Prevalence of wife rape and other intimate partner sexual coercion in a nationally representative sample of women.
This article provides a national estimate of wife rape and various other types of sexual coercion by a spouse or intimate partner. Findings from a 1997 national probability sample revealed that 34% of women were victims of some type of sexual coercion with a husband or partner in their lifetime. Of these women, 10% experienced rape by a current partner. This rate increased to 13% when only victims of rape by a current husband were included, which is consistent with previous studies on wife rape. Other findings reveal that women had unwanted sex with a current spouse or partner in return for a partner's spending money on them (24%), because they thought it was their "duty" (43%), after a romantic situation (29%), after the partner begged and pleaded with them (26%), and after their partner said things to bully them (9%). The importance of examining a continuum of sexual coercion is discussed and findings are compared and contrasted with other prevalence rates for sexual coercion in marriage.
Basile
Kathleen C
KC
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA. kbasile@cdc.gov
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008875:Middle Aged; D011902:Rape / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States