Sexual Experiences Survey - Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) | Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences

Author of Tool:

Koss, M.P. and the SES Collaboration (including Antonia Abbey, Rebecca Campbell, Sarah Cook, Jeanette Norris, Maria Testa, Sarah Ullman, Carolyn West, and Jacquelyn White)

Key references:

Koss, M.P. Abbey, A., Campbell, R., Cook, S., Norris, J., Testa, M., Ullman, S., West, C., & White, J. (2006). The Sexual Experiences Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV). Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona.

Koss, M.P., Abbey, A., Campbell, R., Cook, S; Norris, J., Testa, C., Ullman, S., West, C., & White, J. (2007). Revising the SES: A collaborative process to improve assessment of sexual aggression and victimization. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 357-370.

Primary use / Purpose:

The object of the Sexual Experiences Survey Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) is to serve as a condensed version of the SES Long Form Victimization in assessing victimization of unwanted sexual experiences. Specifically, the SES-SFV aims to estimate the frequency of each type of unwanted sex act and/or the rate of each tactic to compel unwanted sex. It further yield scores to report prevalence of sexual victimization by using categories: non-victim, sexual contact, attempted coercion, coercion, attempted rape, and rape.

Background:

All versions of the revised Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) measure behavior that meets legal definitions of various sex crimes, with the exception of acts accomplished by verbal coercion not involving threats of physical harm. The acts accomplished by coercion are certainly on the sexual assault spectrum and they are of interest in many fields and settings, but it is important to clearly understand that they are not crimes. Feminist legal scholars argue that these acts should be forms of attempted rape and rape and recommend changing statutory definitions of rape as a goal for advocate policy reform.