2003 Carolyn Sherif Award Address: What College Women do and do not Experience as Rape

Abstract

College women who did ( n = 33) and did not ( n = 56) label their sexual assault experience as rape provided written descriptions of their sexual assaults. From these descriptions we identified eight different sexual assault situations. Women who labeled their experience as rape were most likely to have been assaulted forcefully by an acquaintance, awakened to an acquaintance performing sexual acts on them, or experienced the assault as a child. Women were least likely to call their experience rape if they submitted to a whining, begging boyfriend, gave in to a man because of being emotionally needy, were assaulted by a boyfriend, were severely impaired by alcohol or drugs and unable to resist, or were forced to engage in oral or digital sex. Observers who read these descriptions generally agreed with the victims regarding whether or not the experience constituted rape, although they could not agree on whether or not forced oral or digital intercourse or forced intercourse by a boyfriend constituted rape.