Reflections on healing: framing strategies utilized by acquaintance rape survivors

Abstract

This study examines the stories acquaintance rape victims tell through semi-structured interviews. Acquaintance rape, viewed here as a particularly paradoxical crime, creates a need for women to resolve the inconsistency of their experience. By conducting interviews with victims and analyzing their verbal communication, this project explores how victims frame their rape experience. Framing strategies used by victims of sexual harassment served as a guide for the initial identification of framing strategies for victims of acquaintance rape. Women in this study utilized strategies of paradox management to assess blame, define, and reframe their experiences. Recognition of these management strategies can assist social support networks and law enforcement professionals in identifying the communicative strategies of female victims of varying types of violence.

Keywords:

• acquaintance rape, framing strategies, healing, social support