Explaining negative rape victim perception: Homophobia and the male rape victim.

Abstract

Previous research into rape victim blaming has often neglected to assess attitudes toward male victims. The present study was designed to redress this imbalance and specifically, investigate the role of homophobic attitudes in male rape victim perception. Men and women read a vignette describing an incident of rape and answered two questionnaires that assessed firstly, homophobic attitudes toward homosexual persons and secondly, their perception of the rape victim. Based on the literature, I formulated three hypotheses a) males will evaluate male victims more negatively than females b) males will exhibit higher levels of homophobia than females and c) high levels of homophobia will predict more negative victim perception, particularly for male participants. The data supported two of the three hypotheses. Firstly, men exhibited greater degrees of homophobia than women and secondly, men's homophobic attitudes were significantly correlated with negative male rape victim perception. The implications of these findings for the reporting of rape and post-rape adjustment of victims are discussed.

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