Victim Resistance and Judgments of Victim “Consensuality” in Rape

38 participants read about a man who entered a woman's apartment at night, told her that “all he wanted was sex,” engaged in the act of sex regardless of what she said or did, and then left. Participants then made a preliminary rating of their agreement or disagreement with the statement “The woman consented to have sex.” To learn how victim's resistance might add or subtract from judgments of victim's “consensuality,” participants then read four additional scenarios about how the woman might have responded to the man. Analysis indicated that the absence of any verbal or physical resistance (e.g., “OK—please don't hurt me,” or “Please wear a condom—I'm afraid of getting AIDS”) increased judgments of victim's consensuality.