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behaviors as crimes (Layman et al. 1996, Koss 1988; Kahn et al. 1994; Warshaw 1988), there has
been little research that has looked at this opposite phenomenon -- that many respondents are
reporting victimizations that include a range of behaviors that are not always acknowledged as
deviant by our criminal justice system or by the social institutions where many of these incidents
take place. Thus, this study begins an important preliminary exploration of the frequency and
contextual patterns of such non-classifying incidents.
Overall, the NCVS narratives provide a unique opportunity to examine the cognitive
dimension of victimization that may help to better understand the definitional inconsistencies
that exist between how society defines sexual crimes and how victims themselves interpret such
behaviors. By privileging victims’ own narratives, and situating incidents within their social and
cultural contexts, this study hopes to increase an understanding of the multi-varied interpretations
of victimization that extend beyond legally demarcated boundaries. More specifically, this paper
addresses the following questions: What types of sexually coercive behaviors are victims
reporting to the NCVS that are excluded from reported crime estimates? What are the
discernible social patterns most common to the varying types of sexual victimization (e.g., age,
sex, victim-perpetrator relationship, location where such incidents are taking place, whether or
not incidents are reported to authorities)? What can these non-classifying incidents tell us about
contemporary gender/sexual relations and the social climate within the institutions where they
most frequently take place?
Convention