The Context of Sexual Violence: Situational Predictors of Self-Protective Actions

Abstract

While considerable research has examined the relative effectiveness of different types of self-protective actions in rape avoidance, little research has considered how the situational context of the assault affects women’s choice of self-protective strategy. Through an examination of data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, this article examines the extent to which situational factors are independently related to the use of physical resistance, verbal resistance, as well as to lack of resistance. The results of the multinominal logistic regression analysis indicate that those who used verbal self-protective action were more likely to have been attacked at night, threatened with a weapon, and to be assaulted by a prior or current romantic partner than were those who chose physical resistance. Those attacked by a current or former intimate were also more likely to employ no resistance than they were physical resistance. Victims facing a substance-using assailant, however, were more likely to enact physical self-protection than to employ no resistance.