Abstract
This study examined the prevalence of sexual aggression perpetration and victimization in a sample of 1,172 students (755 female, 417 male) from four universities in Germany. All participants were asked about both victimization by, and perpetration of, sexual aggression since the age of 14 years, using the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). Prevalence rates were established for different coercive strategies, sexual acts, and victim–perpetrator relationships. Both same-sex and opposite-sex victim–perpetrator constellations were examined. The overall victimization rate was 62.1% for women and 37.5% for men. The overall perpetration rate was 17.7% for men and 9.4% for women. Prevalence rates of both victimization and perpetration were higher for participants who had sexual contacts with both opposite-sex and same-sex partners than for participants with exclusively opposite-sex partners. Significant overlap was found between victim and perpetrator status for men and women as well as for participants with only opposite-sex and both opposite-sex and same-sex partners. A disparity between (higher) victimization and (lower) perpetration reports was found for both men and women, suggesting a general underreporting of perpetration rather than a gendered explanation in terms of social desirability or the perception of consent cues. The findings are placed in the international research literature on the prevalence of sexual aggression before and after the #metoo campaign, and their implications for prevention efforts are discussed.
Highlights
Sexual aggression has been recognized as a serious problem for young adults and has been studied extensively in college student samples (Fedina et al, 2018; Mellins et al, 2017)
Men and women who had sex with both members of the opposite and the same sex had the highest prevalence of sexual aggression perpetration, but the difference with the opposite-sex-only group was nonsignificant
Systematic research on the scale of sexual aggression remains scarce in Germany, with no more than three studies since 2010 identified for a recent review of the international literature (Dworkin et al, in press)
Summary
Sexual aggression has been recognized as a serious problem for young adults and has been studied extensively in college student samples (Fedina et al, 2018; Mellins et al, 2017). Sexual aggression describes a range of sexual activities, such as sexual intercourse, oral sex, kissing, and sexual touching, imposed on another person against her or his will. It involves a range of coercive strategies, such as threat or use of physical force, exploitation of the victim’s inability to resist, abuse of a position of power, or verbal pressure (Krahé, 2021). Despite the progress made in understanding the scale of sexual aggression in college student samples, several aspects have received limited attention in the past. The separation of victim and perpetrator roles along gender lines has hampered the systematic analysis of the degree to which victimization experiences and perpetration overlap and has
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