Sexual Victimization Among Male College Students: Assault Severity, Sexual Functioning, and Health Risk Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between college men’s sexual victimization experiences, engagement in a number of health risk behaviors, and sexual functioning. The study also examined sexual victimization by assault severity categories and utilized a multiitem, behaviorally specific, gender-neutral measure. Three hundred and two male college students were recruited for the current study from a midsized Midwestern university. Of these men, 51.2% reported at least one sexual victimization experience since age 16. The multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) results suggested that male sexual victimization is related to increased weekly alcohol consumption, increased problematic drinking behaviors, increased tobacco use, increased sexual risk-taking behaviors, and increased number of reported sexual functioning difficulties. Each of these problematic behaviors was greater among those who reported rape compared to no victimization, and some differences were also found in relation to the sexual contact and sexual coercion groups. These findings have important implications in sexual assault prevention and risk-reduction programming.