Abstract
Lesbian and bisexual women have high rates of sexual violence compared to heterosexual women, yet prevalence rates vary widely across studies. The Sexual Experience Survey-Short Form Revised (SES-SFV) is the most commonly used method of measuring sexual assault and rape prevalence, but it has not been validated in this high-risk population of lesbian and bisexual women. The current study assessed a modified form of the SES-SFV utilizing a five-step, mixed-methods approach. Women (N = 1382) who identified as lesbian (31%), bisexual (32%), and heterosexual (31%) completed an online survey disseminated through Qualtrics Online Survey Company to a national audience. All types of non-consensual behaviors (non-penetrative, oral, vaginal, and anal) and nearly all perpetration tactics in the original SES-SFV emerged inductively in our qualitative data. Using quantitative data, lesbian and bisexual victims endorsed each perpetration tactic in the SES-SFV at comparable rates to heterosexual victims. SES-SFV’s false-positive categorization was minimal. However, the original SES-SFV did not capture some common experiences that participants described in their open-ended narratives. The SES-SFV satisfactorily assesses sexual assault and rape experiences in lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women. Possible additions and deletions to the SES-SFV are presented alongside discussion of managing comprehensiveness and participant fatigue.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, R. E., Cahill, S. P., & Delahanty, D. L. (2018). The psychometric properties of the sexual experiences survey-short form victimization (SES-SFV) and characteristics of sexual victimization experiences in college men. Psychology of Men & Masculinity,19, 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000073.
Bachman, R. (2012). Measuring rape and sexual assault: Successive approximations to consensus. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.
Black, M. C., Basile, K. C., Breiding, M. J., Smith, S. G., Walters, M. L., Merrick, M. T., & Stevens, M. R. (2011). National intimate partner and sexual violence survey: 2010 summary report. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology,3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.
California Senate. (2014). SB-967:Chapter 748—Student safety: Sexual assault, Pub. L. No. 967. Retrieved May 1, 2017 from https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB967.
Canan, S. N., Jozkowski, K. N., & Crawford, B. L. (2018). Sexual assault supportive attitudes rape myth acceptance and token resistance in Greek and non-Greek college students from two university samples in the United States. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,33, 3502–3530. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260516636064.
Cook, S. L., Gidycz, C. A., Koss, M. P., & Murphy, M. (2011). Emerging issues in the measurement of rape victimization. Violence Against Women,17(2), 201–218.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Davis, K. C., Gilmore, A. K., Stappenbeck, C. A., Balsan, M. J., George, W. H., & Norris, J. (2014). How to score the sexual experiences survey? A comparison of nine methods. Psychology of Violence,4(4), 445–461. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037494.
Department of Justice. (2016). Sexual assault. Retrieved May 30, 2016 from https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault.
Hallgren, K. A. (2012). Computing inter-rater reliability for observational data: An overview and tutorial. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology,8(1), 23–34.
Johnson, S., Murphy, M., & Gidycz, C. (2017). Reliability and validity of the sexual experiences survey–short forms victimization and perpetration. Violence and Victims,32(1), 78–92. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-15-00110.
Jozkowski, K. N., Marcantonio, T. L., & Hunt, M. E. (2017). College students’ sexual consent communication and perceptions of sexual double standards: A qualitative investigation: Sexual consent and sexual double standards. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health,49(4), 237–244. https://doi.org/10.1363/psrh.12041.
Jozkowski, K. N., & Peterson, Z. D. (2013). College students and sexual consent: Unique insights. Journal of Sex Research,50(6), 517–523. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2012.700739.
Kessler, G. (2015). Obama’s claim that one in five American women has been a victim of rape or attempted rape. Retrieved June 5, 2017 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/12/obamas-claim-that-one-in-five-american-women-have-been-raped/.
Koss, M. P. (1993). Detecting the scope of rape: A review of prevalence research methods. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,8(2), 198–222.
Koss, M. P. (2008). Scoring the SES short forms. Retrieved April 28, 2017 from http://www.midss.org/sites/default/files/ses-sfv_scoring.pdf.
Koss, M. P., Abbey, A., Campbell, R., Cook, S., Norris, J., Testa, M., … White, J. (2007). Revising the SES: A collaborative process to improve assessment of sexual aggression and victimization. Psychology of Women Quarterly,31(4), 357–370.
Koss, M. P., & Gidycz, C. A. (1985). Sexual experiences survey: Reliability and validity. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,53(3), 422–423. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.53.3.422.
Koss, M. P., Gidycz, C. A., & Wisniewski, N. (1987). The scope of rape: Incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,55(2), 162–170.
Koss, M. P., & Oros, C. (1982). Sexual Experiences Survey: A research instrument investigating sexual aggression and victimization. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,50(3), 455–457.
Krebs, C., Lindquist, C., Berzofsky, M., Shook-Sa, B., Peterson, K., Planty, M., … Stroop, J. (2016). Campus climate survey validation study final technical report. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics Research and Development Series.
Lavrakas, P. J. (Ed.). (2008). Encyclopedia of survey research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
McHugh, M. L. (2012). Interrater reliability: The kappa statistic. Biochemia Medica,22(3), 276–282.
Muehlenhard, C., Peterson, Z., Humphreys, T., & Jozkowski, K. N. (2017). Evaluating the one-in-five statistic: Women’s risk of sexual assault while in college. Journal of Sex Research,54, 549–576. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1295014.
Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), aac4716. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716
Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Peterson, Z. D., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (2004). Was it rape? The function of women’s rape myth acceptance and definitions of sex in labeling their own experiences. Sex Roles,51(3–4), 129–144.
Peterson, Z., & Muehlenhard, C. (2007). Conceptualizing the “wantedness” of women’s consensual and nonconsensual sexual experiences: implications for how women label their experiences with rape. Journal of Sex Research,44(1), 72–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490709336794.
Robinson-Cimpian, J. P. (2014). Inaccurate estimation of disparities due to mischievous responders: several suggestions to assess conclusions. Educational Researcher,43(4), 171–185. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X14534297.
Seidman, I., & Vickers, S. (2005). The second wave: An agenda for the next thirty years of rape law reform. Suffolk University Law Review,38, 467–491.
Sigurvinsdottir, R., & Ullman, S. E. (2015). The role of sexual orientation in the victimization and recovery of sexual assault survivors. Violence and Victims,30(4), 636–648. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-13-00066.
Taylor, S. (2015). The latest big sexual assault survey is (like others) more hype than science. Retrieved June 5, 2017 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/09/23/the-latest-big-sexual-assault-survey-is-like-others-more-hype-than-science/.
Testa, M., & Livingston, J. A. (1999). Qualitative analysis of women’s experiences of sexual aggression. Psychology of Women Quarterly,23(3), 573–589. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1999.tb00382.x.
Yoffe, E., & Martinelli, M. (2015). The problem with campus sexual assault surveys. Slate. Retrieved June 5, 2017 from http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/09/aau_campus_sexual_assault_survey_why_such_surveys_don_t_paint_an_accurate.html.
Funding
This work was funded in 2016 by the American Psychological Foundation’s Roy Scrivner Memorial Research Grant, which funds empirical and applied research focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) family psychology and LGBT family therapy.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest other than the below funding.
Ethical Approval
This study was approved by Institutional Review Board at the host institution.
Human and Animal Rights
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Canan, S.N., Jozkowski, K.N., Wiersma-Mosley, J. et al. Validation of the Sexual Experience Survey-Short Form Revised Using Lesbian, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Women’s Narratives of Sexual Violence. Arch Sex Behav 49, 1067–1083 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01543-7
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01543-7