Hidden, Unacknowledged, Acquaintance, and Date Rape

In this commentary, I have been asked to reflect on two articles that have been among the most highly cited publications in Psychology of Women Quarterly (PWQ) over its first 35 years, ‘‘The Hidden Rape Victim: Personality, Attitudinal, and Situational Characteristics’’ (Koss, 1985) and ‘‘Stranger and Acquaintance Rape: Are There Differences in the Victim’s Experience? ’’ (Koss, Dinero, Seibel, & Cox, 1988; please find the original articles at http://pwq.sagepub .com/content/12/1/1 and http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/9/ 2/193). Looking back, I have made decisions that were motivated both by unselfish and selfish motives. In terms of the former, initially I had not been drawn to academia; instead I sought a practice job where I could help people. My mentor, however, was insistent that I would help more people through scholarship than using other facets of clinical psychology. Thus, I embarked on a research academic career with the naive belief that changes in attitudes, policy, law, treatment, and prevention were simply awaiting the right data. I was concerned about getting published and assumed the rest of the ‘‘help people’’ equation automatically followed. Among my more selfish motives were the desire for professional legitimacy and personal affirmation. Learning that these two articles had been influential was deeply satisfying but that recognition was not achieved alone. The page limit of this commentary would be exhausted by acknowledging everyone who helped, and undoubtedly more people would be offended by omission than would feel honored by mention. To the Sexual Experiences Collaboration, other colleagues, those who have worked on projects, and the participants who gave their time to help others, please know that part of your life became part of mine and part of my impact is yours. One of the biggest heart thuds I have ever experienced was on the morning of June 13, 1993 when I opened the New York Times Sunday Magazine. There I saw the cover art and the headline, ‘‘Rape Hype Betrays Feminism,’’ heralding an excerpt of Katie Roiphe’s book, The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism (1994, re-issued 2008). The piece focused on perceived flaws in rape research and the harm they have purportedly done, particularly the 1985 and 1988 PWQ articles by my colleagues and me, as well as an intervening article (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987). Roiphe’s thesis restated points more accurately attributed to an academic, Neil Gilbert, who widely disseminated them in conservative public media outlets and nonpeer-reviewed professional outlets beginning with ‘‘The Phantom Epidemic of Sexual Assault’’ (e.g., 1991b, 1997, 2005; for the rebuttal see Cook & Koss, 2005). In brief, the criticisms of this research were that rape was defined too broadly (because Gilbert incorrectly asserted that prevalence estimates included incidents of sexual coercion, which are also measured by the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) but not included in rape estimates) and that unwanted sex when intoxicated and unable to consent should not be considered rape despite its inclusion in most state rape laws. Instead, Roiphe argued that rape victimization should hinge on victims’ self-perceptions irrespective of whether they report experiencing the behaviors that constitute rape as legally defined. Similarly, Hoff Sommers (1994) wove Gilbert’s thoughts throughout her book, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. In her review of the book, Harrison (1994, p. 85), noted that the villains were characterized as ‘‘‘gender feminists’ who willfully . distort information on women’s status to keep their lock on government and foundation money. Their dark agenda includes silencing sensible ‘equity feminists,’ who celebrate women’s achievements and who seek, in partnership with men, to make the few minor adjustments needed for perfect equity. ’’ I certainly did not set out to become a villain when I prepared my work for PWQ, but I do take comfort from Winston Churchill’s (n.d.) words: ‘‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. ’’ Given this background, I focus here on situating these two PWQ articles both in the past and in the present by highlighting (a) the intellectual context in which we began our work; (b) our use of language; (c) definitions of research questions, design, and methodology; and (d) dissemination of