Abstract:
Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in the country (Sable, Danis, Mauzy, & Gallagher, 2006). There are several barriers that prevent victims from reporting their experience to law enforcement and medical providers (Sable et al., 2006). Considering that rates of sexual assault within gay and lesbian community is estimated to be higher than in the heterosexual population (Baslsam, Rothblum, & Beauchaine, 2005), the current study wishes to determine what unique barriers gay men and lesbians perceive when deciding to report their sexual assault, if gay men and lesbians perceive their peers to have higher rape myth acceptance than heterosexuals, and if there are gender differences in reporting barriers. Results show that gay men and lesbians rate "fear of a hostile response to your sexual preference" as significantly more important than do heterosexuals when the perpetrator is a male and female. There were no significant differences between peer rape myth acceptance and sexual orientation. Results of gender comparisons are similar to Sabel et al. (2006).
