An exploratory analysis of the relationship between women’s rape fantasies, rape myth acceptance, rape victim empathy and rape blame attribution

Abstract

This paper explores the existence of rape fantasies within a sample of female university students and investigates whether there is a relationship between rape fantasies and the way individuals make attributions about the victims of rape. Participants completed a questionnaire which included measures of erotic and aversive rape fantasies, rape myth acceptance, rape victim empathy and specific attributions about a victim of rape presented in a vignette. The findings indicate that rape fantasies are more common than previously thought, with 53.4 per cent of participants reporting having experienced some form of sexually coercive fantasy at least once a year. The findings also indicate that there is positive correlational relationship between general rape fantasies and the way individuals make attributions about individual rape victims, with people who experience rape fantasies allocating a greater amount of blame to the victim in a specific rape scenario. Potential reasons and implications for these findings are discussed.