2) Mitchell, Damon, Gordon C. Nagayama Hall, and Richard Hirschman. "Attributions of Victim Responsibility, Pleasure, and Trauma in Male Rape." Https://www.jstor.org. The Journal of Sex Research, Nov. 1999. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
3) This study examined how much the sexual orientation of a male-on-male rape victim affected how much responsibility participants placed on the victim, and how much pleasure and trauma the participants thought the victim received from the assault. It also examined the differences in victim attribution by the male and female participants. More responsibility, more pleasure, and less trauma were attributed to homosexual victims, and male participants attributed more blame than did female participants.
4) Damon Mitchell is a professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Central Connecticut State University.
Gordon C Nagayama Hall is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon.
Richard Hirschman is a professor in the Department of psychology at Kent State University.
5) Attribution: attributions of the victim's degree of responsibility, pleasure, and trauma associated with the assault.
Victim Responsibility: The degree to which a victim is blamed for their own assault. Especially common with sexual assault cases compared to other crimes.
6) "It has been shown in laboratory experiments that people often hold rape victims somewhat responsible for their fate." (369)
"Although the stereotype may be that men would not be as powerfully affected by such an event because they are supposedly tougher emotionally and better able to cope, there is a similarity between male rape victims and the rape trauma syndrome observed in female rape victims." (369)
"Given the social stigma associated with male rape, it seems likely that males rapes are even more under-reported than rape involving a female victim."
7) This study helps to demonstrate the strong biases and stigmas held against homosexuals, misconceptions about rape and victim responsibility, and how misconceptions about rape and victim responsibility as well as homophobia affects the male rape victim. By attributing more blame and less trauma to a victim because they happen to be attracted to members of the gender to which the perpetrator belongs to, a precedent is set that extends to all sexual assault victims- if someone, male or female, is raped by, for example, a romantic partner or someone the victim was interested in, it's the same type of victim blaming as in a homosexual victim of male-on-male rape. This further illustrates how stigmas held toward male rape don't exist in a vacuum.
Attributions of victim responsibility are a huge issue when it comes to stigmas affecting rape victims, and creates barriers which prevent a victim from reporting. It also shows that many hold the incorrect notion that physical pleasure during assault means more victim responsibility and less trauma associated with the assault, when in fact it can cause additional trauma. It also shows that the undercurrent of homophobia in society affects certain rape victims.
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