Abstract

Introduction: How sexual assault victims conceptualize their experiences are shaped, in part, by adherence to rape myths and victim blaming. Victim blaming is predicated on the idea that victims should have done something differently to prevent sexual assault from happening. To better understand victims’ experiences, we documented victim reactions during sexual assault and how victims label and judge the severity of their experience.

Methods: We inductively coded 906 US women’s open-ended descriptions of sexual assault from a 2016 cross-sectional online survey. Participants were diverse sexual orientations, incomes, and ages but were not racially diverse (78% white).

Results: We identified three main themes: Labeling, Judging Severity, and Victim Reactions. Labeling refers to how victims describe their experience—as sexual assault or some other descriptor. Judging Severity captures victims’ perceptions of the experience, for example as severe or relative other experiences. Victim Reactions refers to how victims responded during the assault.

Conclusions: Normalizing variation in victims’ reactions is important especially given that some state statutes define sexual assault in terms of what a “reasonable person” would recognize as a refusal cue. We find that some victims’ perceptions of their experience change over time. When judging severity, women mentioned two ends of a continuum (i.e., worst experience of my life vs. not a big deal); both are valid. But, participants’ perceptions that sexual assault is a “normal experience” is concerning.

Policy Implications: Our findings could inform sexual violence prevention programs, norming campaigns, statute of limitations policies, and criminal justice services.