Preliminary Evidence of Validity for the Verbally Pressured and Illegal Sexual Exploitation Modules of the Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization

ABSTRACT

The Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V; see Koss et al., 2024) revises the prior 2007 Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) in many ways, including expanded measurement of verbally pressured and illegal sexual exploitation, as well as the addition of items that assess being made to perform a sexual act or to penetrate another person sexually. The current article describes two initial validity studies of the SES-V. Study 1 compared rates of self-reported verbal pressure and illegal sexual exploitation (e.g. rape) on a preliminary version of the SES-V and the SES-SFV in a sample of higher education students who completed both questionnaires online in a randomized order (N = 460). As expected, the preliminary SES-V produced higher rates than the SES-SFV, and continuous scores were strongly correlated. Responses to the made-to-penetrate (MTP) items suggested that some cisgender men and women may have misunderstood those items. Study 2 explored responses to the MTP items further by randomly assigning participants to complete items with either the Study 1 MTP language (n = 269) or revised language (n = 245). The revised language produced fewer implausible responses and was adopted in the final version of the SES-V. These findings provide initial support for the validity of the SES-V and the value of expanding the conceptualization of victimization to include a wider range of sexual exploitation. A research agenda for future validity research is suggested.

Early survey research on sexual violence focused on women’s victimization by men through the use of physical force, impairment, and verbal pressure tactics to obtain sex without freely given consent, usually perpetrated by men they knew and often their dating partners (Kirkpatrick & Kanin, 1957; Koss & Oros, 1982; Koss et al., 1987; Russell & Miller, 1979). These studies were instrumental in demonstrating the ubiquity of men’s violence toward women; yet, as data accumulated, it became clear that these methods could not fully capture the scope of sexual violence nor the populations who experience and perpetrate such violence. With the development of the Sexual Experiences Survey – Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) and Sexual Experiences Survey – Short Form Perpetration (SES-SFP), Koss et al. (2007) expanded the scope of earlier measures of sexual violence by using gender inclusive language that assessed both men’s and women’s experiences of victimization and perpetration. The new SES-V (Koss et al. 2024) uses the term “sexual exploitation” to reflect the wider range of tactics and sexual activities which are assessed in comparison to past versions. The goal of this article was to provide preliminary evidence of the convergent validity of the new SES-V by comparing individual’s responses to the illegal acts and verbal pressure items in the 2007 SES-SFV with their responses to items assessing similar constructs within the new SES-V. A secondary goal was to examine the impact of adding items that assess forms of sexual exploitation that involve being made-to-penetrate another person. Our general expectation was that responses to the two measures would be strongly associated, with the SES-V identifying more instances of sexual exploitation than the SES-SFV given its broader scope.

Overview of Changes in the New SES-V

The SES-V includes four modules: Technology-Facilitated Sexual Exploitation (see Kowalski et al., 2024), Non-Contact Sexual Exploitation (see Koss et al., 2024), Verbally-Pressured Sexual Exploitation (see Anderson et al., 2024), and Illegal Sexual Exploitation (see Peterson et al., 2024). The first two modules are new to this version of the SES. This paper focuses on the Verbally-Pressured and Illegal Sexual Exploitation modules, as these modules assess the same constructs as the prior SES-SFV, although the number and scope of the items have been substantially expanded in the SES-V. We do not mention every change to the content of these modules but highlight major changes next.

The SES was initially developed in the early 1980s to better document the scope of rape by using behaviorally-specific language to describe acts that fit the FBI definition of completed and attempted rape without using stigmatized, inconsistently defined, and easily misunderstood terms such as the word “rape” (see Uniform Crime Report, n.d., which also references historical definitions). Consistent with prior versions of the SES, the new SES-V uses behaviorally-specific language to describe the tactics used to sexually exploit someone, and the sexual behaviors that were obtained without permission. Table 1 shows the evolution of the SES from 1987 to the current version, focusing on the example of how physical force has been operationalized across time.

Table 1. Changes in Sexual Experiences Survey items over time using physical force content as an example.

SES 1987

Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man threatened or used some degree of physical force (twisting your arm, holding you down, etc.) to make you? (From age 14 on)

No

Yes

SES-SFV (2007)

A man put his penis into my vagina, or someone inserted fingers or objects without my consent by:

How many times in the past 12 months?

How many times since age 14?

0

1

2

3+

0

1

2

3+

a.

Telling lies, threatening to end the relationship, threatening to spread rumors about me, making promises I knew were untrue, or continually verbally pressuring me after I said I didn’t want to.

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

b.

Showing displeasure, criticizing my sexuality or attractiveness, getting angry but not using physical force, after I said I didn’t want to.

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

c.

Taking advantage of me when I was too drunk or out of it to stop what was happening.

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

d.

Threatening to physically harm me or someone close to me.

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

e.

Using force, for example holding me down with their body weight, pinning my arms, or having a weapon.

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

SES-V (2023)

6. Someone threatened to physically harm me, someone close to me, or my pets to:

How many times since age 14?

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10+

a. Have non-penetrative sexual contact

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

b. Have oral sex

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

c. Penetrate my vagina/genital opening

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

d. Make me penetrate their vagina or genital opening

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

e. Penetrate my anus

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

f. Make me penetrate their anus

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

☐

The Verbally-Pressured Sexual Exploitation module in the SES-V adds tactics that were not included in prior versions. Some of the new tactics include those that have been described by individuals who have been marginalized due to their income or sexual or gender identity and individuals who have been sexually exploited by an intimate partner; for example, threatening access to resources (e.g, medications, documentation), threatening self-harm or suicide, and encouraging consumption of alcohol or drugs (Anderson et al., 2024). Table 2 provides a comparison of each feature of the SES in the 2007 version and the new SES-V.

The Illegal Sexual Exploitation module expands the number of items to better reflect current conceptualizations and definitions of rape, including those delineated in the United Nations model rape law (Peterson et al., 2024; United Nations General Assembly, 2021). This is in contrast to other definitions such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation definition used until 2013, “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” (Uniform Crime Report, n.d.). The SES has always taken a more expansive, feminist view of rape than the FBI. Therefore, the questions in the Illegal Sexual Exploitation module focus on the conceptual core of rape – the use of tactics that threaten someone’s life and/or situations in which someone is in a cognitive state that makes them unable to consent. For example, the SES-SFV included a single item to assess incidents that occurred when the victim was incapacitated and unable to consent. In the new SES-V this construct is separated into five distinct tactics (see Table 2). Other additions include experiences where an individual uses their position of authority to obtain sex (which was in the 1987 version of the SES but not the 2007 version) and various forms of reproductive coercion (e.g., withholding sexual infection information, lying about birth control, or tampering with a condom).

Table 2. Comparison of the Sexual Experiences Survey-victimization (SES-V) and the Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) content.

Questionnaire Feature	SES-V	SES-SFV (2007)
Operationalization of consent	In items: “without your permission,” “without first asking if it was okay,” In instructions: “Lack of permission for a sex act is communicated in many ways including, but is not limited to: You were unable or were given no chance to refuse. You were incapacitated and could not stop what was happening. You made excuses for or gave reasons why you couldn’t do it. You tried to convince the other person/persons to stop, pleaded, or cried. You pushed them away, moved their hand off, tried to create physical distance, hit, or kicked. You directly said “no” or “I don’t want to.” You said yes to some sexual acts, but acts occurred that were not agreed upon. You said yes to sex only with a condom or contraception, but acts occurred without protection.” “Without your freely given permission”	In items: “without your consent” None.
Sexual act	Technology-facilitated Sexual Exploitation
	Receipt of sexual materials Recipient of sexual comments Threatened sharing of sexually explicit images Actual sharing of sexually explicit images Recipient of sexual solicitation Recipient of unwanted sexual comments Threatened sharing of images of sexual exploitation Actual sharing of images of sexual exploitation	n/a
	Non-contact Sexual Exploitation
	Recipient of unwanted sexual comments Recipient of sexual staring Focus of voyeurism Recipient of Involuntary exposure to someone’s private body parts Unwanted witnessing masturbation	n/a
	Non-penetrative Sexual Exploitation^H4
	“Having non-penetrative sexual contact includes being kissed or touched in a sexual way, having sexual parts of your body (breasts/chest, butt, crotch/genitals) stroked or grabbed. The act may or may not happen through your clothing. Sexual contact also includes making you touch these parts of someone else’s body.	“Someone fondled, kissed, or rubbed up against the private areas of my body (lips, chest, crotch or butt) or removed some of my clothes”
	Oral Sexual Exploitation
	Having oral sex is someone using their mouth, lips, or tongue to touch your penis, butt (anus) or crotch (genital area). Oral sex also includes incidents when someone made you use your mouth, lips, or tongue to touch their penis, anus (butt) or crotch (genital area)	“Someone had oral sex with me or made me have oral sex with them”
	Vaginal/genital Sexual Exploitation
	Penetrating your vagina/genital opening is someone putting their penis, fingers, a sex toy, or another object into your vagina or genital opening. This act involves penetration of your body. It DOES NOT include the anus (butt).	*“A man put his penis into my vagina, or someone inserted fingers or objects”
	Anal Sexual Exploitation
	Penetrating your anus is someone putting their penis, fingers, a sex toy, or another object into your anus (butt). This act involves penetration of your body.	“A man put his penis into my butt, or someone inserted fingers or objects”
	Made-to-penetrate vaginal/genital Sexual Exploitation ^H6
	Making you penetrate their vagina/genital opening involves someone making you penetrate their vagina or genital opening with your penis, fingers, a sex toy, or another object. This act involves making you penetrate someone else’s body. It DOES NOT include the anus (butt).	n/a
	Made-to-penetrate Anal Sexual Exploitation ^H6
	Making you penetrate their anus is someone making you penetrate their anus (butt) with your penis, fingers, a sex toy, or another object. This act involves making you penetrate someone else’s body.”	n/a
	Attempted Contact Sexual Exploitation^H3
	“Someone used any of these behaviors such as abusing their authority, threatening bodily harm, physical force taking advantage of my incapacitation from drugs or alcohol, to have any of the following sex acts, but the attempted act did not happen. They tried to: Have non-penetrative sexual contact Have oral sex Penetrate my vagina/genital opening Make me penetrate their vagina or genital opening Penetrate my anus Make me penetrate their anus”	“Even though it didn’t happen, someone TRIED to have oral sex with me, or make me have oral sex with them” … *“Even though it did not happen, a man TRIED to put his penis into my vagina, or tried to stick in fingers or objects” … “Even though it didn’t happen, a man TRIED to put his penis into my butt, or someone tried to stick in objects or fingers” … … (each of the above stems followed by the five coercive tactics a, b, c, d, e)
Tactics Assessed	Verbal Pressure^H1
	“Someone pressured me by saying positive things … ” “Someone pressured me by trying to wear me down … ”	n/a a: … “continually verbally pressuring me … ”
	n/a	a: “telling lies”
	“Someone pressured me by criticizing … ”	b: “Showing displeasure, criticizing my sexuality or attractiveness … ”
	“Someone pressured me by threatening my social reputation … ” “Someone pressured me by threatening the relationship … ” “Someone pressured me to drink more alcohol than I wanted … ” “Someone pressured me to use more drugs than I wanted … ” “Someone pressured me by getting mad and by saying and doing things such as yelling, swearing, slamming things, or stomping around … .” “Someone pressured me by threatening my access to something important like my children … .” “Someone pressured me by threatening to harm or kill themselves … ”	a: “threatening to spread rumors about me” a: “threatening to end the relationship” n/a b: “getting angry but not using physical force”
	Illegal Module Inability to Consent^H2,H3
	Voluntary consumption of substances “someone bought me drinks or gave me strong drinks to make me impaired … .” “someone took advantage of me after I drank alcohol by choice … .” “someone took advantage of me when I took drugs by choice … .”	c: “taking advantage of me when I was too drunk or out of it to stop what was happening”
	Involuntary consumption of substances “someone put drugs into my drink or misled me about the contents of pills … .”	c: “taking advantage of me when I was too drunk or out of it to stop what was happening”
	Surprise Someone gave no advance notice … including times when I was sleeping or semi-awake	n/a
	Threats and Use of Physical Force ^H2,H3
	“Someone threatened to physically harm me, someone close to me, or my pets … ”	d: “threatening to physically harm me or someone close to me”
	“Someone used any level of physical force such as holding me down with their body weight, pinning my arms, or other actions perceived as physical force … ”	e: “using force for example holding me down with their body weight, pinning my arms or having a weapon”
	Reproductive Coercion
	“Someone withheld information about their sexual infections status, lied about using birth control, or tampered with or removed a condom after agreeing to use one … ”	n/a
	Commercial Sexual Exploitation
	“Someone made me engage in sexual acts for money by using threats to limit my ability to meet life needs such as housing, misleading me into doing a job that involved sexual acts, or physically forcing me to … .”	n/a
	Abuse of Power ^H2,H3
	“Someone misused their position of authority over me to … ”	n/a
Response format	Limited frequency: “0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10+”	Limited frequency: “0, 1, 2, 3+”
Structure of items	Tactic first Some items compound, tactic-first followed by list of six sexual behaviors.	Sexual behavior first All exploitation items compound, sexual behavior first followed by list of five types of tactics.
Number of exploitation items	15 non-compound, 126 compound	35 for women, 25 for men (all compound)
Number of demographic items	10 (sex, age, gender identity, race/ethnicity, sexual identity, attention check item, subjective socioeconomic status, disability)	2 (sex, age)
Number of follow-up items	24 (same six repeated across all modules) 7 in specific incident module: type of tactics, type of sex acts, number of perpetrators, relationship to perpetrator, gender of perpetrator, 2 acknowledgment	3 (repeatedness, sex of perpetrator, acknowledgment)
Order of items	Items presented in a set, semi-hierarchical order	Items presented in a set, hierarchical order
Formatting conventions	Uses bolded font, URL links to terminology, underlines for emphasis, mix of non-compound and compound items	Uses all caps for emphasis, compound items
Language considerations	Does not conflate biological sex, anatomy, and gender identity	Biological sex, anatomy, gender identity are confounded

Bolded language from original. *men were instructed to skip these items. Compound items are those wherein a tactic is described in the main stem with sub-items describing sexual acts that were obtained by that tactic. Tactics listed in module order. Superscripts indicate content differences tested in corresponding hypotheses.

In addition to the expansion of tactics, the SES-V expands the types of sexual acts that can be reported. The first is inclusion of an expanded set of nonpenetrative contact items in which someone is made to perform a sex act such as kissing, touching or stroking the sexual areas of another person’s body. The second category are sex acts in which someone is made-to-penetrate another person’s body. Sexual behaviors are de-coupled from gender and sexual identity such that all respondents are queried about experiences that involved all sexual acts assessed (see Koss et al., 2024; Peterson et al, 2024).

Additionally, there were changes made in the formatting of items and consent language. Based on prior research findings (Abbey et al., 2005, 2021; Anderson, Garcia, et al., 2021; Schuster et al., 2020; Trottier et al., 2023), the SES-V Verbally-Pressured and Illegal Sexual Exploitation modules continue to be presented in a grid format, making them compound items. However, the ordering of tactic/sexual behavior clauses within the items differs from the 2007 version. In the new SES-V a tactic is presented in the item stem followed by each of the sexual acts as response choices. Further, the SES-V also provides a behaviorally specific definition of “without your permission” which includes several examples, such as you were unable or given no chance to refuse, you directly said “no,” or you pleaded or cried rather than using the SES-SFV language of “without consent” in order to avoid legalistic language that may be misunderstood.

The Importance of Evaluating Item Phrasing Through a Comparative Approach

There is a long history in survey research of evaluating the effects of changes in question phrasing on participants’ responses. For example, studies suggest that context affects memory retrieval and how participants respond to questions (Anderson et al., 2022; Belli, 1998; Crossley & Kennedy, 2002; Schwarz et al., 1991; Tourangeau et al., 2003). To wit, an experiment was conducted within the National Crime Survey, wherein half of participants were randomly assigned to report their victimization experiences after questions regarding their attitudes about crime; the other half received no crime attitude questions (Schuman & Presser, 1981). Participants who answered the attitude questions first reported significantly higher rates of victimization than other participants. When Fisher and Cullen (2000) followed the exact procedures used in the National Crime Victimization Survey but used behaviorally-specific descriptions rather than the words “rape” and “sexual attack,” they found a rape prevalence rate that was 9 times higher than that previously reported.

Several research teams have evaluated how responses to questions about sexual exploitation are affected by the different phrasings used in questionnaires that are intended to measure comparable content (Abbey et al., 2021; Anderson et al., 2018; Anderson, Garcia, et al., 2021; Anderson & Cuccolo, 2021; Buday & Peterson, 2015; Cascardi & Muzyczyn, 2016; DiLillo et al., 2006; Fisher, 2009; Marcantonio et al., 2022; Moreau et al., 2014; Strang & Peterson, 2017; Strang et al., 2013; Testa et al., 2015). Multiple research teams have found that the 2007 SES-SFV, which includes two items to assess verbal pressure, identifies fewer disclosures than do other measures with a larger number of verbal pressure items (Abbey et al., 2021; Anderson & Delahanty, 2020; Anderson et al., 2018; Marcantonio et al., 2022). These differences are not found for physical force-related tactics (Marcantonio et al., 2022). Some speculate this is because the SES-SFV items combine many examples of verbal tactics simultaneously (see Table 2). Researchers have speculated that long, multi-faceted items produce underreporting because participants believe that all behaviors need to apply to their experience in order for them to endorse the item, get confused trying to remember all the tactics listed, or skim the list and miss the tactic relevant to them (Strang & Peterson, 2017). This interpretation was also supported by cognitive interviewing research (Jeffrey & Senn, 2024). These findings contributed to the decision to create a separate item for each verbal pressure tactic in the new SES-V with the assumption that a larger number of focused items would produce more interpretable responses than a smaller number of long, multidimensional items that are more difficult for participants to process and interpret.

The Current Studies

The goals of the current paper were to initiate an agenda of research on the convergent and content validity of the new SES-V with a particular focus on the tactics and sexual behavior content in the Verbally Pressured and Illegal Sexual Exploitation modules. In Study 1, we conducted a comparison of item responses from a preliminary version of the SES-V and the SES-SFV (Koss et al., 2007). Given that the SES-V was designed to assess the same construct as the SES-SFV, we hypothesized that responses on the measures would be strongly and positively correlated, demonstrating convergent validity. However, given the significant additions to the SES-V, it was hypothesized that the SES-V would exhibit higher rates of sexual exploitation than the 2007 SES-SFV, even when limited to comparable content. Table 2 compares the two measures in greater detail, noting content comparisons by type of content (consent, sexual behaviors, tactics) as well as characteristics such as the number of items and language considerations, with content most relevant to these hypotheses noted in matching superscripts. In Study 1, our hypotheses were that the SES-V would identify more non-zero responses than the SES-SFV due to the changes described. We predicted higher self-reports of:

1. Verbal pressure for any sexual behavior (H1).

2. Illegal acts consistent with rape when including MTP rape (H2).

3. Illegal acts consistent with attempted rape (H3).

4. Non-penetrative sexual contact (H4).

The validity correlations between the SES-V and the SES-SFV will be moderately strong (approximately φ = .3 for dichotomous scoring and r = .5 for total scores, H5) based on past research (Anderson et al., 2019; Johnson et al., 2017).

Because the SES-SFV does not measure MTP, we could not compare responses between the two versions. Instead, we conducted some preliminary analyses to determine if the items appeared to be working as expected. Based on past research (Anderson et al., 2020; Basile et al., 2022; Littleton et al., 2020), our exploratory hypothesis was that:

• (5) MTP items will be endorsed less often than vaginal/genital penetration items and men will be more likely to experience MTP than women (H6).

Study 1

Method

Participants

Participants were 460 students of higher education with a mean age of 24.17 (SD = 4.70) recruited from the Prolific Academic platform. Data were collected in September 2022. Participants identified their gender identity as women (46.7%, n = 215), men (45.4%, n = 209), and transgender or gender nonbinary (7.6%, n = 35). One person did not report their gender identity. Regarding sexual orientation, two-thirds of participants identified as heterosexual (66.7%, n = 307), with the remaining identifying as bi- or pansexual, (19.8%, n = 91), gay or lesbian (6.7%, n = 31), queer (3.3%, n = 15), asexual (2.2%, n = 10), three as questioning, and three as another sexual identity. As far as racial identity, two-thirds identified as White (66.1%, n = 304), with the remaining identifying as Asian or Pacific Islander (14.3%, n = 66), Black or African American (13.5%, n = 62), another racial identity (5.2%, n = 24), or Native American or Indigenous (0.9%, n = 4). Ethnically, 13.5% (n = 62) identified as Hispanic or Latina/o/x and 2.0% (n = 9) as Middle Eastern or North African. Using CDC recommended items, 20.2% identified as having a disability (n = 93). Using the MacArthur subjective socioeconomic status visual 10-point ladder, with 10 representing the highest subjective economic status (range: 1–10; Adler et al., 2000), the average subjective economic status in the sample was 5.86 (SD = 1.69).

Procedure

Study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Arizona. Participants were contacted through Prolific, which only allows eligible individuals to see the study description, which for this study was English language proficiency and enrollment in a U.S-based institution of higher education (including traditional four-year degree programs as well as technical and community colleges). Potential participants saw only the name of the study, in this case, “Sexual Experiences,” the expected time to complete (15 minutes), and the compensation ($4.03). If they clicked the study to learn more, they saw a standard IRB-approved consent form. After completing informed consent, participants responded to questions about demographics, the SES-V, and the SES-SFV. There were 239 participants randomly assigned to complete the SES-V first and 221 randomly assigned to complete the SES-SFV first. The average time to complete the study was 18.08 minutes.

Measures

The Sexual Experiences Short-Form (SES-SFV)

Until the introduction of the SES-V (Koss et al., 2024), the SES-SFV was the most recent version of the SES, released by a collaborative group of researchers (Koss et al., 2007). The SES-SFV is organized with compound items, such that each item first describes a sexual behavior that is then followed by choices of five tactics (two verbal, one incapacitation, two physical) to obtain that sexual behavior without consent (see Table 1). In the SES-SFV, individuals who identify as women are asked about seven sexual behaviors (sexual contact, oral penetration, vaginal penetration, anal penetration, attempted oral penetration, attempted vaginal penetration, attempted anal penetration) and individuals who identify as men are asked about the five sexual behaviors that do not assess completed or attempted vaginal penetration.

The Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V)

This newest revision of the SES (Koss et al., 2024) contains five Non-Contact items and ten Technology-Facilitated items that were administered but are not the focus of this paper. The Illegal Sexual Exploitation and Verbally-Pressured Sexual Exploitation modules were this focus of the comparison. Each item in these two modules first describes a tactic used to obtain sexual behavior without permission that is then followed with questions about six sexual behaviors (have non-penetrative sexual contact, have oral sex, have vaginal/genital sex, have me do vaginal/genital sex on them, have anal sex, have me do anal sex on them). A definition is provided for each sexual act before the questions are presented.

Study 1 used a preliminary version of the SES-V that differed from the published version (Koss et al., 2024) in two regards. Both versions provided the same basic definition of a vaginal/genital opening; however, in the final version this text was also added: “this does not involve anal sex which is asked about later.” Additionally, the preliminary version used in Study 1 did not include the item measuring reproductive coercion (item 23 in the Illegal Acts module) or the item measuring commercial sexual exploitation (item 25 in the Illegal Acts module). With the compound nature of the tactics by acts item format, the SES-V presented in Koss et al., (2024) presents 66 data points (11 items X 6 sex acts) for the Illegal and Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation Modules.

Item Development

Detailed rationales for the Illegal Sexual Exploitation and Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation Modules are described in Peterson et al. (2024) and Anderson et al. (2024). Additionally, feedback sessions were conducted by three coauthors with undergraduate students enrolled in Human Sexuality courses at a Southwestern, a Mountain West, and a New England university in the fall of 2021. The Southwestern and Mountain West university sessions focused on comprehension of the items. Students were asked: Were there questions where you were not sure what it was asking? If so, can you describe in general what that item(s) was? Were the definitions of the different types of sex acts clear? Were there any definitions that you found hard to understand? If so, what were they? Did you find any cases where it seemed like more than one question was asking about the same thing? If so, can you describe what those questions were? Students indicated that they noticed differences in item content even when questions were related (e.g., multiple alcohol related questions), and several noted understanding the sex acts definitions. Students reported liking that items of similar content were grouped together. The New England feedback session focused on the examples used within items, especially behavioral examples of verbal pressure. Results from piloting suggested excluding the term “prude” as outdated language and that more than one example of a behavior was preferred. Students’ feedback was used to revise some of the items before conducting Study 1.

Data Cleaning

Two attention checks were administered to detect inattentive responding. One check involved asking participants their age at two different places in the survey; the second asked participants to select a specific response option. A total of 67 participants were eliminated for failing one or both checks, bringing the initial sample from 527 to 460. Prolific pre-screens for data quality indicators such as incomplete surveys, bot responses, repeated participant identification markers and monitoring usage patterns during data collection. Prolifics pre-screening takes place before researchers can access the data and we are unable to report how many participants were excluded by Prolific.

Power Analysis

Sample size was determined based on a combination of prior research and a priori power analysis. Using G*Power (Faul et al., 2007) and prior research (Anderson & Delahanty, 2020) we conservatively estimated chi-square effect sizes in the range w = .20 (small to medium) size at power = .80, which would suggest a sample size of N = 349. Johnson et al. (2017) compared responses on the SES-SFV to the prior 1987 SES, which resulted in an estimated correlation of r = .52 with achieved power of 1.00 and a sample size of N = 297; therefore, a priori power estimates suggested that correlational analyses would be powered similarly with N = 16 participants. Thus, our sample size of N = 460 was well-powered even for sub-group correlational analyses.

Analytic Plan

Convergent validity was evaluated by computing cross-tabulations, McNemar tests, and correlations. Cross-tabulations of the same topic across different measures are fruitful in identifying where there is agreement and disagreement. McNemar tests were used to examine whether the disclosures identified by the two measures (e.g., spread) were statistically different. These analyses are duplicative because responses to individual items may or may not correspond to the number of individuals who experienced a category of victimization. Phi (φ) was calculated to assess the strength of relations for cross-tabulations. Sexual exploitation reported on both the SES-V and the 2007 SES-SFV provides evidence in support of the validity of the SES-V. As elucidated in the hypothesis section, we also expected some disclosures to be identified only with the SES-V because it more fully assesses the domains than does the SES-SFV. Thus, disagreements in the direction of more non-zero item responses with the SES-V are expected. The SES-V does not eliminate any content that was included in the 2007 SES-SFV; thus, we do not expect the SES-SFV to identify responses that are missed by the SES-V. A small number of disagreements in this direction might be due to participants being briefly distracted as they answered that item or having an idiosyncratic interpretation of a phrase. However, a large number of disagreements in the direction of the 2007 SES-SFV identifying cases missed by the SES-V would be of concern.

Scoring

Many researchers have scored earlier versions of the SES, including the 2007 SES-SFV, by creating a single variable with five mutually exclusive categories to assess the most “severe” form of sexual exploitation experienced: completed rape, attempted rape, verbally pressured sex acts, non-penetrative sexual contact, and no experiences. Davis et al. (2014) detailed the different ways that the SES could be scored and some of the trade-offs associated with each of these choices. The SES-V has been divided into modules which allows investigators to select content areas most relevant to their research goals. Scoring can be by module or can focus on particular tactics, sex acts, or combinations thereof that are of interest to investigators. Given this study’s goals, we constructed dichotomous scores that allowed us to compare participants’ responses to the types of sexual exploitation that are assessed in both measures: verbally pressured sex acts, completed rape, attempted rape, and sexual contact without penetration. More detailed information about scoring issues associated specifically with the SES-V is discussed in Koss et al. (2024). We also computed continuous scores that are estimated frequency scores based on summing the response option endorsed for each endorsed item on the SES-SFV and the SES-V for correlational analysis (Abbey et al., 2011, 2021; Anderson, Garcia, et al., 2021).

Results

Order of Administration

To examine the potential impact of order of administration, we examined reported prevalence rates for modules that were represented on both questionnaires. There was no impact of order of administration for reporting verbally coercive/pressured items on the SES-SFV, χ²(1, 460) = 0.309, p = .578, φ = .026, or the SES-V, χ²(1, 460) = 0.158, p = .691, φ = .019. Nor was there a relation between reporting rape/illegal sexual exploitation items and order of administration on the SES-SFV, χ² (1, 460) = 0.043, p = .836, φ = .010, or on the SES-V, χ²(1, 460) = 2.892, p = .089, φ = .079.

Verbal Pressure (H1)

For verbal pressure, we conducted two comparisons: (1) We compared all items in the Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation module of the SES-V to the two SES-SFV verbal coercion items; and (2) We compared the items closest in content in the SES-V Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation module (items 28, 31, 32, 33, and 35) to the two SES-SFV verbal coercion items. Using the full set of SES-V verbal pressure items, we found 207 more cases than when we only the 2 items in the SES-SFV were used. As can be seen in Table 3, in the second, more restrictive analysis, the four SES-V expanded items captured 173 non-zero responses not identified by the SES-SFV. In contrast, only four participants (0.01% of the sample) disclosed verbal pressure on the SES-SFV items that were not also captured by the SES-V. The difference in responses detected by each measure was statistically significant and the strength of the relation was moderate (see Table 3 for statistical information).

Table 3. Validity data: comparison of prevalence rates detected by the SES-V to the SES-SFV and correlations.

SES-SFV	SES-V			Statistical tests
	Verbal pressure on SES-V			McNemar test	Φ (phi)
Any verbal pressure on the SES-SFV	No	Yes
No	169 (36.7%)	207 (45.0%)	376
Yes	4 (.009%)	80 (17.4%)	84
Total	173	287	460	193.38, p < .001	.321 (moderate)
	Verbal pressure on SES-V, only most similar items
Any verbal pressure on the SES-SFV	No	Yes
No	203 (44.1%)	173 (37.6%)	376
Yes	4 (.009%)	80 (17.4%)	84
Total	207	253	460	159.46, p < .001	.382 (moderate)
	Rape on the SES-V
Any rape on the SES-SFV	No	Yes	Total
No	250 (54.3%)	155 (33.7%)	405
Yes	2 (.004%)	53 (11.5%)	55
Total	252	208	460	147.16, p < .001	.379 (moderate)
	Rape on the SES-V, excluding MTP
Any rape on the SES-SFV	No	Yes
No	260 (56.5%)	145 (31.5%)	405
Yes	2 (.004%)	53 (11.5%)	55
Total	262	208	460	137.17, p < .001	.397 (moderate)
	Rape on the SES-V, excluding MTP and authority
Any rape on the SES-SFV	No	Yes
No	263 (57.2%)	142 (30.9%)	405
Yes	2 (.004%)	53 (11.5%)	55
Total	265	195	460	134.17, p < .001	.402 (strong)
	Any attempted rape on the SES-V
Any attempted rape on the SES-SFV	No	Yes	Total
No	375 (81.5%)	45 (9.8%)	420
Yes	12 (2.6%)	28 (6.1%)	40
Total	387	73	460	17.97, p < .001	.425 (strong)
	Any attempted rape on the SES-V, excluding MTP
Any attempted rape on the SES-SFV	No	Yes	Total
No	383 (83.2%)	37 (8.0%)	420
Yes	16 (3.5%)	24 (5.2%)	40
Total	399	61	460	7.55, p = .006	.425 (strong)
	Any non-penetrative contact on the SES-V
Any non-penetrative contact on the SES-SFV	No	Yes
No	179 (38.9%)	160 (34.8%)	339
Yes	4 (.009%)	117 (25.4%)	121
Total	183	277	460	146.49, p < .001	.445 (strong)

The SES-V = Sexual Experiences Survey – Victimization; SES-SFV = Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Victimization. In the final version of the SES-V included by Koss et al. (2024), two additional items were added to the Illegal module to assess commercial sex and reproductive sexual exploitation. None of the rape definitions used included non-penetrative sexual acts.

Rape (H2)

To evaluate Hypothesis 2, we conducted three comparisons: (1) all the SES-V Illegal Sexual Exploitation items (thus, MTP and misuse of authority were included); (2) all of the SES-V Illegal Sexual Exploitation items except misuse of authority; and (3) all of the SES-V tactics that correspond to the United States FBI definition of rape, which means that MTP and the misuse of authority were excluded.

As can be seen in Table 3, all three comparisons were significant and of moderate to strong strength. In the first comparison, the most inclusive, there were 155 participants who reported rape on the SES-V items that were not captured by the SES-SFV. For the second comparison, there were 145 participants who responded to one or more rape items on the SES-V that were not captured by the SES-SFV; thus, including misuse of authority added three new cases. For the final comparison, the most restrictive, there were 142 participants who endorsed one or more of the SES-V rape items that were not captured by the SES-SFV, suggesting that the inclusion of MTP detected ten new instances. For all three of these comparisons, only two participants reported incidents of rape on the SES-SFV that were not also reported on the SES-V.

Attempted Rape (H3)

To evaluate Hypothesis 3, we conducted two comparisons examining attempted rape items: 1) all SES-V attempted rape items and 2) SES-V attempted rape items excluding MTP acts. For the first comparison, 45 participants disclosed attempted rape experiences on the SES-V that were not captured by the SES-SFV. The SES-SFV also identified 12 attempted rape cases that were not identified by the SES-V. In the more restrictive comparison, 37 participants disclosed attempted rape on the SES-V item but not the SES-SFV. Conversely, the SES-SFV attempted rape item was responded to by 16 persons that were not identified by the SES-V.

Non-Penetrative Sexual Contact (H4)

To evaluate Hypothesis 4, we compared any endorsement of the SES-V non-penetrative sexual acts within the Illegal Acts or Verbal Pressure modules to the SES-SFV single item. A total of 160 responses occurred on the SES-V only. Four participants reported non-penetrative sexual contact on the SES-SFV that was not reported on the SES-V.

Validity Correlations (H5)

Hypothesis 5 was evaluated by correlating the continuous summative scores for the SES-SFV and the SES-V Verbal Pressure and Illegal Acts modules. As hypothesized, the two versions of the SES were strongly, positively correlated, r (459) = .80, p < .001. As can be seen in Table 4, the correlations between just the verbal pressure items and the rape/illegal acts items in each measure were also strongly, positively correlated for men, women, and TGNB individuals at similar strengths.

Table 4. Correlations between continuous SES-SFV and SES-V scores.

Type of Act	Entire Sample, n = 460	Women, n = 215	Men, n = 145	TGNB, n = 35	z differences between correlations
Any contact sexual exploitation	.80	.82	.79	.64	Women and men: z = .84, p = .400; Men and TGNB: z = 1.644, p = .104; Women and TGNB: z = 2.055, p = .040
Verbal pressure	.66	.66	.70	.54	Women and men: z = .644, p = .520 Men and TGNB: z = 1.32, p = .186 Women and TGNB: z = .989, p = .322
Rape/Illegal Acts	.81	.86	.67	.68	Women and men: z = 5.092, p < .001 Men and TGNB: z = .107, p = .915 Women and TGNB: z = 1.67, p = .095

Significant differences are bolded. Rape/illegal acts scores were more strongly correlated than verbal pressure scores for women, z = 5.220, p < .001. Gender groups were mutually exclusive. TGNB = trans and gender nonbinary, SES = Sexual Experiences Survey, SFV = short form victimization.

MTP Incidents (Exploratory, H6)

Overall, 29.6% of all participants reported vaginal/genital penetration of their body on the SES-V across all verbal pressure and illegal acts items. This percentage was comprised of 23.5% of respondents who disclosed vaginal/genital MTP sex and 4.8% reporting anal MTP. Table 5 summarizes the information regarding gender of the participant and the perceived gender of the perpetrator for vaginal/genital MTP, anal MTP, and vaginal/genital sex by gender of the participant. Similar numbers of cisgender men and women reported MTP, inconsistent with hypotheses. Cisgender women mostly reported cisgender men perpetrators and cisgender men mostly reported cisgender women perpetrators.

Table 5. Reports on perceived gender of rape perpetrator.

Type of Rape Gender of Participant, n	Perceived Gender of Reported Perpetrator
	Cis Woman	Cis Man	Trans Man	Trans Woman	Nonbinary	Non-conforming
Vaginal/Genital Penetration of Participant’s Body, 29.6% of sample
Cis Woman, n = 96	8	91	1	2	0	0
Cis Man, n = 29	26	5	1	3	0	1
TGNB, n = 11	1	10	0	0	0	0
Being Made-to-Penetrate Someone’s Vagina/Genitals, 22.2% of sample
Cis Woman, n = 48	4	47	0	0	0	0
Cis Man, n = 47	45	7	1	3	1	1
TGNB, n = 7	1	5	1	0	0	0
Being Made-to-Penetrate Someone’s Anus, 4.8% of sample
Cis Woman, n = 3	2	3	0	0	0	0
Cis Man, n = 17	12	8	1	2	1	1
TGNB, n = 2	0	2	0	1	0	0

MTP = made to penetrate, TGNB = trans and gender nonbinary participants. No participants reported two-spirit or another identity perpetrators. Implausible responses are shaded in gray.

However, a careful examination of responses suggests that some participants may not have understood the difference between being the recipient of non-permissive vaginal/genital sex and MTP vaginal/genital sex. Specifically, a number of cisgender men reported experiencing vaginal rape (i.e., their own vaginas being penetrated, n = 29). A small number of cisgender men also reported vaginal/genital MTP by a cisgender male perpetrator (i.e., made-to-penetrate a cisgender man’s vagina/genitals, n = 7) and many cisgender women reported experiencing being made-to-penetrate a cisgender man’s vagina/genitals (n = 47). These implausible responses are shaded in gray in Table 5 and were the rationale for conducting Study 2.

Discussion

The purpose of Study 1 was to compare the prevalence rates on a preliminary version of the new SES-V with the 2007 SES-SFV in a sample of higher education students. As hypothesized, most instances of verbal coercion/pressure and rape reported on the SES-SFV were also reported on the SES-V (H1, H2) and reports of contact sexual exploitation on the SES-V were higher (H1–4). The addition of new tactics in the SES-V appears to have resulted in hypothesized increases in item endorsement on the SES-V. Convergent validity was high (r = .54–.81, H5). Given the significant change in the structure of how sex acts and tactics were presented and the addition of new sex acts, we were particularly interested in how items assessing MTP in the SES-V functioned, especially in comparison to vaginal/genital sex for which there is decades of research to compare. Analyses comparing vaginal/genital penetrative sex to MTP sex items resulted in some implausible responses, suggesting content validity issues. (H6).

Study 2

Study 2 evaluated alternative wording that might rectify concerns about the implausible MTP responses. Specifically, we hypothesized that the distinction between being penetrated and being made to penetrate another person was unclear to some participants in the vaginal/genital and anal sex items. The language used in Study 1 for being penetrated was, “Have vaginal/genital sex” and “Have anal sex.” For being made-to-penetrate these items read, “Have me do vaginal/genital sex on them” and “Have me do anal sex on them.” Although the CDC and Anderson et al. (2020) used wording like, “made you penetrate … ” to assess MTP, we did not use that wording in Study 1 because of concerns it might imply that only physical force tactics were relevant and verbal pressure tactics were not. Participants were randomly assigned to receive one of two different versions of the penetration and MTP items. The revised condition wording for being penetrated was “penetrate my vagina/genital opening” and “penetrate my anus” vs made-to-penetrate as “make me penetrate their vagina/genital opening” and “make me penetrate their anus.” The revised wording was informed by prior research investigating experiences of MTP (Anderson et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2021; Weare, 2018) and was predicted to reduce the frequency of implausible responses.

Method

Participants

Using Prolific Academic, we recruited 514 individuals aged 18–30 (M = 25.39; SD = 3.30) from the United States. Data were collected in October 2022. Participants identified their gender identify as a woman (n = 231; 44.9%), a man (n = 250;48.6%), a trans woman (n = 6; 1.2%), a transman (n = 5; 1.0%), non-binary (n = 14; 2.7%), or genderqueer (n = 3; 0.6%); five individuals (1.0%) used some other label to describe their gender. Participants were fairly evenly divided in terms of whether they were assigned male at birth (n = 265; 51.6%) or female at birth (n = 249; 48.4%). Participants identified their race as White (65.8%, n = 338), Asian/Pacific Islander (13.6%, n = 70), Black (9.9%, n = 51), bi- or multi-racial (6.2%, n = 32), Native American/Indigenous (1.2%, n = 6), or another race (3.3%, n = 17). In terms of ethnicity, 15.6% identified as Hispanic or Latino/a/x (n = 80), and 2.1% identified as Middle Eastern or North African (n = 11). Most participants (63.8%, n = 328) identified as heterosexual, 23.9% identified as bi or pansexual (n = 123), 5.3% identified as gay or lesbian (n = 27), 2.3% identified as asexual (n = 12), 2.1% identified as queer (n = 11), 1.4% identified as questioning (n = 7), 0.2% identified as fluid (n = 1), and 1.0% identified with some other sexual identity (n = 5). In relation to student status, 21.2% were currently students at a college or university (n = 109); 47.1% had attended college/university in the past and completed a degree (n = 242); 15.4% had attended in the past but did not complete a degree (n = 79), and 16.3% had never attended college/university (n = 84).

Procedure

Study procedures were approved by the Indiana University IRB. Participants were contacted through Prolific for a study titled, “Evaluating a New Measure of Sexual Experiences.” Participants were randomly assigned to complete the Illegal Sexual Exploitation and Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation modules of the SES-V with either the preliminary wording (n = 269) or the revised wording (n = 245) used for the sexual acts involving penetration of one’s own body or penetration of the other person’s body. Participants were paid $4.00 for participation. The median study completion time was 12.36 minutes.

Measures

All measures were the same as those described for Study 1 except as noted here. The first condition used the same language used in Study 1 to assess penetration and MTP through verbally pressured and illegal sexual exploitation tactics: “Have vaginal/genital [anal] sex” and “Have me do vaginal/genital [anal] sex on them.” The second condition used the phrases, “Penetrate my vagina/genital opening [anus]” and “Make me penetrate their vagina/genital opening [anus].” Notably, these phrases were defined identically in the instructions of the measure; only the labels were different. Further, except for the labels used for penetrative sex, the two versions of the SES-V were identical; in other words, language used to describe tactics and non-penetrative sex were identical across conditions.

Participants who reported any illegal or verbally pressured sexual act were asked to indicate the gender of the person/people that engaged in the act (man/men, woman/women, trans man/men, trans woman/women, non-binary individual(s), individuals of another gender(s), or individual(s) of multiple genders). After completing the Illegal Sexual Exploitation and Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation modules of the SES-V, participants answered open- and close-ended items assessing their experience completing the questions (findings not reported here) and demographic items. The same attention check items were used as in Study 1.

Results

Data Cleaning and Descriptive Data

A total of 542 individuals started the survey. Two failed to complete the survey, and 26 were eliminated for failing one or more attention or accuracy check (same as those used in Study 1). This resulted in a final sample of 514 participants. We compared reported prevalence rates of different types of illegal and pressured sexual acts as a function of the MTP experimental condition. There was only one statistically significant difference: Participants were more likely to endorse one or more experiences of pressured vaginal penetration on the SES-V that used the preliminary penetration wording as compared to the new penetration wording (see Table 6). However, as illustrated in the results below, this difference is likely a function of more false positives on the version with the preliminary wording as compared to the version with the new wording.

Table 6. Differences in endorsed rates of illegal and verbally pressured sexual exploitation on the SES-V as a function of different labels for penetrative and made-to-penetrate sexual acts.

Type of Act	Preliminary Wording Condition (n = 269)	Revised Wording Condition (n = 245)	n^a	Chi-Square	p	Phi
Illegal Module
Penetrative Acts
vaginal penetration^c	25.0%	22.5%	512	0.43	.51	.03
anal penetration^c	9.7%	9.8%	512	0.003	.96	.002
Made-to-Penetrate Acts
penetration of the other person’s vagina^d	12.7%	10.7%	512	0.51	.48	.03
penetration of the other person’s anus^d	3.0%	2.5%	511	0.14	.71	.02
Other Sexual Acts in Module
Illegal non-penetrative acts^b	48.7%	43.7%	514	1.30	.25	.05
Illegal oral sex^b	30.1%	27.9%	513	0.31	.58	.03
Any Act	57.3%	49.6%	511	3.05	.08	.08
Verbally Pressured Module
Penetrative Acts
vaginal penetration^c	36.0%	23.1%	506	9.95	.002	.14
anal penetration^c	13.7%	8.8%	503	3.05	.08	.08
Made-to-Penetrate Acts
penetration of the other person’s vagina^d	19.1%	18.7%	503	0.01	.91	.01
penetration of the other person’s anus^d	5.0%	3.3%	501	0.85	.36	.04
Other Sexual Acts in Module
non-penetrative acts^b	42.9%	40.9%	508	0.20	.66	.02
oral sex^b	35.2%	34.3%	506	0.05	.83	.01
Any Act	55.2%	54.2%	501	0.05	.82	.01

Bold is used to indicate statistically significant differences between wording conditions. Note that this difference disappeared when implausible responses were removed.

^aMissing values on the SES-V were treated as non-endorsement; however, participants were excluded from analyses with any act in which they were missing data on all items.

^bThe language describing these acts was identical for the two groups.

^cThe original wording was “have vaginal/genital [anal] sex.” The new wording was “penetrate my vagina/genital opening [anus].”

^dThe original wording was “have me do vaginal/genital [anal] sex on them.” The new wording was “make me penetrate their vagina/genital opening [anus].”

Hypothesis Testing

We next compared the number of implausible responses on the two versions of the SES-V. First, we classified any participant who reported that they were assigned male at birth and who reported that they had experienced illegal or pressured vaginal/genital opening penetration as providing an implausible response. Consistent with our hypothesis, the new wording resulted in fewer implausible responses than the preliminary wording. With the initial wording, 11.2% of all respondents had an implausible response on at least one vaginal penetration item. The new wording reduced the rate to 2.4% of total respondents with implausible responses to the vaginal penetration item. This was a statistically significant difference, χ² (514) = 14.91, p = .010, φ = .11.

Next, we classified any participant who reported that they were made-to-penetrate another person vaginally through coercion or illegal tactics and indicated that the perpetrator was a cisgender man as providing an implausible response. Consistent with our hypothesis, the new wording resulted in fewer implausible responses than the preliminary wording. Using the initial wording 9.3% of all respondents had an implausible response on at least one MTP vaginal/genital opening items, compared to 3.7% of participants with the revised wording, χ² (514) = 6.56, p = .010, φ = .11.

Notably, when we removed the implausible responses, there was no significant difference in the percentage of participants who endorsed experiencing vaginal/genital penetration on the initial version (32.2% of the total sample) versus the version with the revised definition (25.1% of the total sample), χ² (478) = 2.96, p = .09, φ = .07. Similarly, when we removed the implausible responses, there was no significant difference in the percentage of participants who endorsed any MTP vaginal/genital opening penetration of the other person (through coercion or illegal tactics) on the version with the initial definition (14.3% of the total sample) versus the revised definition (17.4% of the total sample), χ² (480) = 0.83, p = .36, φ = .04.

Discussion

Results in Table 6 show few differences between wording conditions on the prevalence of various forms of sexual exploitation, which suggests that even considering implausible responses and wording changes these participants still experienced forms of sexual exploitation that were reliably reported. In other words, the implausible responses that were reduced with the revised wording likely represented duplicated responses among participants who did not differentiate the definition of MTP sex from vaginal/genital sex and so marked both items. Although the revised wording decreased implausible responses, there were still a few implausible responses, which could reflect response biases, inattentive responding, or confusion or true reports of infrequent acts such as urethral penetration. Thus, the final version of the SES-V presented in this issue included the revised wording condition data from Study 2 as well as the other additions described on page 6 of this article in Study 1.

General Discussion

The purpose of this paper was to initiate a line of research examining the validity of the newly developed SES-V. Study 1 presented a comparison of verbally pressured and illegal sexual exploitation rates on the new SES-V (Koss et al., 2024) versus the 2007 SES-SFV (Koss et al., 2007) to examine the construct validity of the new measure. As hypothesized (H1–4) the SES-V elicited more disclosures of verbal pressure, completed rape, attempted rape, and contact without penetration than the SES-SFV. This is consistent with prior research suggesting that underreporting is common in the measurement of violence (Evans et al., 2016; Jeffrey & Senn, 2024; Strang & Peterson, 2017). The SES-V appears to help overcome unintentional underreporting. Validity correlations were stronger than correlations between the SES-SFV and prior versions of the SES (H5). Strong validity correlations combined with the endorsements rates of the new items suggests that the SES-V is identifying types of previously unrecognized sexual exploitation.

Study 2 randomly assigned participants to one of two sets of MTP items in response to implausible responses to these items in Study 1. The findings suggest that the revised items, which are used in the published version of the SES-V (see Koss et al., 2024), eliminate most implausible responses. While some amount of error variance is inevitable, we encourage future researchers to examine this in their own data.

Survey research studies have demonstrated that relatively small wording changes can influence participants’ responses to many types of measures, including measures of sexual exploitation (Schuman & Presser, 1981; Schwarz et al., 1991; Tourangeau et al., 2003). Both studies’ findings demonstrate the importance of iteratively evaluating various word choices in the development of sexual exploitation measures. In the past, many researchers have modified the SES without clearly describing the scope of changes that were made or providing evidence that the changes did not affect participants’ responses, a “measurement schmeasurement” attitude that can cause problems (Flake & Fried, 2020). This makes it impossible to meaningfully combine the results of different studies because they did not all measure the construct comparably.

Limitations

Both studies used online convenience samples of college students or highly educated individuals; while the online surveys have many strengths they do limit the ability to ask follow-up questions to understand implausible responses and related phenomena. Diversity in gender identification, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, income, and education is important to ensure that this measure represents the experiences of members of marginalized groups and that they are comfortable with the language used in the SES-V. As noted in the following section, other types of studies are needed to adequately assess construct validity. While the validity correlations reported in Study 1 are very promising, Study 1 used a preliminary version of the SES-V. Study 1 compared a sexual-behavior first questionnaire (the SES-SFV) to a tactic-first questionnaire (the SES-V), which alone, without any content changes, would likely increase prevalence rates (Abbey et al., 2005, 2021). A second structural change between versions was how consent was operationalized. These multiple structural changes are confounded in these analyses. Future research should tease these apart. For example, researchers could experimentally examine how “without my consent” vs. “without my permission” affects reporting rates.

Implications for Future Research

In this section, we lay out some ideas for a multi-year agenda encompassing additional foundational research needed to understand the psychometric functioning of the SES-V. Foundationally, there are many important aspects of construct validity that were not assessed in these two studies that we encourage researchers to explore in future projects. One important foundational area includes “think aloud” cognitive interviewing paradigms that assess how participants think through their response to each item (Jeffrey & Senn, 2024). For example, Study 1 could be replicated with an interview component in which participants are asked about responses to the 2007 SES-SFV and the SES-V that seem potentially contradictory to understand how they understood the items. Another fruitful design would be one in which participants are asked to describe one or more incidents in detail so that their description of what happened can be compared to what the item was intended to assess (e.g., Testa et al., 2004). Past research that examined false positives and negatives were useful for this revision and more of this type of research is needed (Littleton et al., 2020; Strang & Peterson, 2017). An equally important foundational piece is evaluating test-retest reliability of the items (a reliable measure can be invalid, but a valid measure cannot be unreliable). A key piece that has very rarely been examined with any iteration of the SES and is critical for intersectional use of the SES-V is measurement invariance across groups (one marvelous exception: Canan et al., 2021, see also discussion in Anderson et al., 2024). Does the SES function the same for heterosexual as bisexual women? Indigenous men as white men? Nonbinary participants and cisgender women? Unhoused youth and high income youth? College vs. non-college educated populations? There are many, many important demographic comparisons to be made to be confident that the SES-V adequately represents sexual exploitation and when it may not, understand why it does not, and to consider the implications of any differences found for etiologic and intervention research.

Another important point for future research is the development of shorter forms. The SES-V is longer than the 2007 SES-SFV (see Table 2). We understand that the entire SES-V is not optimal for all studies, but we felt it necessary to prioritize comprehensiveness at this stage of development (see also Mokkink et al., 2010) and we hope modularization helps address most researchers’ time limitations. However, future studies could use empirical methods to develop short forms for large-scale projects. Using combinations of items from across modules with adequate sensitivity and specificity may be valuable because a single module would only assess a subset of sexual exploitation.

Another unanswered question are possible question order effects. Prior research has found mixed effects, with some research finding that a randomized order increases reporting (Ramirez & Straus, 2006; Shorey et al., 2016), some finding increased reporting with a semi-hierarchical order over randomized (Dietz & Jasinski, 2007; Tomaszewska et al., 2021), and some finding no effect of order when using tactic-first items (Anderson, Goodman, et al., 2021). Findings in these studies were often complicated by differences related to form of violence and gender of participants. Future research could address the impact of randomizing the modules and/or items within the modules when administering the SES-V. A related question is whether there is a difference in endorsement when administering the entire new SES-V versus only one module.

Lastly, some further ideas for future research include: examining the structure of the theorized taxonomy of the SES-V and specific modules, assessing whether participants distinguish between the Illegal Acts and Verbal pressure substance-use items, acceptability of the SES-V and how that affects function (Anderson et al., 2023), how and through what mechanisms technology-facilitated incidents may be related to in-person sexual exploitation, and longitudinal research examining predictive validity of SES-V scores. Specific to this study, although the SES-V elicits many more responses than the SES-SFV, there were some attempted rape cases only identified with the older measure, suggesting that perhaps the multiple attempted rape items in the SES-SFV confer an advantage over the single item in the SES-V. This single versus multiple item issue may also be especially relevant for measuring commercial sexual exploitation; the SES-V combines several possible domains in one item. We encourage other researchers to generate and explore their own ideas to promote innovation in the field.

Conclusion

Societal changes and accumulation of knowledge since 2007 necessitated revisions to the SES to expand the scope of sexual exploitation. Although much more research is needed, the current studies demonstrate that the new SES-V is strongly and positively correlated with the 2007 SES-SFV and that it captures more granular details of sexual exploitation.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Maisun Ansary, Brianna Akers, Zoe Baccam, Lucy Bhuyan, and Nili Gesser for their help in preparing this manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

RaeAnn E. Anderson was supported by [#K01AA026643]. Data collection was supported by University of Arizona Regents’ Professor funds awarded to Mary P. Koss. The views presented in this paper represent the views of the authors and not the views of the National Institutes of Health.