What is the relationship between sexual assault and drug use?

Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, sexual assault includes the nonconsensual acts of inappropriate touching; vaginal, anal, or oral penetration (rape); attempted rape; and child molestation. Sexual assault can be verbal, visual, or involve coercive physical attempts to engage another person in unwanted sexual contact or attention.

Sexual assault often involves the use of psychoactive mood-altering drugs and alcohol. According to the US Department of Justice, close to 40 percent of all rapes and other forms of sexual assault in a given year in the United States involve alcohol use by the offender. Drug use in addition to the alcohol use was involved in 18 percent of sexual assaults.

Drug-facilitated sexual assault involves the administration of drugs that usually induce amnesia in the victim. This type of assault often occurs in bars or nightclubs. The drug is usually slipped into an alcoholic beverage without the victim’s knowledge. These drugs are often referred to as date rape drugs, the most common of which are sedative hypnotics such as gamma hydroxybutyrate, Rohypnol, ketamine, and Soma.

Date rape is common during college years. Drugs and alcohol play significant roles in date rape, with as many as 75 percent of men and 50 percent of women in college involved in a sexual assault reporting having been under the influence at the time of the assault. In 80 percent of sexual assaults the victim and perpetrator are known to each other, and more than 50 percent of sexual assaults occur close to the victim’s home. The most common profile of the sex offender is white, male, and thirty-one years old.

Neither drugs nor alcohol excuses a perpetrator seeking sexual relations without consent. Programs to rehabilitate sex offenders attempt to help the offenders make the distinction that drugs and alcohol do not give license for sexual abuse. Drug and alcohol problems are considered separate from deviant sexual behavior.

Victims of Sexual Assault

The profile of an assault victim is generally female, age twelve to thirty-four years. Girls and women age sixteen to nineteen are at highest risk. Boys also can be victims of sexual assault. By the age of eight years, one in four girls and one in six boys has been sexually assaulted.

Crime rates are often misleading when it comes to the statistical reportage of sexual assault and drug use. These crimes are vastly underreported because of a deep sense of shame, embarrassment, and guilt induced in the victim. Another factor leading to underreporting of sexual assault occurs because of the effect of drugs or alcohol on memory. Often the drugs interfere with the recall of the assault, leaving victims unable to remember if they consented to engage in sex.

Post-traumatic Stress and Self-Medication

Sexual assault, including rape, is a leading cause of post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). In general, women are two to three times more likely than men to develop PTSD. One of the leading risk factors of PTSD is sexual assault that causes the victim to feel powerless.

Studies consistently demonstrate high rates of comorbidity between PTSD and substance abuse disorder. Specifically, there exists a strong relationship between drug use and victimization through sexual assault. Often, the victim of a sexual assault will use drugs and alcohol to self-medicate the symptoms of the trauma. Rates of substance abuse disorder are as high as 30 to 50 percent of the population of women diagnosed with PTSD, according to the National Comorbidity Study. An Office of Justice Programs report on substance abuse and victimization notes that victims of sexual assault are 5.3 percent more likely than nonvictims to use prescription drugs, 3.4 times more likely to use marijuana, and 10 times more likely to use hard drugs to cope with their assault.

However, there is a tendency to blame the victim because drugs are often involved at the time of sexual assault for both the perpetrator and the victim. This also is true when victimization leads to substance abuse, and the victim is further stigmatized. Research shows that being sexually assaulted puts one at higher risk for a repeated assault. For these reasons, research points to the need for gender-sensitive treatment to address sexual assault, PTSD, victimization, and empowerment.

Bibliography

Breslau, N., et al. “Vulnerability to Assaultive Violence: Further Specification for the Sex Difference in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Psychological Medicine 29 (1999): 813–21. Print.

Jackson-Cherry, Lisa R., and Bradley T. Erford. Crisis Intervention and Prevention. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2010. Print.

Koss, M. P. “Hidden Rape: Incident, Prevalence, and Descriptive Characteristics of Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of College Students.” Rape and Sexual Assault II. Ed. Ann W. Burgess. New York: Garland, 1988. Print.

“Sexual Assault and Substance Abuse.” Research and Advocacy Digest 8.1 (2005): 1–15. Web. 6 Apr. 2012. http://www.mecasa.org/joomla/images/pdfs/substance_use/sexual_assault_and_sub_abuse.pdf.

US Bureau of Justice Statistics. Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. Washington, DC: DOJ, 2000. Digital file.