What is the relationship between sexual assault and alcohol use?

Prevalence

The prevalence of sexual assault, involving or not involving alcohol intoxication, cannot be accurately determined because it is often unreported. Estimates are based on reports from law enforcement and on random samples of crime victims, interviews with incarcerated rapists and others imprisoned for assault, interviews with victims who seek hospital treatment, general population surveys of women, and surveys of male and female college students.

This research suggests that approximately one-half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, the victim, or both; 34 to 74 percent occur when the perpetrator is under the influence of alcohol; and 30 to 79 percent are associated with the victim’s alcohol consumption.

Findings suggest two distinct subtypes of sexual assault involving substance abuse: those involving mutual substance use and those in which only the perpetrator abused a substance. Assaults involving mutual substance abuse tend to occur between acquaintances rather than intimates, to originate outside the home, and to result in rape or attempted rape rather than sexual coercion. Women who were assaulted by a substance-using perpetrator but who did not use a substance themselves reported lower income, lower rates of employment, and the highest rates of partner physical aggression and injury. When assault occurs in close relationships, women whose partners abuse alcohol are 3.6 times more likely than other women to be assaulted by their partners.

Sexual assaults involving alcohol are more likely than other sexual assaults to occur between men and women who know each other but not well (for example, dates, acquaintances, and friends). These assaults also tend to occur at parties or in bars. The typical scenario involves a woman who is assaulted by a single man who uses verbal and physical pressure, which the woman attempts to resist.

Psychological Correlations

Men who report that they drink heavily are more likely than other men to report having committed sexual assault. A man’s behavior can be influenced by certain situations, such as when consensual sex is a possible outcome. Research demonstrates that when people have an expectation about a situation, they tend to more heavily observe cues that fit that expectation. Studies confirm that a man’s misperception of a woman’s degree of sexual interest is a significant predictor of sexual assault.

Many men expect to feel more powerful, disinhibited, and aggressive after drinking alcohol. Men with these expectations may feel more comfortable forcing sex when they are drinking because they can later justify that the alcohol made them act accordingly. Heavy drinkers may routinely use intoxication as an excuse for engaging in socially unacceptable behavior, including sexual assault. A perpetrator may also use alcohol to incapacitate the person assaulted. Furthermore, certain personality characteristics (such as impulsivity and antisocial behavior) may increase a man’s propensity both to drink heavily and to commit sexual assault.

Women who drink alcohol are often perceived as being more sexually available and promiscuous, compared with women who do not drink, which may put them at an increased risk for being targeted for assault. Although a woman’s alcohol consumption may increase her risk of sexual assault, she is in no way responsible for the assault.

Pharmacologic Correlations

Laboratory studies that examine alcohol’s effects on responses to sexual and aggressive stimuli have shown that alcohol consumption disrupts higher-order cognitive processes, including abstraction, conceptualization, planning, and problem-solving. As a result, alcohol consumption may lessen a perpetrator’s ability to generate nonaggressive solutions to sexual satisfaction.

Intoxication narrows the perceptual field of drinkers so that they focus on what is most important to them in a given situation. Hence, a perpetrator will focus only on social cues that indicate interest in sexual activity. Cognitive deficits lead to a focus on gratification, sense of entitlement, and anger, rather than on empathy and consequences. Once aggression is begun, it is difficult to stop. Alcohol’s effects on motor skills may limit the victim’s ability to resist effectively, thus heightening the likelihood of a completed assault.

Mitigation

Sexual assault and heavy drinking are separate issues. A perpetrator must recognize that sexual contact without consent is sexual violence, whether alcohol is involved or not. However, it is useful to focus on the use of alcohol in dating and sexual situations in models of alcohol’s role in sexual assault, rather than on general drinking patterns, because the level of alcohol consumption does not differ between perpetrators and nonperpetrators.

Effective sex offender programs teach four principles of sexual consent: privilege, permission, justification/intent, and responsibility.

1.Privilege: Sex is never a right; it is always a privilege.

2.Permission: A person needs to be sober enough to know whether or not they have been given permission; and the other person must be capable, at the time, of giving permission. If someone is passed out, unconscious, or asleep, they are legally incapable of giving consent.

3.Justification/Intent: No minimization of the use of aggression as a result of alcohol or drug use, stress, deviant arousal patterns, loss of control or misunderstandings.

4.Responsibility: The only person who ever is responsible for a sexual assault is the perpetrator.

Bibliography

Abbey, Antonia, et al. “Alcohol and Sexual Assault.” Alcohol Health and Research World 25.1 (2001). Web. 28 Mar. 2012. https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/health/pdfs/alcohol_sexual_assault.pdf.

Dawgert, Sarah. Substance Use and Sexual Violence: Building Prevention and Intervention Responses, A Guide for Counselors and Advocates. Enola: Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, 2009. Print.

LeBeau, Marc A., and Ashraf Mozayani, eds. Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault: A Forensic Handbook. San Diego: Academic, 2001. Print.

Parker, Robert Nash, and Kevin J. McCaffree. Alcohol and Violence : The Nature of the Relationship and the Promise of Prevention. Lanham: Lexington, 2013. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

United States. Natl. Inst. on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “Alcohol Facts and Statistics.” Natl. Inst. on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. NIH, Mar. 2015. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.