In Their Own Words

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to utilize a mixed methodological approach to better understand the co-occurrence of perpetrator tactics and women’s resistance strategies during a sexual assault and women’s reflections on these experiences. College women were recruited from introductory psychology courses and completed both forced-choice response and open-ended survey questions for course credit. Content-analytic results of college women’s written responses to an open-ended question suggested that women’s resistance strategies generally mirrored the tactics of the perpetrator (e.g., women responded to perpetrator verbal pressure with verbal resistance). However, there were some instances in which this was not the case. Furthermore, a number of women expressed a degree of self-blame for the sexual assault in their responses, as well as minimization and normalization of the experience. These findings suggest that sexual assault risk reduction programs need to directly address victims’ self-blame as well as create an atmosphere where societal factors that lead to minimization can be addressed.

Keywords

college sexual assault sexual coercion resistance self-defense attribution

Sexual assault occurs at alarmingly high rates on college campuses (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Research demonstrates that more than 50% of college women report sexual victimization (e.g., broadly defined as unwanted sexual contact, coercion, and attempted and completed rape) during adolescence or young adulthood. Over brief 8- to 10-week academic quarters, researchers have identified that 17% to 19% of college women are sexually victimized (Calhoun, Mouilso, & Edwards, 2012; Gidycz, Coble, Latham, & Layman, 1993; Gidycz, Van Wynsberghe, & Edwards, 2008). Although perpetrators of sexual violence are solely responsible for their acts, research has identified several factors that may reduce a woman’s risk of experiencing a sexual assault. Research suggests that women who utilize assertive resistance strategies (e.g., physically fighting back, screaming, running away) during a potential sexual assault are more likely to prevent the assault from escalating (e.g., from attempted to completed rape) than women who use more passive resistance strategies (e.g., trying to reason with the perpetrator, freezing, crying; Ullman, 1997, 2007). Despite this finding, only 20% to 25% of women actually utilize assertive resistance strategies when faced with a sexual assault situation (Ullman, 2007), which may be partially due to the perception that resisting a sexual assault could result in further bodily harm (Easton, Summers, Tribble, Wallace, & Lock, 1997). We recognize that preventing the perpetration of sexual violence is vital, but understanding the factors that lead to women’s use of assertive resistance is also important, given that these strategies have been shown to hinder perpetrators from progressing in their assault. In addition, understanding the predictors of resistance strategies could inform and enhance risk reduction programming, especially given the inconsistent results of these programs in terms of lowering actual rates of sexual assault (Calhoun et al., 2012).

A number of studies have been conducted in an effort to better understand the correlates and predictors of women’s utilization of various resistance strategies. Much of this research has been guided by the cognitive ecological model (Nurius & Norris, 1995), which posits that a multitude of variables (e.g., historical, relational, contextual/situational) impact women’s cognitive processing of threatening situations, and that this in turn affects women’s responses to sexual assault situations (Nurius & Norris, 1995). According to this model, in sexual assaults perpetrated by an acquaintance or intimate partner (which reflect the vast majority of sexual assaults), relational and psychological factors (e.g., concerns about rejection by the perpetrator and embarrassment at how others might view assertive resistance strategies) can serve as barriers to assertive resistance (Norris, Nurius, & Dineff, 1996; Ullman, 2007). With regard to contextual/situational factors that affect women’s use of resistance strategies, research has documented that the location of the assault and the presence of alcohol or drugs, a weapon, and other people are related to the types of strategies that women use in a sexual assault (Ullman, 2007). Furthermore, research has consistently documented that women often use a variety of resistance strategies and their responses typically reflect the tactics used by the perpetrator (i.e., victim verbal resistance in response to perpetrator verbal threats and victim physical resistance in response to perpetrator physical tactics; Macy, Nurius, & Norris, 2006; Ullman, 1998, 2007).

Over the past few decades, our understanding of the types of resistance strategies employed by women in situations of sexual assault, and the correlates and predictors of these responses, has greatly increased. All of this research, however, has been largely quantitative and focused on strategies that reduce the likelihood of an assault from escalating, for example, from unwanted sexual contact or attempted rape to a physically forced, completed rape. Less research has examined sexual assaults that involve verbal coercion, which research suggests are highly prevalent among college students (Calhoun et al., 2012; Fair & Vanyur, 2011). Moreover, although we know that women’s resistance tends to reflect the perpetrator’s tactics, methodologies that are purely quantitative do not allow for a more nuanced understanding of these interactional phenomena, especially for women whose patterns of responding in sexual assault situations deviate from the “average” victim response (as determined by quantitative data). Along these lines, there are few studies that have included questions asking women to reflect more generally on their own use of resistance during a sexual assault, which could provide useful information for the development of both universal and tailored sexual assault risk reduction programming for college women (Macy, Nurius, & Norris, 2007a, 2007b; Masters, Norris, Stoner, & George, 2006; Orchowski, Gidycz, & Murphy, 2010; Rothman & Silverman, 2007; Rowe, Jouriles, McDonald, Platt, & Gomez, 2012). Despite discussions in the literature about the importance of addressing these aforementioned issues (i.e., better understanding women’s responses to verbal coercion, use of qualitative methodologies to better understand women’s resistance strategies; Gidycz et al., 2008; Odem & Warner, 1998; Ullman, 2007), there is relatively little work (e.g., Testa & Livingston, 1999) that has actually done so. Accordingly, the purpose of the current study was to utilize a mixed methodological approach to better understand the co-occurrence of perpetrator tactics and victim resistance strategies during a recent sexual assault situation (including unwanted sexual contact, verbal sexual coercion, attempted rape, and completed rape) and women’s reflections on these experiences.

Method

Participants

These data come from a larger study assessing the prospective predictors of women’s coping responses following a sexual assault. Participants included 778 college women who completed the first study session, 665 (86%) of whom returned for the second study session. Of the 665 women, 79 (12%) reported sexual victimization over the 8-week follow-up period and were asked to respond to an open-ended question about this experience. We asked women to recall the details of a recent sexual assault experience within the prior 2 months to reduce recall bias. Of the 79 women, 20 women did not answer the open-ended question. There were no significant differences between the women who did (n = 59) and did not (n = 20) answer the open-ended question on any of the measures (i.e., demographics, psychological distress, coping, alcohol use) used in the larger study. There were also no differences between women who did and did not respond to the open-ended question with regard to the type of sexual assault experience reported (i.e., contact, coercion, attempted rape, completed rape). Of the 59 women who completed the open-ended question, eight women provided responses that were irrelevant to the question (e.g., “We both had been drinking and it was a miscommunication”) and therefore were not coded. Thus, the current study focuses on the content-analytic responses of 51 women with recent sexual assault experiences. These participants (N = 51) were largely young (M = 18.58; SD = 0.76), Caucasian (88%), and middle to upper-middle class (80% reported annual family/parent’s incomes greater than US$50,000).

Measures

The Sexual Experiences Survey (SES; Koss & Gidycz, 1985) was used to assess sexual victimization occurring over the 8-week period of the study. Participants’ responses were coded according to the most severe sexual assault they experienced. The categories used to code sexual assault experiences were, from least to most severe: unwanted sexual contact (the use of continual arguments, authority, or physical force to coerce the woman into sex play, including fondling, kissing, or petting, but not sexual intercourse); sexual coercion (authority, continual arguments, or verbal pressure to compel the woman into sexual intercourse); attempted rape (physical force or use of alcohol or drugs to attempt sexual intercourse with the woman, but intercourse did not occur); and completed rape (alcohol, drugs, or physical force was used to coerce the woman into vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse).

Women were asked to answer several forced-choice questions as well as the open-ended question regarding the assault they experienced during the interim period. Women who experienced multiple assaults were asked to answer the open-ended question with regard to the most severe assault they experienced during the prior 8-week period. Forced-choice follow-up questions assessed the victim–perpetrator relationship as well as the victims’ and perpetrators’ use of alcohol and/or drugs at the time of the assault. The open-ended question asked women to do the following:

Write a paragraph or two describing in detail your experience. Please describe in detail the strategies (e.g., threats, force, lies, and manipulations) that the man/men used to engage you in sexual activity when you did not want to take part. Specifically, describe in order what he did first, how you responded, what he did second, how you responded, etc.

On average, women’s responses were brief (i.e., a few sentences).

Procedure

Participants were recruited through introductory psychology courses and received course credit for their participation. Data were collected in a group setting, which included informed consent, survey completion, and debriefing and referral information. Institutional review board approval was obtained prior to participant recruitment and data collection.

Participants’ written responses to the open-ended question were independently content analyzed (Krippendorf, 1984) by three coders (one faculty and two doctoral students in social psychology). In the first steps of content analysis, coders read participants’ responses repeatedly to obtain the gestalt of the data. Second, the words and phrases that addressed the open-ended question were highlighted. This was done in an effort to identify and categorize all aspects of women’s responses. The coders also noted words and phrases that, although not directly related to the question, shed some light on women’s reactions to and interpretations of the sexual assault experience. Third, similarities and differences in women’s responses were identified, which led to the emergence of categories of participant responses. Each coder coded all participants’ responses according to the response categories that had been established. Next, the coders examined all data within a particular code; some codes were combined, whereas others were divided into subcategories. As demonstrated in subsequent sections, the categories derived from the content analysis yielded some thematic content. Whereas there is considerable overlap in content and thematic analytic approaches (Joffe & Yardley, 2004), the current researchers focused primarily on the manifest content of the data (derived from content coding), and the categories were also used to explore themes across categories at a more latent level. The agreement rate among the coders was high (94%). When the coders were in disagreement, the discrepancy was discussed until mutual agreement was reached. Credibility was established through peer debriefing, prolonged engagement, and deviant case analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005; Manning, 1997).

Results

Assault Characteristics

Of the 51 women who reported a recent sexual assault, the most frequently reported severe sexual assault experience was coercion (45%), followed by unwanted sexual contact (31%), completed rape (16%), and attempted rape (8%). Women reported that perpetrators were most commonly steady dating partners (43%) followed by friends (22%), casual dating partners (18%), acquaintances (10%), strangers (6%), and “other” (2%). Approximately 46% of women reported that they were using alcohol at the time of the sexual assault, and women reported that 44% of perpetrators were using alcohol at the time of the sexual assault; 8% of women did not know if the perpetrator was using alcohol. Furthermore, 8% of women reported that they were under the influence of drugs at the time of the assault, and women reported that 14% of perpetrators were under the influence of drugs at the time of the assault; 10% of women did not know if the perpetrator was using drugs.

Co-Occurrence of Perpetrators’ Tactics and Victims’ Responses

Based on the raters’ independent immersion in the data, combined with group discussions, it was decided that the various types of perpetrator tactics and victim resistance strategies would be content coded first, and then the associations would be qualitatively described. Finally, the broader themes of women’s responses to the sexual assault situations were identified, as well as their relationship with women’s post-assault attributions and meaning-making processes.

Tables 1 and 2 describe the frequencies of various types of perpetrator tactics and victim resistance strategies content coded from women’s open-ended responses. These tables also include examples of coding units taken directly from women’s open-ended responses. Although these frequencies provide a gestalt of the data, given that the primary aim of the current study was to better understand the strategies that women use in response to various perpetrator tactics, the open-ended responses were divided into the following groups: (a) women who explicitly reported that the perpetrator used verbal tactics only (n = 25); (b) women who explicitly reported that the perpetrator used physical tactics (most often also in conjunction with verbal tactics; n = 12); (c) women who were vague in their descriptions of the tactics used by the perpetrator (n = 10); and (d) women who reported that they were incapacitated due to alcohol or drugs during the assault (n = 4). Although the four women who were incapacitated during the assault are not included in this section of the results because they could not recall the details of the assault situation, three of these women included attributions of blame in their responses and are discussed in a later section of the results. Of note, whereas Tables 1 and 2 include percentages of perpetrator tactics and victim resistance strategies among all participants (N = 51), the percentages presented in subsequent sections of the results are based on the subset of women who reported a specific perpetrator tactic.

Table 1.

Frequencies of Perpetrator Tactics and Examples (N = 51).

Perpetrator Tactic	Frequency^a (%)	Examples
Verbal pressure	76	“Constant nagging” “Kept persisting” “Very convincing” “Insisting” “He kept asking and asking” “He begged” “Pleaded with me” “Persuaded me” “Tried to bribe me with a back massage” “Ignore me until I gave in” “[Used] things against me and tried to make me feel bad” “[The perpetrator said] ‘what kind of girlfriend are you?’”
Held down/restrained with body	18	“He held me down” “Pinned me down” “Pinned me against the wall”
Pushing/pulling victims’ body parts toward penis	12	“Kept trying to push my head towards his penis” “Pushing my hand down on [his penis]”
Alcohol or drugs to incapacitate^a	6	“He used the alcohol to his advantage” “Blacked out from the drug [he gave me]”

Although a number of women reported being under the influence of alcohol or drugs during the sexual assault and that many of the perpetrators likely used this to their advantage, this tactics was only coded if women explicitly stated that the perpetrator gave them alcohol or drugs to take advantage of them.

Table 2.

Frequencies of Victim Resistance Strategies and Examples (N = 51).

Victim Resistance Strategies	Frequency (%)	Examples
Said “no” or “stop”	54	“I said no no no” “I told him to stop” “Kept refusing”
Yelled or screamed	4	“I kept on crying and yelling”
Physically fought back	6	“I pushed him off”
Ran away/flee	10	“I finally was able to get away”
Reason/plead/bargain	22	“I didn’t want to have sex so instead I gave him oral and called it even” “Tried to talk him out of it” “[Told him] I’m tired”
Move away/pull away	10	“I began to slowly inch away”
Ignored/pretended to sleep	4	“I ignored him and acted like I was already asleep”
Cry	6	“After a while when he tried to have sex with me I started crying”
Freeze/turn cold/tense up	18	“My body tense[d] up . . . [I] was having flashbacks of my first experience” “I was kind of in shock and didn’t really respond”
“Gave in” or “caved”	44	“After about ten minutes of him persisting and holding me there, I gave in” “After about twenty minutes I gave in” “He kept persisting so I finally caved in” “I felt bad considering he was my boyfriend at the time so I gave in” “I just gave up” “After five or six times I gave up and just let him”

Assaults characterized by verbal perpetrator tactics only (n = 25)

In nearly half (49%) of the assaults reported by women in this study, women described that the perpetrator used verbal tactics only (i.e., verbally coerced unwanted contact or verbally coerced sexual intercourse). In 68% of these verbally coerced assaults, the perpetrator was a steady dating partner; in the remaining assaults, 16% were perpetrated by a casual date, 12% by a friend, and 4% by an acquaintance. Victim and/or perpetrator alcohol use was present in approximately one-third of these sexual assaults.

Verbal tactics used by the perpetrator included nagging, insisting, demanding, and pleading, as well as use of bribery and verbal threats. Women’s most common response (44%) to these verbal tactics was to say “no,” “I don’t want to,” or “stop.” Women also reported reasoning and quarreling with the perpetrator (21%). Less commonly, women reported crying (8%), freezing (8%), and yelling (4%). One woman (4%) reported leaving the situation due to a man’s relentless verbal coercion; this was the only woman in this group to demonstrate any physically assertive resistance:

I gave in to sex play not intercourse not long ago because he was persuasive and I wanted to let him know I was interested; I didn’t want him to feel me up so I told him to stop. I didn’t know him very well so I had no problem leaving in case he tried something else.

Whereas only a few women (12%) explicitly stated that their verbal resistance led to the perpetrator discontinuing verbal pressure to obtain sexual intercourse, 60% of women explicitly stated that they eventually “gave in” or “caved” to the perpetrators’ verbal tactics. Reasons for “giving in” included being “tired and annoyed of him asking” as well as “feeling bad,” especially when it was the woman’s boyfriend. Several women wrote that they “gave in” due to the perpetrator calling them names, accusing them of being a “bad” girlfriend, and threatening to be mad at them: “He got mad and started using things against me and tried to make me feel bad. I didn’t want to hear it, so I gave in.” Another woman’s response reflective of this theme was

At first I just reminded him that I did not want to [have sex], but he kept on insisting and saying things like “what kind of girlfriend are you?” “Its not even a big deal” or would just ignore me until I gave in.

Among these women, there was a sense of powerlessness, as demonstrated by the following quote: “After five or six times [of him persisting and me saying no] I gave up and just let him [have sex with me].”

Assaults characterized by physical perpetrator tactics (n = 12)

Twelve of the 51 women (24%) wrote about assaults where the perpetrator used physical tactics. The majority (75%) of these assaults were also characterized by the perpetrators’ use of verbal pressure. Of note, there was variability in victim–perpetrator relationships (i.e., equal numbers of acquaintances, friends, casual dates, and steady dating partners) among women in this group. Furthermore, victim and/or perpetrator alcohol use was present in approximately 59% of these sexual assaults.

Perpetrators used their bodies to restrain women (e.g., “pinned me down” and “held me down”) in the majority (n = 8; 67%) of the assaults involving physical perpetrator tactics. Five women (42%) reported that the perpetrator pulled or forced their hands or mouth toward his penis (e.g., “he kept trying to push my head toward his penis” and “forced me . . . by pushing my hand down [on his penis]”). In response to the various physical tactics used by perpetrators, almost all of the women (92%) said “no” or “stop.” However, only 33% of women in this group used assertive physical resistance, such as physically fighting the perpetrator (17%) or running away/fleeing the situation (25%). More than half (58%) of the women used some form of nonassertive resistance, such as pleading with the perpetrator (25%), passively moving or pulling away (17%), ignoring/pretending to sleep (17%), and crying (8%). Moreover, 17% of women reported that they tensed up or froze at some point during the sexual assault.

It is worth noting that seven (58%) women in this group explicitly stated that their resistance efforts prevented the sexual assault from progressing further (for example, from attempted to completed rape). All but one of these women reported using verbally and/or physically assertive resistance strategies. Furthermore, several women provided explicit reasons for why they believed the assault stopped, which included their ability to flee the situation (e.g., “I was finally able to get away”), the presence of a bystander intervening (e.g., “at that moment my friend yelled from the bathroom, distracting the man and I ran to her and locked the door”), or the perpetrator stopping due to the woman’s resistance, which was not always physical. For example, one woman who was faced with an attempted rape situation wrote that although she physically resisted, he ultimately stopped when she began to cry:

Eventually we started kissing [and] he took off my clothes. The next thing I know he was on top of me. After a while when he tried to have sex with me . . . He is a lot stronger than me so I was unable to get up. Eventually he left and we did not have sex and he hasn’t said one word to me since. He left when I cried.

The remaining five women (42%) reported that they ultimately “gave in” or “caved” (i.e., stopped physically and/or verbally resisting). Reasons for “giving in” or “caving” were related to feelings of powerlessness (e.g., “after twenty minutes I gave in” and “after about ten minutes of him persisting and holding me there, I gave in”), guilt (e.g., “[he] guilt tripped me into it”), and fear (e.g., “I agreed so he would let me leave”).

Assaults characterized by unclear perpetrator tactics (n = 10)

Ten of the 51 women were vague in their written descriptions of the tactics used by the perpetrator. Examples of unclear perpetrator tactics were “[he] did it anyway,” “he still tried,” “went in without my consent,” and “attempt it another time” often in response to women’s verbal resistance. Perpetrators in this group were most commonly friends (30%), casual dating partners (20%), and steady dating partners (20%), and to a lesser extent strangers (10%), acquaintances (10%), and “other” (10%).

Despite the ambiguity about the tactics used by the perpetrator, three women wrote in detail about freezing due to the shock of the situation. One woman wrote, “He was giving me a massage after we’d hung out a few times and while he was sitting on top of me [massaging me] he penetrated me . . . I was kind of in shock and didn’t really respond.” Another woman wrote, “A little fondling happened . . . [and] he wanted more, but he didn’t push anything after he felt my body tense up . . . [I] was having flashbacks of my first experience.” In another situation, a man “started kissing [the woman’s] neck and then [her] lips” and she then “slowly inch[ed] away and laugh[ed] it off” but that the perpetrator proceeded to put his hands down her pants and “sucked on [her] nipples.” After this description, the woman wrote, “I did not want him to become angry with me so I just let him have sex with me while I basically laid still.”

Post-Assault Attributions and Meaning-Making Processes

Although the primary aim of the study was to assess women’s resistance strategies in sexual assault situations, a number of women included in their responses (although not specifically asked to do so) themes around attribution of blame, and normalization and minimization of the sexual assault. Indeed, 26% of women specifically mentioned that the sexual assault experience was “not a big deal” or “the situation was not as bad as it could have been” or “[things like this] just happen,” all of which seemed to indicate a minimization and normalization process. Similarly, close to 10% of women made some mention of “blame” or “fault” for the sexual assault, with an equal number of women reporting only self-blame (e.g., “It was my own fault for not saying no at the time because I drank too much”) and a combination of self- and perpetrator blame (e.g., “It was just as much my fault as it was his”). There was not a single woman who explicitly stated that what happened was solely the perpetrator’s fault, although there were several women who mentioned anger or a similar negative emotion toward the perpetrator as well as resistance to suggestions that what happened was their fault. For example, one woman who was raped while incapacitated due to the effects of alcohol wrote,

I never knew what the [guy who did this to me] looked like but the guy that owned the apartment said that I had slept with his brother and that it was my idea. Although I don’t think you can have ideas when you are blacked out throwing up drunk.

This response and a few other similar responses (e.g., “[the perpetrator is] pathetic and irritating” and “his bipolar behavior and personality”) were in contrast to the responses mentioned above, which had strong elements of self-blame.

Discussion

The purpose of the current study was to utilize a content-analytic approach to gain a deeper understanding of women’s resistance to a recent sexual assault situation to inform sexual assault risk reduction programming for women. Consistent with the previous research, the results of this study documented that women’s responses (e.g., verbal resistance) tend to parallel perpetrators’ tactics (e.g., verbal tactic), and that a number of factors impact women’s use of resistance in sexual assault situations (Gidycz et al., 2008; Turchik, Probst, Chau, Nigoff, & Gidycz, 2007; Ullman, 1997, 2007). The current study extends previous research in several ways by providing a more nuanced and detailed description of the co-occurrence of perpetrator tactics and women’s resistance. Specifically, the current study sheds light on the diversity of women’s responses (e.g., not all women “matched” their responses to the perpetrator’s tactics) and highlights both perpetrator tactics (e.g., pushing and pulling victim’s body part toward the perpetrator’s penis) and victim responses (e.g., “giving in” and “caving”) that have been understudied and warrant future research.

Whereas most women who reported verbally coerced sexual assault responded with verbal resistance strategies (although to varying degrees), only one-third of women who reported that the perpetrator used physical force actually responded with physically assertive resistance strategies (i.e., physically fighting back, running away). Rather, women reported that they were much more likely to use verbal resistance (such as saying “no” or “stop” or reasoning/pleading with the perpetrator) or passive forms of physical resistance (such as moving and pulling away from the perpetrator or pretending to sleep). Although we did not directly ask women why they did not respond with strategies similar to the perpetrator’s tactics, this was most common in assaults where the perpetrator was a dating partner, as opposed to an acquaintance or a stranger. In other words, as intimacy with the perpetrator increased, women were less likely to respond in physically assertive ways, despite the perpetrator’s use of physical tactics. This is likely due, at least in part, to women’s concerns about preserving the relationship with the perpetrator (Masters et al., 2006; Nurius & Norris, 1995; Turchik et al., 2007; Ullman, 2007).

In addition, within the group of women who reported sexual assaults in which the perpetrator used physical force, nearly half of these women wrote that the perpetrator—most often a dating partner—pushed or pulled the victim’s head or hand toward the perpetrator’s penis. To our knowledge, the existing measures of perpetrator tactics (e.g., Koss & Dinero, 1988) do not include this type of physical tactic, which is surprising given that it was independently reported by a number of women in our study. Furthermore, most of the women in our study who reported this perpetrator tactic wrote that often it was used in conjunction with verbal pressure for “head” or a “hand job” (i.e., forced oral sex or forced masturbation performed by the woman for the man). Although future research is needed to replicate this finding with larger samples of college students, and assuming that it is a prevalent tactic among physically coercive college men, prevention programming with men and risk reduction programming with women could likely benefit from a better understanding of men’s use of this tactic, how it relates to other tactics and forms of aggression used by men in relationships, and effective ways for women to respond to this tactic.

Whereas pushing or pulling the victim’s hand or head was a common tactic used by physically coercive perpetrators, nearly half of the women in this study explicitly wrote that they ultimately “gave in” or “caved.” A number of women wrote that they employed both physically and verbally assertive resistance strategies prior to “giving in” or “caving.” Along these lines, it was interesting that a number of women quantified how long they tried these other strategies before finally “giving in,” as if providing a justification for their decision to comply with the perpetrator’s pressures. Although a few women reported “giving in” and “caving” responses to physical perpetrator tactics, this victim response was most often in response to verbal perpetrator tactics, especially those characterized by emotional abuse, such as calling the victim names, accusing the victim of being a bad girlfriend, and threatening to be mad at the victim. Indeed, this act of “giving in” and “caving” was prevalent in relationships characterized by greater intimacy between the victim and the perpetrator and was often discussed in conjunction with concerns about preserving the relationship. Previous research with college women has documented a similar phenomenon in which women complied with unwanted sex from partners due to their partners’ verbal pressure and personal feelings of obligation and concerns about preserving the relationship (Harned, 2005; Impett & Peplau, 2002; Masters et al., 2006). It appears that similar underlying processes may have occurred for some of the women in our study, which suggests that future research is sorely needed to better understand the process by which women “give in” or “cave” during a sexual assault experience as this could have important implications for empowerment-based sexual assault risk reduction programming for women.

A number of women had a difficult time identifying specific perpetrator tactics. For these women, the assault seemed to happen so quickly and was so unexpected that women did not fully register what was happening to them at the time, which resulted in a freezing response. Although speculative, it is possible and consistent with the previous research (Gidycz, McNamera, & Edwards, 2006; Gidycz, Rich, Orchowski, King, & Miller, 2006) that for some of these women there was a fear response involved, either related to a past trauma or to a current abusive relationship. Indeed, one participant described her freezing responses happened as a result of a flashback to a previous sexual assault. However, for some women, it also appeared that this freezing response was related to the unexpected nature of the event, which is consistent with previous qualitative work (Testa & Livingston, 1999) that identified a group of women who reported what they termed “unsuspecting incidents.” This research described unsuspecting incidents as situations in which the victim did not perceive there to be any sexual implications of the interaction and was blind-sided by the sexual assault (Testa & Livingston, 1999). These findings underscore the need for a greater understanding of the historical, situational, and relational factors related to women’s freezing responses during a sexual assault, given that this response is unlikely to prevent the escalation of an assault (Gidycz, McNamera, et al., 2006; Ullman, 2007).

However, for one woman in our study, the perpetrator noticed her tensing up and appeared to stop aggressing in response. This latter point underscores that there is variability not only in victim responses but also in perpetrator tactics and responses. To better understand sexual assault perpetrator variability, several studies have been conducted to assess the similarities and differences in risk factors for men who use verbal tactics versus physical tactics (DeGue, DiLillo, & Scalora, 2010) as well as men who perpetrate single versus multiple sexual assaults (Abbey & McAuslan, 2004). More research in these areas is clearly needed as it could have important implications for prevention efforts with men and risk reduction programming with women. Furthermore, future research is needed to better understand the process through which men stop aggressing in situations of sexual assault, especially in light of the current study’s findings that men stopped aggressing due to a variety of women’s responses, including freezing and crying.

In addition to shedding light on the diversity of women’s responses to sexual assault situations and highlighting both perpetrator tactics and victim responses, a number of women, without prompting, wrote statements that attributed blame for the sexual assault (most of which were self-blaming) as well as statements that minimized and normalized what happened during the sexual assault. Although research documents that self-blame, minimization, and normalization of sexual assault experiences are common (Harned, 2005; Ullman, 1996), women may have chosen to write about these things in an attempt to defend the perpetrator given these assaults were recent and many of the women were likely still in relationships with the perpetrator (Edwards, Kearns, Gidycz, & Calhoun, 2012). An alternate and more general explanation of this finding is that these women may have internalized social ideologies that place the onus of blame for sexual violence on women (Edwards, Turchik, Dardis, Reynolds, & Gidycz, 2011). These reactions are concerning given the previous research that suggests self-blame leads to poorer psychosocial adjustment (Ullman, 2007), and minimization and normalization of sexual assault experiences could increase one’s risk for revictimization.

Although this study contributes to our knowledge of perpetrators’ tactics and women’s resistance to experiences of sexual assault, there are some limitations. Perhaps the most notable limitation is the small sample of women included in the study. However, the rich quality of information obtained from each of these women’s responses is the most important aspect in conducting qualitative research. Nevertheless, future research could benefit from larger samples that might allow for the development of more nuanced categories and understanding of women’s resistance strategies. Furthermore, the written responses did not allow the researchers to ask follow-up or clarifying questions. Thus, future research could benefit from utilizing more in-depth qualitative methods (e.g., interviews) to gain a more detailed understanding of these complex processes. Another limitation was the homogenous nature of the sample, which limits the generalizability of these results to more diverse (e.g., racial minorities) college students. Finally, the fact that the women were limited to writing about their most severe assault could have affected our results. That is, women may not have written about a less severe assault in which their resistance was more effective. Thus, our findings may over-represent assaults where resistance was ineffective or less effective and under-represent assaults where resistance strategies were able to prevent the further escalation of an assault, resulting in less severe outcomes. Future research using more nuanced and complex methodologies should attempt to better capture women’s resistance across assaults of various levels of severity.

Despite these limitations, the current study offers implications for risk reduction programming with college women. The goals of risk reduction programming are to increase women’s use of self-protective behaviors, provide women with the necessary skills to communicate their intents assertively, and most importantly, reduce women’s risk of experiencing a sexual assault (Calhoun et al., 2012; Orchowski et al., 2010). Often such programs include self-defense training. Whereas there are various approaches targeting women which are utilized on college campuses (including programs offered by police officers), the current findings underscore the necessity of utilizing a feminist model for risk reduction programming. In addition to placing violence within a social context which in part addresses widespread minimization of such experiences, feminist approaches make explicit perpetrators’ responsibility for sexual assaults in an attempt to minimize self-blame in victims (Hollander, 2009; McCaughey & Cermele, 2014; Thompson, 2014). Although approaches which target women have been subjected to criticisms that they are inherently victim-blaming, the only two empirical studies that have examined self-blame following participation in a feminist program found that, for women who were victimized following the program, they exhibited less self-blame than those women who were victimized during the same time period who did not participate in the program (Gidycz et al., in press; Orchowski, Gidycz, & Raffle, 2008).

Furthermore, consistent with a feminist model of training, the current findings suggest that women need to be provided with a comprehensive toolbox for responding to a range of threatening situations as a number of perpetrators reported in this study utilized only verbally coercive strategies. Given that victims tend to match their strategies to those of the perpetrators’, it is important that risk reduction programming, in addition to teaching physical self-defense skills, provides an opportunity for women to learn and practice both verbal and non-verbal strategies to address problematic perpetrator behavior before it escalates (Rozee & Koss, 2001; Thompson, 2014). Furthermore, empirical evaluations of risk reduction programming suggest that a past history of victimization is an important variable to evaluate as a potential moderator of program effectiveness. In an early investigation, Hanson and Gidycz (1993) found that a sexual assault risk reduction program was effective in reducing rates of sexual victimization, but only for women without a previous history of sexual victimization. However, this was a very brief intervention that did not include a self-defense component and more recent programs have not found a differential effect as a function of past history of victimization (Orchowski et al., 2008). In the present sample, there was a group of women who appeared to freeze and at least some of them had experienced a past trauma. Although there have been recent attempts to offer specialized programs to women with a history of sexual assault and some therapeutic benefits have been noted, whether such programs decrease the rates of revictimization remains an empirical question (see Brecklin, 2011, for a review). At the very least, researchers need to continue to evaluate potential moderators of risk reduction programming with women and to assess for any possible negative effects (especially for victims of past abuse). Finally, research demonstrates that women in relationships characterized by sexual assaults are at increased risk of psychological and physical abuse in the same relationships (Edwards, Gidycz, & Murphy, 2011; Edwards, Kearns, Gidycz, & Calhoun, 2012). Indeed, in the current study, emotional abuse was often used by perpetrators in response to women’s resistance of their sexual advances. Addressing these other forms of abuse likely would enhance programming efforts.

Clearly, there is a need for more research on the effectiveness of various types of universal and tailored sexual assault risk reduction programs. Research that focuses on similarities and differences in women’s responses to sexual assault situations, such as the current study, will be helpful in developing more effective risk reduction programming to address the variability in, and diversity of, women’s experiences of sexual assault. However, we must remember that women cannot prevent sexual violence and that our efforts must also continue to focus on creating and implementing multi-level primary prevention efforts that target individual men, their peer groups, and the larger social institutions and norms that legitimize sexual violence.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: Funding for this project came from the Ohio University Counsel on Research Student Enhancement Award and the Department of Psychology at Ohio University.

Author Biographies

Katie M. Edwards, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. Specific research interests include predictors and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization and perpetration, leaving processes in relationships characterized by IPV, disclosure of IPV experiences and social reactions to these disclosures, and ethics of IPV research. She is committed to using research to inform legislative action and promote social change.

Danielle R. Probst, PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Her research has focused on the impact of childhood abuse, domestic violence, and sexual victimization on survivors’ subsequent functioning, coping, and re-victimization risk. During fellowship, she has extended her research scope and explored the impact of past victimization experiences on cancer patients’ adjustment

Erin C. Tansill, MS is a Psychology Intern at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, American Lake Division. Her research interests relate to interpersonal violence and sequelae following experiences of abuse, specifically pain and physical health concerns. She hopes to pursue a career focused on the treatment of PTSD and related sequelae in Military Sexual Trauma survivors and interpersonal violence survivors in the VA system.

Kristiana J. Dixon, MA, is a doctoral student in social psychology at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. Areas of research interest include the predictors and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, victims’ reactions and resilience to IPV events, and the intergenerational transmission of IPV.

Sidney Bennett, MA, is a doctoral student in psychology and a master’s student in justice studies at the University of New Hampshire. Her research is focused on sexual violence, bystander behavior, and the criminal justice system.

Christine A. Gidycz PhD is a Professor of Psychology at Ohio University and the Director of the Laboratory for the Study and Prevention of Sexual Assault. She has conducted investigations pertaining to sexual assault correlates and risk factors, and factors that contribute to the sexual revictimization of women. She has also investigated rape resistance strategies in women as well as the effectiveness of sexual assault prevention programming.

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