Sexual Satisfaction

Orlando and Koss (1983) conducted a study, including four groups of women that represented varying degrees of sexual assault. Survivors of attempted rape and completed rape were included in the sample. Using surveys, the effects of sexual victimization on sexual satisfaction were rated from 1 month prior to the assault to the a year and a half after the assault. The results suggest that survivors of rape and attempted rape experienced a reduced sexual satisfaction for behaviors that were likely to occur during the rape:

• Sexual intercourse.
• Oral-genital stimulation of a partner by a woman.

Sexual satisfaction was also decreased for behaviors that were unlikely to occur during a rape:

• Hugging.
• Holding hands.
• Stroking.

There was no distinguishment made between survivors of stranger rape and acquaintance rape, however, they did distinguish between women who acknowledged themselves as rape survivors and those that did not. They found:

• A woman did not have to acknowledge herself as a survivor of rape to experience a significantly lower level of sexual satisfaction; than those who were not victimized.
• Women who were assaulted reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction from one month prior to the assault to one and a half years after the assault.

Because women who were assaulted reported a significantly lower sexual satisfaction in all time periods, this may suggest that rape causes a general lowering of sexual satisfaction retrospectively. This may suggest that survivors of sexual assault may have long term problems with sexual satisfaction.

Feldman-Summers, Schwarz, and Meagher (1979) conducted a study of victims of rape and their level of sexual satisfaction one week prior to the rape, one week after the rape, and two months after the rape:

• Survivors of rape did not report a decrease in sexual satisfaction for affectional behaviors and autoerotic behaviors (masturbation, holding hands, kissing, hugging).
• Survivors of rape did report lower sexual satisfaction in explicit sexual acts (intercourse, touching of genitals, visual exposure to male genitals).

They suggest that the impacts of sexual satisfaction from rape seem to be behaviorally specific to what occurred during the rape. It is also suggested that rapists rarely force survivors to engage in autoerotic or affectional behaviors (Feldman-Summers, Gordon, and Meagher, 1979). In this study, survivors of acquaintance rape and stranger rape were not distinguished. In many cases of acquaintance rape the victim experiences forced affectional behavior or consensual affectional behavior prior to the rape. It seems that in cases of acquaintance rape affectional behaviors may be affected, as well as, explicit sexual acts.