CDC: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance

Apart from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Surveys (NISVS) CDC also performs at regular intervals a survey among high school students called “Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance” and has done so since the 1990s.

 

In 2001 they added the question

Have you ever been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when you did not want to?

to the survey.

 

Below is a chart showing the results of that questions since 2001 and up to the latest available data which is from 2015:

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First Glimpse of NISVS 2012 Results

I have written quite a few posts about the NISVS 2010 and NISVS 2011 reports which found staggering number for male victimization of sexual violence – in particular in the “made to penetrate” category which for inexplicable reasons CDC buried by not categorizing it as rape.

 

CDC have recently published a fact sheet about sexual victimization among boys and girls under 18. The data is stated that is from the NISVS 2012 and are the first indication I’ve seen that the CDC continued with the NISVS after the one surveyed in 2011 (results were published in 2014).

 

The Fact Sheet is titled “Sexual Violence in Youth – Findings from the 2012 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey“.

 

The Fact Sheet listed a table containing key findings from the NISVS 2012:

 

Sex Exchange More Common Among Boys

An earlier post of mine titled “And Boys Too…” looked at the prevalence of teen prostitution among boys in different countries. I noted that to some extent there are more teen aged male prostitutes than teen aged female prostitutes based on a handful of studies.

Here is another US study using a nationally representative sample of adolescents and young adults which found that more males reported exchanging sex than females.

Ulloa, E.; Salazar, M.; & Monjaras, L. (2016). Prevalence and Correlates of Sex Exchange Among a Nationally Representative Sample of Adolescents and Young Adults. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 25(5), 524-537.

It used data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health.

 

 

CDC Uniform Definitions Of Sexual Violence And Male Victims

I have written about the discrepancy between the categories and definitions used by the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) and the uniform definitions the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had published at that time (UD2009) which was a minor revision of the uniform definitions published in 2002 (UD2002).

I recently became aware that last December the CDC have published a new version of the document, “Sexual Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements” (UD2014), on their website. A panel of 11 experts which received comments from seven leaders in the field wrote this document. The panel started its work in October 2010 with this stated agenda:

The key issues discussed and considered by the in-person expert panel that were directly relevant to the SV definitions document were the following: 1) how and if to include unwanted non-physically pressured sex, 2) how and if to include sexual harassment, 3) whether or not to expand the meaning of “completed sex act” to identify who penetrates whom, and 4) how and if to update the Recommended Data Elements.

Pilot White House Mandated Campus Climate Survey Did End Up Ignoring Male Victims

Almost a year ago I wrote a post about the correspondence I had with the pilot survey project which the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault tasked Rutgers University to do. I expressed my concern with the methodology suggested by the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault in their recommendations published in April 2014.

My impression from the email exchange I had with the project team leader at Rutgers University were that they took my concerns about male victims not being measured by some of the recommended methodologies seriously and they assured me that they would be using gender neutral questions.They also said they would include my concerns in the pilot project’s feedback to the White House and the Office on Violence against Women.

The 2nd of September Rutgers University published a report with the findings from their Campus Climate survey. Which is an opportunity for me to examine to what extent my concerns were considered.

Crime Survey of England and Wales – Made To Penetrate Questions Confirmed

This is just a quick update and some comment on the changes to the CSEW questionnaire the Office of National Statistics earlier have promised to make. Daran brought to my attention that ONS had released their latest questionnaire earlier this year and that it indeed included “made to penetrate” questions.

I’ve spent some time reading the new questionnaire and although I am pleased that they did include questions about being made to penetrate I have to wonder why they treated it so differently than the other questions for severe sexual violence. The differences are (as Daran pointed out in his comment):

Made to penetrate questions do not ask about attempts. The Sexual Offences Act Section 4 covering made to penetrate does not include attempts, but neither does Section 1 about rape. This is disappointing.

Made to penetrate questions do not ask about who the perpetrator is. The other severe sexual violence questions differentiate between perpetrators who are partners/ex-partners, family members and anyone.

Given that it doesn’t include attempts and considering findings like the ones from the STIRitUP project I wrote about in another blogpost¹ I suspect that we won’t see such a startling number for male victimization as we did in the NISVS reports where just as many men reported having been made to penetrate in the last 12 months as women reported having been raped in the last 12 months (both including attempts).

1. STIRitUP found that UK had the highest rate of sexual violence against teenaged girls from their partner and the lowest rate of sexual violence against teenaged boys from their partners compared to four other european countries.

An update on FBI’s definition of rape

A while back I wrote about a spokesperson clarifying that FBI’s new definition of rape would include male victims being made to penetrate the perpetrator. /u/Femmecheng (a feminist and at that time a regular at /r/Femradebates) and I have tried to see if FBI at some point did carry out the suggested changes to the guidelines for the reporting agencies. We didn’t have much luck.