Perceptions of Male Victims in Depicted Sexual Assaults: A Review of the Literature

• NCJ Number: 214943
• Journal: Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Dated: July-August 2006 Pages: 367-377
• Author(s): Michelle Davies; Paul Rogers
• Date Published: July 2006
• Length: 11 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Literature Review
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article reviews the research literature on perceptions of child and adult male victims of sexual assault, with a focus on the phenomenon of victim blame.

Abstract

Overall, the literature review indicates that male rape victims are attributed more blame than are female victims. Public education campaigns are suggested to dispel myths about male sexual assault and to encourage male victims to come forward and seek help. This increased blame attribution for male rape victims is due to societal stereotypes that cast females as sexually passive and males as physically capable of resisting an assault. Only recently have researchers begun to focus on describing male victims of sexual assault, and much of this focus has been on the concept of victim blame. The authors review the literature on types of victim blame and victim resistance in cases of male rape, especially in terms of how victim physical resistance impacts blame attributions. Feminist explanations for victim blame are enumerated, which tend to argue that victim blame is a result of a patriarchal culture supportive of rape. Studies that focus on the role of homophobia in male victim blame are reviewed, all of which dealt with heterosexual attributions of blame in cases in which male victims were sexually assaulted by male offenders. The authors go on to review the research concerning victim blame in cases involving male victims of female offenders. Attributions of victim blame in these cases were influenced by a myriad of social and cultural norms that placed females in sexually passive roles while casting males in sexually aggressive roles. The focus next turns to attributions of blame in cases of male child victims. Research generally indicated that child victims were attributed less blame in all circumstances than adult victims, but male child victims who were assaulted by females and who were viewed as encouraging of the sexual contact were considered more responsible for the assault compared to female child victims. References