Victim blaming and slut shaming: when the victim is criminalized, not the sex offender

Abstract

The phenomenon of sexual abuse and violence has always existed in our society, as in others, and is more or less tolerated depending on the historical context in which it is framed. Since the 1980s, scholars have begun to investigate the phenomenon of victim blaming in relation to gender-based violence and, more specifically, in relation to sexual violence. These researches have provided numerous evidence that the attribution of blame to victims of violence is a dis-perception in the eyes of the percipients, whose judgments are significantly influenced by false beliefs and stereotypes about violence and the characteristics of the actors involved. The objective of this article is to provide an analysis of the phenomenon of victim blaming, or the attribution of blame to victims, in the event of violence by sex offenders, proposing a reflection on the victimization processes and the dynamics that underlie them, whose reading cannot only be criminological, psychological and juridical but which also requires a purely sociological reading. Particular attention was also given to the way in which victims of sexual assault are exploited by the mass media, and to the notion of sexual violence against men and the possible false reports.