NCJ Number
114190
Date Published
1986
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This research documents the frequency of gender specific patterns of sexual abuse in white, heterosexual dating relationships, with 'sexual abuse' defined as 'sexual acts which are clearly initiated against the will of one's partner.'
Abstract
During the spring of 1986, a random sample of 56, upper-level classes at a large Midwestern university was solicited for participation in the study. Twenty-five classes consisting of 505 students agreed to participate in the study. The survey instrument covered five broad areas: demographic information, witnessing and experiencing violence in childhood, attitudes toward violence, instrumentality-expressiveness, and dating information. Regarding dating information, respondents were asked to provide information on as many as four dating partners, with particular attention to self-reporting on the initiation of specific sexual activities against their partner's will. A total of 244 males and 351 females provided complete information on dating relationships. Men were more likely than women to have initiated sexual abuse. None of the women and less than 1 percent of the men reported committing the most severe sexual abuse among the options listed, i.e., successfully forcing intercourse against their partner's will. For men, significant determinants for sexual abuse were witnessing violence in childhood, experiencing violence as a child, instrumentality, and dating frequency. For women, significant predictors of sexual aggression were acceptance of violence, age, number of dating partners, and frequency of dating. 3 tables, 21 references.