Pathways on the sexual violence continuum: A lifestyles theory of victimization in urban nightlife

Abstract

While scholars have identified a consistent link between deviant lifestyles and victimization, little research to date has examined how life-course trajectories and lifestyle factors can shape exposure to varied forms of victimization and, in particular, different types of sexual assault. Drawing on interviews with 20 women with active night lives and direct observation of 33 nightlife events, this study employs a feminist pathways conceptual framework to examine how dispositional and lifestyle factors shaped the types of sexual assault reported. Findings indicate that while a number of factors associated with general sexual victimization were shared among those in the sample, the specific types of assault experienced were further conditioned by their individual trajectories in nightlife scenes, substance use histories, cultural taste preferences, as well as distinct aspects of the social contexts where victimization occurred. More broadly, this study suggests that well-established risk factors associated with victimization impact women in different ways and exert their effects uniquely, through the intervention of culture.

Keywords::

• sexual assault
• victimization
• feminist pathways
• lifestyles
• culture

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tammy Anderson, Nicole Lloyd, and the three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and incisive comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Notes

This research was supported by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice Grant No. 2004-IJ-CX-0040 and 2008-IJ-CX-0004. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice.

^1. The phrase ‘ideal forms of victimization’ is a derivation of Christie's (1986) concept of the ‘ideal victim.’ I employ this concept to emphasize that most persons define a small portion of victimization incidents as worthy of concern, and this is dependent on idealized preconceptions, such as how vulnerable and innocent the victim is perceived. In terms of sexual assault, narrow assumptions about victimhood work together with dominant discourses about women's sexuality that function to obscure recognition of sexual assault in certain situations (Burt 1980; Gavey 1999; Weiss 2006, 2013), or blame the victim in others (Frohmann 1991).

^2. Beginning in the 1970s, the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey were increasingly criticized for methodological flaws that underestimated sexual victimization.. Such criticisms prompted researchers to develop new measures based on legal definitions, and tapped a wider range of victimization types (e.g., Koss and Gidycz 1985; Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski 1987). Researchers incorporated these measures into surveys increasingly in the ensuing decades. One unanticipated byproduct of measurement sensitivity has been the manufacture of disparities in prevalence, and such discrepancies have driven claims by conservative commentators that sexual assault studies are misleading and ideologically biased (Sommers 2012). See Fisher and Cullen (2000) for an elaborated discussion.

^3. Some scholars (e.g., Franklin 2011) suggest this reticence is due to concerns that research examining the lifestyles and dispositional characteristics of sexual assault victims might be interpreted as condoning patriarchal rape-supportive cultural justifications that blame women for their own victimization if not sufficiently nested within a feminist understanding of victims' routine activities. See Meier and Miethe (1993) for an elaborated discussion.

^4. The geographic organization of Philadelphia's nightlife scenes and contact with the key informants who aided in participant recruitment were established during a prior ethnographic project conducted in 2003–2004.

^5. Though the recruitment strategy was designed to attain maximum variation within and across nightlife scenes, recruitment by key informants and during direct observation reflects a snowball sampling technique, and so generalizability is limited. Thirteen of the 20 were referred by key informants; 7 were recruited during direct observations. While those referred largely reflect the extended friendship-acquaintance networks of the informants, live, or ‘cold’ recruitment was more difficult, as attempts to engage potential participants were sometimes misinterpreted as flirting or as suspicion of law enforcement. Such misperceptions discouraged participation. For every four potential respondents approached, one agreed to participate.

^6. That 5 of the 20 victims did not elaborate on their incidents in enough detail to classify them as accounts is of analytic concern and should be regarded as a study limitation. While problematic, prior qualitative research on factors driving distinct types of sexual assault noted similar response issues, and at comparable rates (e.g., Testa and Livingston 1999).

^7. Two of the 14 women classified as casual partiers stated their primary affiliation as with the EDM scene. However, the nightlife events they typically frequented were housed in commercial venues that featured multiple genres of music in different rooms of the same venue, and the ethos of these events more closely resembled that of contemporary US nightlife, with greater emphasis on hooking up and heavy episodic alcohol use.

Additional information

Funding

Disclosure

The author does not have any financial interest nor will incur any benefit arising from the direct application of this research.

Notes on contributors

Philip R. Kavanaugh

Philip R. Kavanaugh is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the School of Public Affairs at Penn State Harrisburg. His research emphases are in deviance, drug trends, victimization, and gender. Recent publications have appeared in Feminist Criminology, Adicciones, Deviant Behavior, and The Sociological Quarterly.