Years of re-labelling the crime rape using different terms such as sexual assault, has led to significant variation in public opinions on the crime’s severity, sparking consequences that can compound victim trauma and reduce perpetrator accountability, a Florida State University researcher has found.
In a study published in Violence Against Women, Associate Professor Megan Augustyn, of FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, examined the various labels assigned to the most serious form of sexual violence in state statutes nationally —and perceptions of severity associated with these labels.
“There is variation in use for terms for crime of rape, like sexual assault, sexual abuse, gross sexual imposition, and people clearly don’t view them equally,” Augustyn said. “Criminal law should reflect public discourse and, right now, the various terms for rape don’t align with public perceptions of how severe this crime actually is.
The definition of the most egregious form of sexual violence, federally labelled as rape, is shared by all 50 states while the term “rape” is only used in 24 states. Seventeen states define this crime as sexual assault, or a variant thereof. Nine states use other labels for the crime, such as sexual abuse, felony sexual assault, or sexual intercourse without consent.
“The problem is that people don’t view these terms as equally serious,” Augustyn said.
Subsequent work by Augustyn and her colleagues found that the forms of sexual violence that are labelled as rape by the public vary. While the movement to re-label rape began in the 1970s with the aim of victim empowerment and increased offender accountability, the resulting variation in labels produced the opposite result, Augustyn said.
Labels other than rape feed the larger challenge of rape acknowledgement among survivors, which bears a host of consequences. The failure to acknowledge one’s victimization with the label of rape can increase trauma-related symptoms while also making survivors more reluctant to report the crime or receive help. This leaves them more prone to depressive symptoms, suicidality, and substance abuse.
Conversely, perpetrators can escape accountability and public condemnation when the label of rape is not applied. Officials may also refrain from seeking appropriate charges due to public sentiment around what should constitute a “rape” and expectations of how a jury may view what constitutes a rape incident.
The study on public perceptions about what constitutes rape which is published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology is a continuation of Augustyn’s work published in Violence Against Women, which used a national sample of adults and found that the public views the crime of “rape” to be more serious in nature compared to crimes labelled “sexual assault,” “sexual abuse,” — and seven other terms used in state statutes to label the most serious form of sexual violence.
These same participants had different opinions about acts that constitute a rape, including location and type of sexual penetration and level of resistance. The takeaway, Augustyn said, is that public perceptions of rape do not match the federal definition and different labels for the same crime are undermining public perceptions about its seriousness.
“There needs to be more consistency and clear messaging about what rape is,” Augustyn said. “Too many labels lead to confusion.”
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