A longitudinal examination of the consequences of sexual victimization forrural young adult women

This longitudinal study examined the consequences of sexual victimization i n a sample of 237 young adult women from a rural community, Of the total sa mple, 71 (30%) reported experiencing some type of unwanted sex. Multiple re gression was used to examine the effects on psychosocial adjustment of unwa nted sex that occurred through nonviolent coercion and violent coercion, re spectively, controlling for prior psychological adjustment. Results indicat ed that women who reported physically violent sexual coercion exhibited poo rer psychological and social/relational adjustment than either nonvictimize d women or women who had experienced nonviolent forms of sexual coercion. A dditionally, nonviolent sexual coercion was associated with higher sexual d epression, compared with nonvictimized status. A second set of regressions compared adjustment outcomes for women reporting four types of sexual coerc ion (a) internal psychological pressure, (b) substance-related coercion, (c ) external psychological manipulation, and (d) violent coercion. Controllin g for earlier psychological adjustment, women who had unwanted sex because of either violent coercion or external psychological manipulation reported lower levels of psychological adjustment than women who had unwanted sex be cause of internal psychological pressure or substance related coercion.