Gender Differences in Sexual Victimization

Since most sexual offences are committed against women, male victims of sexual offences have been neglected in the literature and in society as well. In order to gain insights into those characteristics associated with male sexual victimisation and to motivate further research, we compared the case files of 221 female sex victims and 39 male sex victims regarding the characteristics of the sexual crime, the offender and the victim. Cases of male and female sexual victimisation differed significantly regarding the type of criminal offence, the gender of the police officer who interviewed the victim, as well as the number of interviews conducted and the delay in reporting the offence. Several characteristics of sexual offences varied significantly with the gender of the victim: whether one or more offenders were involved, whether a weapon was used, whether the victim resisted, whether the victim sustained injuries, and whether the offender and/or victim had consumed alcohol. Male and female victims also differed significantly in terms of age, education level, marital status, relationship to the offender, and continuity of the offence. Several offender characteristics also differed significantly in cases involving male or female victims: gender, education level, employment status, marital status, and parenthood. Results suggest that sexual victimisation can be experienced quite differently by male and female victims in terms of characteristics of the offence, the offender, and police procedure. This highlights the need for more extensive investigations of gender differences in sexual victimisation, since sexual integrity is a gender-neutral human right.