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118 JOURNAL OF STUDIES ON ALCOHOL / SUPPLEMENT NO. 14, 2002
Alcohol-Related Sexual Assault: A Common Problem
among College Students*
ANTONIA ABBEY, PH .D.
Department of Community Medicine, Wayne State University, 4201 St. Antoine, Detroit, Michigan 48201
ABSTRACT. Objective: This article summarizes research on the role of alcohol in college students’ sexual assault experiences. Sexual assault is extremely common among college students. At least half of these sexual assaults involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, the vic tim or both. Method: Two research literatures were reviewed: the sexual assault literature and the literature that examines alcohol’s effects on ag gressive and sexual behavior. Results: Research suggests that alcohol consumption by the perpetrator and/or the victim increases the likeli
hood of acquaintance sexual assault occurring through multiple path ways. Alcohol’s psychological, cognitive and motor effects contribute to sexual assault. Conclusions: Although existing research addresses some important questions, there are many gaps. Methodological limi tations of past research are noted, and suggestions are made for future research. In addition, recommendations are made for college prevention programs and policy initiatives. (J. Stud. Alcohol, Supplement No. 14: 118-128, 2002)
A
LCOHOL-RELATED sexual assault is a common oc currence on college campuses. A college student who participated in one of our studies explained how she agreed to go back to her date’s home after a party: “We played quarter bounce (a drinking game). I got sick drunk; I was slumped over the toilet vomiting. He grabbed me and dragged me into his room and raped me. I had been a virgin and felt it was all my fault for going back to his house when no one else was home.” A male college stu dent who forced sex on a female friend wrote that, “Alco hol loosened us up and the situation occurred by accident. If no alcohol was consumed, I would never have crossed that line.” This article reviews the literature on college students’ sexual assault experiences. First, information is provided about the prevalence of sexual assault and alcohol-involved sexual assault among college students. Then theories about how alcohol contributes to sexual assault are described. After making suggestions for future research, the article concludes with a discussion of prevention and policy issues.
Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Assault among College Students
The term sexual assault is used by researchers to de scribe the full range of forced sexual acts including forced touching or kissing; verbally coerced intercourse; and physi cally forced vaginal, oral and anal penetration. The term rape is typically reserved for sexual behaviors that involve
*This research was supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant AA-11996.
some type of penetration due to force or threat of force; a lack of consent; or inability to give consent due to age, intoxication or mental status (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995; Koss, 1992). Less than 5% of adolescent and adult sexual assault victims are male, and when men are sexually assaulted, the perpetrator is usually male. Thus, most re search focuses on female victims and male perpetrators.
Rates of sexual assault reported by college women
The most methodologically rigorous study of sexual as sault prevalence was completed by Koss et al. (1987), who surveyed 6,159 students from 32 colleges selected to repre sent the higher education enrollment in the United States. They used 10 behaviorally specific questions to assess women’s experiences with forced sexual contact, verbally coerced sexual intercourse, attempted rape and rape since the age of 14. In this survey, 54% of the women had expe rienced some form of sexual assault. Fifteen percent of the women had experienced an act that met the legal definition of completed rape; an additional 12% had experienced at tempted rape. Of these women, 17% had experienced rape or attempted rape in the previous year. Only 5% of the rape victims reported the incident to the police; 42% told no one about the assault. Similar prevalence rates have been found in studies con ducted at colleges throughout the United States (Abbey et al., 1996a; Copenhaver and Grauerholz, 1991; Mills and Granoff, 1992; Muehlenhard and Linton, 1987). Most of these studies have been cross-sectional. In the prospective study that followed students for the longest period of time, Humphrey and White (2000) surveyed women from one
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university beginning in the fall of their first year and end ing in the spring of their fourth year. Annual prevalence rates were alarmingly high, although they declined slightly each year. In their first year of college, 31% of the women experienced some type of sexual assault; 6.4% experienced completed rape. In their fourth year of college, 24% of the women experienced a sexual assault; 3.9% experienced com pleted rape. Greene and Navarro (1998) reported that none of the college women in their prospective survey reported their sexual assault to any college official. Women who reported their sexual assaults to authorities often labeled their treatment by the system as “a second rape.” Aware ness of the derogatory manner in which many victims are treated deters others from reporting. A few studies have focused on prevalence rates among minority students. Rates of sexual assault experienced by black, Hispanic, Asian and white college women appear to be relatively comparable (Abbey et al., 1996a; Koss et al., 1987; Mills and Granoff, 1992).
Rates of sexual assault reported by college men
College men acknowledge committing sexual assault, al though at lower rates than these acts are reported by women. In Koss et al.’s (1987) national study, 25% of the college men surveyed reported committing some form of sexual assault since the age of 14; 7.7% reported committing an act that met the standard legal definition of rape since the age of 14. Similar results have been found by other re searchers (Abbey et al., 1998; Kanin, 1985; Muehlenhard and Linton, 1987; Rapaport and Burkhart, 1984). About two thirds of college men who acknowledge committing sexual assault report being multiple offenders (Abbey et al., 1998). Koss and her colleagues (Koss, 1988; Koss et al., 1987) suggested that college men report rates lower than college women do because many men view the woman’s nonconsent as vague, ambiguous or insincere and convince themselves that their forcefulness was normal se duction not rape.
Prevalence of Alcohol-Related Sexual Assault
On average, at least 50% of college students’ sexual assaults are associated with alcohol use (Abbey et al., 1996a, 1998; Copenhaver and Grauerholz, 1991; Harrington and Leitenberg, 1994; Presley et al., 1997). Koss (1988) re ported that 74% of the perpetrators and 55% of the victims of rape in her nationally representative sample of college students had been drinking alcohol. Most studies do not include sufficiently detailed questions to determine if the quantity of alcohol consumed is an important factor. An exception is a study by Muehlenhard and Linton (1987), which compared the characteristics of dates that did and did not involve sexual assault. Sexually assaultive dates
were not more likely than nonassaultive dates to involve drinking; however, heavy drinking was more common on sexually assaultive dates. Typically, if either the victim or the perpetrator is drink ing alcohol, then both are. For example, in Abbey et al. (1998), 47% of the sexual assaults reported by college men involved alcohol consumption. In 81% of the alcohol-re lated sexual assaults, both the victim and the perpetrator had consumed alcohol. Similarly, in Harrington and Leitenberg (1994), 55% of the sexual assaults reported by college women involved alcohol consumption. In 97% of the alcohol-related sexual assaults, both the victim and the perpetrator had consumed alcohol. The fact that college sexual assaults occur in social situations in which men and women are typically drinking together makes it difficult to examine hypotheses about the unique effects of perpetra tors’ or victims’ intoxication. In general, alcohol consumption is more common among whites than blacks (Caetano et al., 1998). Thus, not sur prisingly, alcohol-related sexual assaults appear to be more common among white college students than among black college students (Abbey et al., 1996a; Harrington and Leitenberg, 1994). Rates of alcohol-related sexual assault have not been examined in other ethnic groups. Overall, the characteristics of alcohol-involved sexual assaults and sexual assaults that do not involve alcohol are similar. Approximately 90% of the sexual assaults reported by college women are perpetrated by someone the victim knew; about half occur on a date (Abbey et al., 1996a; Koss, 1988). Only about 5% involve gang rapes. The most common locations are the woman’s or man’s home (this includes dormitory rooms, apartments, fraternities, sorori ties and parents’ homes) in the context of a date or party. Alcohol-involved sexual assaults more often occur among college students who know each other only casually and who spent time together at a party or bar (Abbey et al., 1996a; Ullman et al., 1999).
Explanations for the Relationship between Alcohol Consumption and Sexual Assault
The fact that alcohol consumption and sexual assault frequently co-occur does not demonstrate that alcohol causes sexual assault. The causal direction could be the opposite; men may consciously or unconsciously drink alcohol prior to committing sexual assault to have an excuse for their behavior. Alternatively, other variables may simultaneously cause both alcohol consumption and sexual assault. For ex ample, personality traits, such as impulsivity, or peer group norms may lead some men both to drink heavily and to commit sexual assault. It is likely that each of these causal pathways explains some alcohol-involved sexual assaults. A complex behav ior such as sexual assault has multiple determinants both
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expected to initiate sexual relations and that women are expected to set the limits on how much sexual activity oc curs (Clark et al., 1999; Wilsnack et al., 1997). Both men and women agree that there are circumstances that make forced sex acceptable. For example, McAuslan et al. (1998) asked college students to indicate the extent to which it was acceptable for a man to verbally pressure or force a date to have sexual intercourse. More than half the men thought verbal pressure was acceptable if she kissed him, if they had dated a long time or if he felt she had led him on. More than 20% thought verbal pressure was ac ceptable if either of them was drinking alcohol or if they met at a bar. Force was viewed as less acceptable than verbal pressure, although 17% of men accepted force as a strategy under some circumstances. Overall, fewer women than men perceived pressure or force as acceptable, although the rank ordering of circumstances was comparable for both genders. Malamuth (1989) asked college men how likely it was that they would rape a woman if they were certain that there would be no negative consequences. On average, one- third of college men indicated that they would be at least somewhat likely to rape a woman if they could be certain they would not be caught. The data from these two lines of research are disturbing because they demonstrate how com monly held beliefs set the stage for date rape and why it is so seldom perceived as a crime. As is described in more detail below, these beliefs are more likely to be acted on when men have been drinking alcohol.
Men’s expectations about alcohol’s effects
Men anticipate feeling more powerful, sexual and ag gressive after drinking alcohol (Brown et al., 1980; George and Norris, 1991; Presley et al., 1997; see the first box in Figure 1). These expectancies can have a power of their own, independent of the pharmacological effects of alco hol. Expectancies tend to become self-fulfilling (Snyder and Stukas, 1999). Thus, if a man feels powerful and sexual after drinking alcohol, then he is more likely to interpret his female companion’s friendly behavior as being a sign of sexual interest, and he is more likely to feel comfortable using force to obtain sex. In one study, college men who had perpetrated sexual assault when intoxicated expected alcohol to increase male and female sexuality more than did the college men who perpetrated sexual assault when sober (Abbey et al., 1996b). Although these cross-sectional results do not demonstrate causality, they suggest that be liefs about alcohol’s effects may have encouraged these students’ behavior. Several studies have demonstrated that college men who thought they were drinking alcohol were more sexually aroused by depictions of forcible rape than college men who did not think they had consumed alcohol (George and
Marlatt, 1986; George and Norris, 1991). Actual alcohol consumption did not affect these men’s sexual arousal. George and Marlatt argued that the belief that one has con sumed alcohol provides justification for engaging in so cially inappropriate sexual behavior. If a man can say to himself, “I did that only because I was too drunk to know what I was doing,” then he does not have to label himself as deviant.
Stereotypes about drinking women
Many college men perceive women who drink in bars as being sexually promiscuous and, therefore, appropriate targets for sexual aggression (Kanin, 1985; Martin and Hum mer, 1989). For example, a college man who reported sexu ally assaulting a woman in one of our studies justified his behavior by writing, “She was the sleazy type... the typi cal bar slut.” In vignette studies, women who drink alcohol are fre quently perceived as being more sexually available and sexu ally promiscuous than women who do not drink alcohol. For example, George et al. (1995) asked college students to read a vignette about a couple on a date. A woman who drank several beers was perceived as being more promis cuous, easier to seduce and more willing to have sex than a woman who drank cola. College students believe that dates are more likely to include sexual intercourse when both participants drink alcohol (Corcoran and Thomas, 1991).
Alcohol as a sexual signal
The studies reviewed above involve clearly consensual sexual situations. Other authors have asked college students to evaluate vignettes that depict forced sex between dating partners. Even when force is clearly used, the mere pres ence of alcohol leads many students to assume the woman wanted sex. For example, Norris and Cubbins (1992) found that nondrinking college women and men were most likely to view a depiction of acquaintance rape as consensual when both members of the couple had been drinking alcohol. Norris and Kerr (1993) found that nondrinking college men who read a forced sex vignette indicated that they were more likely to behave like the man in the story when the man had been drinking alcohol than when he was sober. Finally, Bernat et al. (1998) asked college men to listen to a depiction of a date rape and evaluate at what point the man was clearly forcing sex. Men who had previously com mitted sexual assault and who thought the couple had been drinking alcohol required the highest degree of female re sistance and male force to decide the man should stop. In combination, these studies suggest that when forced sex occurs after a couple has been drinking together, men, and sometimes women, are much less likely to recognize that
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the woman does not want to have sex. The results of these studies are not due to pharmacological effects of alcohol because sober individuals made these judgments. Instead, these studies suggest how strongly men equate drinking with a woman and having sex with her.
Men’s misperceptions of women’s sexual intent
Men frequently perceive women’s friendly behavior as a sign of sexual interest, even when it is not intended that way. In a series of studies with college women and men, Abbey and her colleagues (Abbey, 1982; Abbey et al., 2000) have demonstrated that men perceive women as behaving more sexually and as being more interested in having sex with their male partner than the women actually are. Male observers make judgments similar to those made by male actors, and female observers make judgments similar to those made by female actors (Abbey, 1982), indicating that these are general gender differences in perceptions of women’s behavior. Cues used to convey sexual interest are often indirect and ambiguous; thus it is easy to mistake friendliness for flirtation. For example, when an opposite sex acquaintance is very attentive, this might be a sign of sexual attraction. Alternatively, it might be a sign of polite ness or merely an active interest in the topic of conversation. Men usually feel responsible for making the first move because of gender role expectations about who initiates dat ing and sexual relations. Due to the embarrassment associ ated with rejection, these initial moves are usually subtle. For example, the man may stand close or ask the woman to slow dance or suggest they go to his apartment to talk. If he perceives an encouraging response (she does not back away or she agrees to dance or she goes to his apartment), then he will make another move (e.g., rub her back, tell her his roommates are not home). Both men and women are used to this indirect form of indicating sexual interest and usually manage to make their intentions clear and save face if their companion is not interested (Abbey, 1987). How ever, because the cues are vague, miscommunication can occur. Also, college men expect to have intercourse much earlier in a relationship than women do (Roche and Ramsbey, 1993); hence men are likely to initiate sexual advances before women expect them. The man’s alcohol consumption enhances the likelihood that misperception will occur and will escalate to the point that he forces sex (see second box in Figure 1). Alcohol consumption disrupts higher order cognitive processes such as abstraction, conceptualization, planning and problem solv ing, making it difficult to evaluate complex stimuli (Hindmarch et al., 1991; Peterson et al., 1990). When in toxicated, people have a narrower perceptual field; they are less able to attend to multiple cues and instead tend to focus on the most salient cues (Chermack and Giancola, 1997). Steele and Josephs (1990) labeled this phenomenon
“alcohol myopia.” Thus, if an intoxicated man is sexually attracted to his female companion, it is easy for him to interpret any friendly cue as a sign of her desire to have sex with him and to ignore or discount any cue that sug gests she is not. Muehlenhard and Linton (1987) compared the charac teristics of college students’ dates that did and did not in volve sexual assault. Men believed that dates on whom they had forced sex had “led them on” to a greater extent than did dates on whom they had not forced sex. Similarly, women who had experienced forced sex on a date were more likely than those who had not to believe that the man felt “led on,” although women reported that this had not been their intention. In a more focused examination of the relationships between misperception, alcohol consumption and sexual assault, Abbey et al. (1998) found that the more frequently college men had misperceived a woman’s sexual intentions and the more frequently they were drinking al cohol when they misperceived a woman’s intentions, the more frequently they had committed sexual assault.
Alcohol’s effects on men’s willingness to behave aggressively
If a man feels that he has been led on or teased by his date he may feel justified forcing sex when sober (McAuslan et al., 1998). However, research consistently indicates that alcohol increases the likelihood that individuals will be have aggressively, especially if they feel as if they have been threatened or harmed (see third box in Figure 1). Ex perimental studies demonstrate that intoxicated men retali ate strongly if they feel threatened or provoked (Taylor and Chermack, 1993). Furthermore, once they begin behaving aggressively, it is difficult to make intoxicated men stop unless nonviolent cues are extremely salient. In the case of sexual assault, a man may feel his aggres siveness is justified if he believes his partner encouraged his sexual interest and that once led on a man has a right to sex. Intoxication limits one’s ability to consider the long term negative consequences of behavior because it limits one’s focus to short-term immediate cues. Thus an intoxi cated man is likely to focus on his sexual arousal and sense of entitlement rather than the potential pain and suffering of his victim or the possibility that he will be punished. An alcohol-induced sense of disinhibition and reduction in anxi ety and self-appraisal makes it easier for men to use physi cal force to obtain sex (Ito et al., 1996).
Alcohol’s effects on women’s ability to assess and react to risk
A woman who is drinking alcohol experiences the same types of cognitive deficits as a man does. Thus, if a woman feels that this is a platonic relationship or that she has made
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Alcohol’s effects on perceptions of responsibility
Alcohol consumption is sometimes used as a justifica tion for men’s socially inappropriate behaviors (Berglas, 1987). Of the college date rapists interviewed by Kanin (1984), 62% felt that they had committed rape because of their alcohol consumption. These men believed that their intoxicated condition caused them to initially misperceive their partner’s degree of sexual interest and later allowed them to feel comfortable using force when the women’s lack of consent finally became clear to them. These date rapists did not see themselves as “real” criminals because real criminals used weapons to assault strangers. Figure 1 (first box) includes a feedback loop between feeling that alcohol justifies aggressive behavior and preexisting beliefs about alcohol’s effects. Once a man has used intoxication to justify forced sex, he is more likely to believe that alco hol causes this type of behavior and to use this as an ex cuse in the future. In contrast, women tend to feel more responsible for sexual assault if they had been drinking alcohol (Norris, 1994). Women are often criticized for losing control of the situation, not communicating clearly, not resisting ad equately and failing in their gatekeeper role. In one of our surveys, a woman replied to a question about if the assault was avoidable, “Yes, if I had not been intoxicated... I would have been more in control of myself and the situation.” Other people also tend to blame intoxicated women for sexual assault. For example, Richardson and Campbell (1982) asked male and female college students to read a story about a college woman raped by a guest while clean ing up after a party. Both male and female students per ceived the perpetrator as less responsible when he was intoxicated. In contrast, both male and female students per ceived the victim as more responsible when she was in toxicated. The woman was also perceived as less likable and moral when she was drunk; however, alcohol consump tion did not affect these judgments about the male. A more recent study (Hammock and Richardson, 1997) replicated the findings regarding the victim’s alcohol consumption. Victims of sexual assault were held more responsible by male and female college students when they were intoxi cated. These findings may help explain why less than half of college student sexual assault victims tell anyone about what happened (Koss et al., 1987). They may anticipate being blamed rather than supported. Several other studies have found that judgments about sexual assault vignettes depend on whether both the victim and perpetrator were drinking or only the victim was drink ing. For example, Stormo et al. (1997) found that when both the man and the woman were equally intoxicated, drinking women were held more responsible for sexual as sault; in contrast, drinking men were held less responsible. However, a sober man was judged to be more responsible
when he assaulted an intoxicated woman, perhaps because he was seen as taking advantage of her. It is noteworthy that observers sometimes derogate men for taking advan tage of an intoxicated woman, although many sexual as sault perpetrators seem to experience no remorse about using this strategy to obtain sex (Kanin, 1985; Mosher and Ander son, 1986).
Peer environments that encourage heavy drinking and sexual assault
For some drinkers, alcohol provides a justification for engaging in behaviors that are usually considered inappro priate. This excuse-giving function is only effective if one’s peer group shares the same beliefs. The peer group norms in some college social environments, including many so rorities and fraternities, accept getting drunk as a justifica tion for engaging in behaviors that would usually be embarrassing. The peer norms for most fraternity parties are to drink heavily, to act in an uninhibited manner and to engage in casual sex (Martin and Hummer, 1989; Norris et al., 1996). Although researchers have focused on Greek organizations, heavy episodic drinking and forced sex are not condoned by all fraternities or all members of fraterni ties. Other types of formal (e.g., athletic groups) and infor mal college peer networks can encourage drunken excess and inappropriate behavior. Martin and Hummer (1989) argued that many fraterni ties create a social environment in which sexual coercion is normalized because women are perceived as commodities available to meet men’s sexual needs. Alcohol is used to encourage reluctant women to have sex. One fraternity man stated that at parties, “We provide them [Little Sisters] with ‘hunch punch’ and things get wild. We get them drunk and most of the guys end up with one” (p. 465). With no re morse or guilt, this fraternity man described his plans to get one particular woman drunk by serving her punch with out letting her know it was spiked for the challenge of having sex with a “prim and proper sorority girl” (p. 465). Research has also been conducted with sorority women to determine the types of social pressure that they experi ence. Norris et al. (1996) found that most sorority women know that the emphasis at many fraternity parties is on heavy drinking and casual sex. In focus groups, they ar ticulated warning signs such as getting too drunk or receiv ing attention from specific men who have a reputation for forcing sex. However, most of these women believed that they were “too smart to be raped” (p. 132). Thus these sorority women recognized that being drunk makes women easy targets, yet they thought they were better than other women at staying alert when drunk. These sorority women also seemed unwilling to report sexual assault when it oc curred. They thought that the Greek system received too
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much negative press; thus they felt responsible to be posi tive about it.
Summary of research regarding alcohol’s role in college sexual assaults
Alcohol increases the likelihood of sexual assault occur ring among acquaintances during social interactions through several interrelated pathways. These pathways include be liefs about alcohol, deficits in higher order cognitive pro cessing and motor impairments induced by alcohol and peer group norms that encourage heavy drinking and forced sex. There is a synergistic relationship between men’s personal ity traits (e.g., low empathy, high impulsivity), attitudes (e.g., believe forced sex is sometimes acceptable, believe women are coy about their sexual intentions and enjoy forced sex) and alcohol’s effects. If a man believes forced sex is acceptable and women cannot be trusted, he may be comfortable raping when sober. Alcohol makes it even easier for men to feel comfortable forcing sex because alcohol myopia helps them focus solely on their desire to have sex rather than on the woman’s signs of refusal and pain. Al though data have been presented to support each of these arguments, causality cannot be firmly established because each study had methodological limitations. In combination, however, these studies demonstrate the many ways in which alcohol consumption can contribute to sexual assault.
Directions for Future Research
Given how many sexual assaults occur in high school and how many high school students report heavy episodic drinking, long-term longitudinal studies are needed that fol low youth from early adolescence into adulthood. Prospec tive research would allow potential causes, such as stereotypes about drinking women, alcohol expectancies and usual alcohol consumption, to be measured prior to the ex perience of college sexual assault. More precise measurement is needed of the amount of alcohol consumed in sexual assault situations. Because most researchers assess only whether or not any alcohol was con sumed, it is impossible to evaluate whether perpetrators or victims were intoxicated at the time of the assault. The effects of one glass of wine with dinner are likely to be very different from the effects of 10 beers consumed within a 2-hour period at a party. Another difficult measurement issue concerns how to enhance the accuracy of drunken recall. If a woman was so drunk she was unconscious when she was raped, it may be impossible for her to fully and accurately describe what occurred. Methodological studies are needed that focus on how best to ask questions to en hance accurate recall of events that occurred under various levels of intoxication.
In-depth qualitative studies are necessary to better un derstand the precise role of alcohol in sexual assault. These studies need to include students from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Research with minority students, stu dents at commuter schools and gay students is needed. A few authors have focused on Greek organizations and ath letes; however, students with other interests and lifestyles also need to be represented in qualitative research. Alcohol administration studies are required because only when participants are randomly assigned to drink an alco holic or nonalcoholic beverage can one be certain that dif ferences in their behavior are due to alcohol rather than other factors such as prior drinking history. Because sexual assault cannot be an outcome in laboratory studies, appro priate proxies must be used. Some researchers have ex posed participants to pornography as a proxy for sexual assault (George and Marlatt, 1986; Hall and Hirschman, 1994). Other researchers have asked participants to evalu ate written or audio depictions of sexual assault when in toxicated or sober (Bernat et al., 1998; Norris and Cubbins, 1992). Whenever participants read stories about sexual as sault, there is a concern that they may not respond in the same way that they would to an event in their own lives. Research that helps explain how other people react to sexual assault victims is important in its own right because vic tims are so often blamed by others. Many of the studies that have informed theory about alcohol’s role in sexual assault have examined general ag gressive and sexual behavior. Additional research in these areas can be used to develop prevention and treatment pro grams. For example, research can investigate the circum stances under which men are most willing to aggress against a female confederate (Taylor and Chermack, 1993) or de lineate the types of cues that intoxicated men are most likely to misperceive (Abbey et al., 2000).
Prevention and Policy Implications
There are many potential prevention and policy implica tions that stem from this review. The suggestions provided here are derived from the literature; however, they have not been evaluated. It is crucial that colleges develop evalu ation plans so that they can determine the effectiveness of the programs they utilize. One simple, but important, policy implication that de rives from this review is that the individuals on campus who are responsible for programs on the prevention of al cohol misuse must work in conjunction with those indi viduals responsible for programs on the prevention of sexual assault. Most acquaintance rape prevention programs dis cuss alcohol as a risk factor, but many do not emphasize it (Bohmer and Parrot, 1993). In a similar manner, programs that describe responsible drinking do not typically empha
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needed. Because alcohol makes it easy to ignore subtle sig nals, men need to be particularly careful when they are drinking to communicate their sexual desires clearly and to obtain active consent from a woman before engaging in sex. Prevention programs should begin in middle school, as dating relationships begin to develop. College students are still open to new ideas; thus sexual assault prevention mes sages need to be provided to male and female college stu dents early and frequently. New students can be provided with information at orientation about the many consequences of heavy drinking, including sexual assault. Programs need to be interesting and to use a variety of modalities includ ing videos, theater groups, role playing and coed discus sion groups. Peer leaders are crucial to demonstrate that other students share these concerns. Special efforts need to be made with Greek organizations, sports teams and other large social groups to enlist their support in prevention ef forts. Students are motivated by their peers’ beliefs. Dem onstrating that not all members of Greek organizations or athletes approve of heavy drinking or forced sex can em power more students to show their disapproval. Conduct ing needs assessment surveys and focus groups with students on campus can provide information that helps tailor pre vention programs to the specific needs of students at that institution. Faculty, staff and administrators need to be well informed so that they can support program efforts. Women who report being sexually assaulted after drinking heavily at a party need to know that they will be treated with re spect and concern by campus personnel, or they will con tinue to keep this crime a secret.
Acknowledgments
Sharon Wilsnack, Robert Zucker and an anonymous reviewer pro vided thoughtful feedback on an earlier version of this article.
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