Why Women Have Sex (38 page)

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 23

I was very young and very naive, probably about fourteen years old. I met up with a guy (probably seventeen) and we went to hang out at his house. Everything was going fine up until a point. There was a little making out (kissing) but then I wanted to stop. Well he told me that if I didn’t have sex with him he wouldn’t take me home. Well I had lied to my father about where I was so I didn’t think I could call him to pick me up. I was scared I’d get in trouble so I just did what he wanted me to do just to get it over with and get out of there. All I wanted was to get out of there and that seemed to be the fastest way.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 31

Sexual coercion and rape can and do occur between strangers. But more often than not, they take place within the context of either a potential or existing relationship. They occur in all cultures, across all levels of income, and at all ages. They occur among both men and women, but with a much higher frequency among women. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey of eight thousand women, approximately 15 percent of the women had been raped and 3 percent had experienced attempted rape. Sixty-two percent of the assaults were by a past or current partner, and the likelihood of physical injury was higher with intimate partners than with strangers.

In our study, a disturbing number of women described situations where they were sexually coerced or raped as young adolescents. Shocking statistics show that over one-third of high school girls experience sexual coercion or violence in dating relationships. Given that more than 70 percent of American adolescents report at least one serious romantic relationship before the age of eighteen, many young women experience traumatic sexual experiences at an early age.

Adolescents, compared with older women, are especially vulnerable to sexual coercion. This is because young women often lack the relationship knowledge that comes with dating experience. As a result, they
are often uncertain of what is expected of them as a romantic partner, and may miss warning signs of forthcoming abuse.

Sexual coercion in young women is more likely to occur when there is a significant difference between partners in intelligence, social status, or age:

When I was about seventeen, I dated a guy who was twenty-six. I wanted to date him, but he moved a little faster than I wanted. I didn’t want to lose him, so when we would make out, he would force my head down for oral [sex]. He would hold my head there for a long time, even if I was crying. I continued the relationship and figured this was part of what I needed to do to be datable.

—heterosexual woman, age 38

A man who is much older than a young woman is generally more sexually experienced and knowledgeable, and tends to be in a power position over her. These factors make it more likely that the younger woman will be pressured into having sex before she is ready. Young, sexually inexperienced women also often accept responsibility for the event. A woman sometimes feels at fault because she believes she “led him on,” or should have known how to get out of the situation. One study found that between one-fourth and one-third of U.S. high school students think that it is acceptable for a boy to force a girl to have sex if she lets him touch her breasts, wears revealing clothing, agrees to go home with him, or had dated him for an extended period of time.

Sexual coercion or rape during adolescence may be more harmful than during adulthood. Adolescence is the stage of life when women are just beginning to develop their identity as a sexual person and their expectations for future relationships. If they learn at an early age that being pressured or forced to have sex is part of being in a relationship, then they may come to expect this type of behavior in future relationships, thus creating a potential cycle of violence.

Regardless of the age when sexual abuse occurs, the psychological consequences are far-reaching and can adversely affect almost all aspects of a woman’s life. Coerced or forced sex by a dating partner often
represents a monumental breach of trust. This betrayal can make it difficult for some women to trust or commit to future sexual partners. Many women who have been raped develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a syndrome marked by flashbacks reexperiencing the terrifying emotional aspects of the rape, being easily startled, experiencing sleep problems, and feeling emotionally numb or detached. One study compared forty adult women rape victims with an age-matched control group of thirty-two women who had experienced severe, nonsexual, life-threatening events such as physical attacks, major car accidents, or robberies. Ninety-five percent of rape victims experienced PTSD, versus 47 percent of the control group.

A full 90 percent of the rape victims also experienced post-rape sexual problems, such as absence of sexual desire (93 percent), aversion to sex (85 percent), or genital pain (83 percent). Many rape victims also developed eating disorders such as bingeing (68 percent) or purging (48 percent), as well as anxiety disorders apart from PTSD (38 percent). Some victims turn to alcohol or drugs, and many suffer from depression, anxiety, rage, disgust, confusion, feelings of helplessness, fear, or low self-esteem. The psychological aftermath of rape, in short, is typically extremely traumatic to victims.

Here is how one woman in our study described the effect early sexual abuse had on her life:

When I was [very young], I was coerced into performing oral sex on a male at least twice. He was sixteen. I was confused and unsure of what was happening. When I grew old enough to know what had happened, I was sad and disgusted by this incident. I have gone through many counseling sessions with friends and professionals to come to terms with this event in my life and understand how it has affected my sexuality and sex life. I am sure it has affected me in ways I will never be able to detect or connect, but I can at least identify with the feelings of inadequacy, lack of pleasure in sexual situations, performance anxiety, and low self-esteem. I have come a long way in transcending these issues.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 27

As they mature, most people develop an identity with and ownership over their bodies. But when people are sexually abused, particularly if it is early in life, they may come to believe that they are powerless over their body, that they have no physical boundaries that they own and are able to protect. Women often describe “mentally disconnecting” from the abusive experience while it is occurring. If the woman is unable to physically remove herself from the situation, her only way to “escape” is to dissociate mentally from her body. Some women who later enter into loving relationships then find it hard to connect and “be in the moment” during sex because they are so used to coping with sex by mentally escaping. If a woman learns that there is nothing she can do to protect her body from harm, she may become less vigilant of, or defensive in response to, danger cues. She may feel powerless in deciding whether sex will or will not occur whenever a partner wants it.

Some researchers believe that these consequences of abuse may partly explain why an unusually high proportion of women experience repeated incidents of sexual abuse. Estimates of the rates of revictimization in women range from 15 percent to 72 percent. One study found that women who were sexually abused in childhood were almost twice as likely to experience rape in adulthood as were women who had no history of childhood sexual abuse. Although high rates of sexual revictimization in women have been well documented, the factors that contribute to this risk are not well understood. Alcohol and substance use have been shown to be risk factors in some cases, but they do not seem to explain the chances of revictimization. The characteristics of the abuse—such as abuse severity, the use of force, the duration of abuse, and whether the abuse involved a family member—have been found to increase the risk of revictimization. A recent study found that low sexual self-esteem, high levels of sexual concerns, and a willingness to engage in sexual behaviors outside a relationship also partly explain which sexually abused women were more vulnerable to repeated sexual assault.

Two women in our study described their experiences of revictimization:

I was raped at [age] fifteen by three boys in my class at school, on the way home from school. I was a virgin until that point. It was . . . behind the school where dozens of students were passing . . . They all heard my screams for help, but no one came. I only got away by biting one of them so hard I drew blood. This fact, along with the scratches and bruises on me and them (from my fighting back), helped the police convict them. They all got slaps on the wrist, and were told to be good for two years. I was continually raped by my first real “partner”—we lived as common-law spouses for eighteen months. I was raped by a guy who followed me out of a nightclub and forced me into an alleyway near the club. Dozens of people saw him, and heard me screaming, yet no one came to help. . . . Until I met my second (and current) husband, I didn’t know that men could be kind and gentle and loving. I have had my faith in men restored by the actions of just one man.

—heterosexual woman, age 35

I [was] sexually abused as a child by a few relatives. In addition to that, I’ve also been raped a few times when I was a teenager. I’ve only told a few people and when I did I wasn’t taken seriously, which is really sad. . . . I was a ward of the state from [an early age]. . . . I was sent to a children’s shelter. I hated being there so I would get together with other girls who felt the same way and left with guys from the neighborhood. One particular time I was with a couple of neighborhood guys and a girl I knew. They all hated me and thought I was a whore because they heard that I slept with someone else. This was probably true because at this time of my life I had no respect for myself and didn’t care what happened to me. Night fell and we found a laundry room in the basement of an apartment building. One of the guys without my permission forced me to have sex with him. I just lay there and mentally disconnected my mind from what was happening to me. I felt hurt and used—as if that was my only purpose.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 28

My ex-husband was mentally and verbally abusive and coerced me into having sex most of our fifteen-year relationship. When I would refuse sex with him he would be angry and verbally abusive for as long as three days afterward. Eventually I stopped trying to say no to him because it was easier to give in and deal with fifteen minutes of sex than days of abuse.

—heterosexual woman, age 36

There is often a fine line between unwanted sex and rape. This is especially true when rape occurs in a long-term relationship, where the couple has engaged in consensual sexual intercourse in the past. Women who are sexually abused in marital relationships frequently define it as rape only if physical force or harm is involved. And research shows that when a woman is sexually abused in a committed relationship she is more likely to make excuses for her partner such as “He’s only like that when he’s drunk” or “I should know better than to provoke him.” They also tend to minimize the situation by claiming things like “It’s only happened a couple of times.”

Women’s reluctance to acknowledge being raped by their partners often stems from fear of reprisal, reputational damage, or physical harm. Indeed, sexual abuse and physical abuse frequently go hand in hand in abusive marital relationships. At a very basic level, forcing a wife to have sex is an assertion of power, and in many cases the assertion of power extends into other areas of the relationship. Abusive men often try to isolate their partners from contact with family and friends, undermine their self-esteem, and subordinate them in dozens of small ways. By doing so, they make their partners more dependent upon them and thus more compliant to their demands. Some men justify forcing a wife to stay at home by saying that their wives “cannot be trusted.”

In a study of women who had been raped by their husbands, sociologists David Finkelhor and Kersti Yllo described three distinct types of marital rape. One type, which they called “battering rape,” accounted for 40 percent of marital rapes. Battering rape occurs when
husbands not only rape their wives but physically beat them as well—sometimes prior to and sometimes after sex. “Force only” rapes, in which husbands use only the minimum amount of force necessary to make their wives have sex with them, comprised another 40 percent. In the force-only category, husbands often want to engage in a particular type of sexual act against the wife’s wishes.

The third type of marital rape is “obsessive rape.” The least common but the most disturbing, it is characterized by husbands who are obsessed with sex and are willing to use almost any type of force to get it. Obsessive rapists often use sadistic acts, and the men’s sexuality involves a need to humiliate, degrade, and dominate their wives. One woman in our study described this type of terrifying and humiliating experience:

I was raped, repeatedly, both as a child, and during my first marriage. As a child, I had a gun pointed at my head and was told if I didn’t do what I was told I would be shot. During my marriage, my first husband bartered me to his friends as a fuck toy. I was told if I didn’t do what I was told, he would kill me in my sleep, and [he] kept a knife under his pillow to prove it.