Women and Alcohol Studies

1534 Words4 Pages

Angelone, D. J., Mitchell, D. & Pilafova, A. (2007) Club drug use and intentionality in perceptions of rape victims. Sex Roles, 57, 283-292.

This exploratory study investigated the influence of GHB use versus alcohol and intentionality on observer's feelings toward the victim and the perpetrator in a male-female rape scenario. The sample in this study consisted of 198 undergraduate students from a Northeastern college; the sample contained 130 females and was almost 80% Caucasian. The participants ranged in age from 18-48 but the mean was 19. Participants read one of four vignettes where a college female had attended a party and had ingested GHB or Everclear, a type of grain alcohol. In the different vignettes the female either ingested the substance voluntarily or was "slipped" the drug by a male, the vignette continued when the female became sleepy and the male brought her into his room and had sex with her, the victim attempted to verbally resist but felt too groggy to physically resist (Angelone, 2007, 286). The victim then reported the rape to police in the morning; the perpetrator claimed the sex was consensual. After the vignette participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire asking about victim and perpetrator culpability, victim pleasure, victim trauma, perpetrator guilt, and the likelihood the perpetrator will be found guilty (Angelone, 2007, 286). Overall the respondents found that the perpetrator was responsible for the crime, whether or not the victim chose to ingest the substance or not, also the participants felt the victim would be highly traumatized. Females were more likely to be sympathetic to the victim, being more likely to classify the situation as rape. Both males and females assigned more blame on the victim when she had voluntarily ingested either Everclear or GHB, also they put less blame on the perpetrator in the same situation, incidents like this were less likely to be considered rape by outside observers in this study.

Clum, G. A., Nishith, P. & Calhoun, K. S. (2002). A preliminary investigation of alcohol use during trauma and peritraumatic reactions in female sexual assault victims. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 15(4), 321-328.

This study looked to see the relationship between reports of alcohol use during a sexual assault and how the victim perceived the severity of the assault. This study looked at 57 college women from a Southeastern university who had been previously sexually assaulted, 84% were Caucasian and most were around the age of 19.

Open Document