Sexual Revictimization Revisited

Since the early 1990s, there has been an increase in scholarly work and theoretical writing on the topic of sexual revictimization—particularly of women. The foundation for this work was set earlier when it was noted that rape and sexual assault were traumatic (e.g., Burgess & Holmstrom, 1974), more widespread than anyone could ever imagine (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987), and many adult rape victims had histories of earlier victimizations (Russell, 1984). In the early 1980s, I was a young graduate student who had the extraordinary opportunity to work with the leader in the field, Koss (2011). I did not start out working with Dr Koss, however, because I began graduate school at Kent State University with interests in child clinical psychology. Having spent the first year of my graduate training working on a project where my first mentor, Jeannette Reuter, and I were investigating self-injurious behavior in children with intellectual disabilities, I knew that this area was not a good fit for me. With trepidation, I approached Dr Reuter about the possibility of changing areas. Being the supportive mentor that she was, she encouraged me to pursue other options and, in fact, told me about a young faculty member who had just received a national grant to study sexual assault on college campuses. Dr Reuter told me that she thought that I would be a good addition to this exciting project (emphasizing that Ms. Magazine was involved), walked me right over to Dr Koss’s office, and introduced me to her! I was so excited that Dr Koss had welcomed me so warmly, and thus, this marked the beginning of my work in this area. I was looking for a change and for a research area that would spark my interest. Admittedly, once I started working with Dr Koss, I also thought that I might get to travel a bit to collect the data. I obviously had a lot to learn, both about the area of sexual assault as well as the typical responsibilities of beginning-level graduate students! Having ‘‘stumbled’’ upon this research area knowing very little about sexual assault and still naively believing that bad things do not typically happen to good people, my eyes were gradually opened to the reality of sexual violence, and on a personal level, a number of my own illusions were shattered. As I got more involved with the research, I knew that Koss’s work would really change the way that the field conceptualized rape and that the experiences of ‘‘hidden rape victims’’ would no longer be ignored in the scholarly community. However, I had no idea what an impact her groundbreaking work would have on both the field of psychology and my own personal and professional development. In the commentary that follows, I will address why I wrote the two, now highly cited articles published in Psychology of Women Quarterly: ‘‘Sexual Assault Experience in Adulthood and Prior Victimization Experiences: A Prospective Analysis’’ (Gidycz, Coble, Latham, & Layman, 1993) and ‘‘A Prospective Analysis of the Relationships Among Sexual Assault Experiences: An Extension of Previous Findings’’ (Gidycz, Hanson, & Layman, 1995). Please find the original articles at http://pwq.sagepub. com/content/17/ 2/151 and http://pwq.sagepub. com/content/19/1/5. Although the study of acquaintance rape victims was still in its infancy when we wrote the articles, there were a series of findings that had an impact on me that set the context for these studies. This work laid the groundwork for and informed many of the further questions that I (and others) have sought to address in subsequent work. Collectively, the work has contributed to both a better understanding of sexual assault and its impact as well as informed strategies for prevention and intervention.