Intimate Partner Violence Victimization among Heterosexual, Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual College Students: The Role of Pro-Abuse Peer Support

ABSTRACT

Most studies of peer support for intimate partner violence (IPV) at U.S. institutions of higher learning focused solely on male assaults on heterosexual women. As well, the bulk of this work only examined how all-male social networks perpetuate and legitimate this behavior. Using recent data from a survey administered at a large U.S. residential university, the main objective of this paper is to help fill a research gap by presenting findings on (1) how having peers who have perpetrated dating abuse and (2) peers’ encouragement to be abusive to dates contributes to IPV victimization in a campus lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community. The results show that LGB students report a higher rate of such victimization than heterosexual students and the two aforementioned types of pro-abuse peer support significantly predict victimization among both sexual orientation groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Intimate partner violence
• peer support
• college
• lesbian sexuality issues
• gay sexuality issues
• bisexual sexuality issues