Most sexual and gender minority groups were particularly vulnerable to sexual victimization, with rates ranging from 40% to ∼60%. These results are consistent with the existing literature (Chen et al. 2020; Edwards et al. 2015; Sterzing et al. 2019). When considering nonconsenting penetration or oral sex, homosexual men, transgender/nonbinary individuals, and non-monosexual women all reported higher rates of victimization than heterosexual women. Non-monosexual women reported greater rates of victimization than heterosexual women in all victimization categories, which corroborates previous findings concerning non-monosexual women being the most vulnerable group for sexual victimization (Canan et al. 2019; Chen et al. 2020). Although the SES-V and other measures of sexual victimization have been found to produce false positives (Littleton et al. 2019), these rates testify to an important issue surrounding sexual victimization for sexual and gender minorities, which contrasts with the underrepresentation of these populations in sexual violence research and the limited psychosocial services offered to them.

Implications

Going forward, efforts should be made to limit gender and heteronormative biases in sexual violence research. First, future research should aim to adapt protocols to promote inclusivity. The creation and validation of questionnaires that are specifically designed for sexual and gender minorities might be necessary to fully grasp the singularities of their experiences as perpetrators and victims of sexual coercion. At the very least, future research should aim to use and validate questionnaires adapted to be gender inclusive and all participants should be questioned on perpetration and victimization experiences regardless of their gender. Also, sexual and gender minorities should be included in studies using convenience samples. In addition to providing important data on understudied populations, such a practice would increase the generalizability of findings. Second, future research should aim to test if and how current theoretical models of sexual violence perpetration apply to female perpetrators and sexual and gender minorities. Third, results highlight the need to facilitate access to more resources for victims of sexual violence and to adjust sexual violence awareness initiatives and prevention programs to be more inclusive. Victims' resources need to be welcoming of men and sexual and gender minorities, while prevention programs need to target perpetration by all genders and behaviors outside of traditional heteronormative scripts, as well as challenge the traditional rape script to raise awareness to wider rages of sexually coercive behaviors. Antigender bias training and diversity training programs on gender identity and sexual orientation should be highly encouraged for practitioners as well as policymakers, especially those working on issues such as violence and sexuality.

Limitations

This study has some limitations. First, both perpetration and victimization were assessed using the SES. Although the SES is the gold standard for sexual violence assessment, prevalence rates are found to be lower when using SES-based questionnaires with men compared to other measures (Anderson and Delahanty 2020; Anderson et al. 2019), while women tend to overreport perpetration on the SES (Buday and Peterson 2015). The fact that the SES was modified to be gender inclusive may have impacted the way participants endorsed the items. Previous research have shown that wording changes in the SES items have influenced response rates (Rueff and Gross 2017). Like any other self-report questionnaire, the SES is also subject to social desirability biases. These limitations regarding the SES might, in part, explain the low rates recorded for the use of physical force. Second, the use of a convenience sample that was inclusive led to relatively small numbers of participants in some minority groups, which needs to be kept in mind when interpreting the results. Future research should aim to oversample sexual and gender minorities and measure gender and sexual orientation according to best practice (Bauer et al. 2019). Finally, by combining two independent samples, we might have introduced unforeseen biases into our results. While both samples used equivalent methods to assess the variables of interest, small differences in recruitment strategies, in the order of questionnaires or internet platforms, could have affected participants' responses without any way to measure it.