Perceptions of male rape victims: Examining rape myth acceptance and victim blaming attitudes among a sample of college students

The extant literature indicates that women comprise the majority of sexual assault victims. Emerging research suggests that although men are less likely than women to be sexually victimized, a sizeable minority of men experience sexual assault in their lifetimes and a growing body of literature has begun to consider societal attitudes towards male rape victims. The current study adds to the literature by exploring undergraduate students’ assignment of indirect blame and justification in sexual assault incidents involving male victims. More specifically, data based on vignettes where situational characteristics were manipulated are used to determine how various incident, offender, and victim-level characteristics influence student perceptions. It was found that this sample of students were more likely to agree with indirect blame measures rather than direct. Age, sex, past victimization, and two of the three subscales from Struckman-Johnson and Struckman-Johnson’s (1992) male rape myth scale were significant within the logistic regression models.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Hancock, Katelyn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Policastro, Christiana M.
• Garland, Tammy S.; Crittenden, Courtney A.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Male rape
• Male rape victims
• Male sexual abuse victims

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/580

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1737