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Drug‐assisted rape and sexual assault: definitional, conceptual and methodological developments
Author(s) -
Horvath Miranda,
Brown Jennifer
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of investigative psychology and offender profiling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1544-4767
pISSN - 1544-4759
DOI - 10.1002/jip.33
Subject(s) - psychology , sexual assault , romance , social psychology , task (project management) , sort , human factors and ergonomics , criminology , poison control , computer science , medicine , medical emergency , psychoanalysis , economics , information retrieval , management
This paper reviews the limited literature on drug‐assisted rape (DAR) and develops definitions and constructs. A novel data gathering method, the multiple sorting task, was adopted to explore lay understanding of DAR. Participants ( N = 8) were drawn from the general public. Each of the 21 stimulus cards used had the name of one sexual or romantic encounter printed on it. Participants completed one fixed sort in terms of the motivation of the male involved in the encounter. Data were analysed by means of multiple scalogram analysis (MSA). Findings show that the key factors for distinguishing sexual and romantic encounters are whether the behaviour is: consensual, contracted or forced; planned or impulsive; motivated primarily by the desire for sex or for a relationship. When motivation of the offender is considered, drug‐assisted rape and sexual assault is distinguishable from other consensual sexual behaviours but not from other types of rape. Findings are discussed in terms of the limitations of the present study, the need for further research and practical applications for assisting police enquiries. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.