Dianne Berg

Beyond "No means no": Outcomes of an intensive program to train peer facilitators for campus acquaintance rape education

As part of a larger multimethod evaluation, this study examined the effects of a uniquely intensive rape education program. Participants included 74 undergraduates (53 women and 21 men) enrolled in Campus Acquaintance Rape Education (CARE), a semester-long university course designed to train peer facilitators to conduct rape education workshops. Ninety-six students (58 women and 38 men) enrolled in a general human sexuality course constituted a specialized comparison group. First, quantitative analysis of pre- and postcourse responses suggested that comprehensive attitude change occurred for students in CARE but not for those in the human sexuality course. Next, qualitative analyses explored the differences between pre- and postcourse responses to videotaped scenarios involving (hetero)sexual conflict. Responses suggested that, as a result of participating in CARE, both women and men become more willing and able to directly express themselves and assert their needs in ways that facilitated increased sexual communication. Finally, follow-up investigation conducted 2 years after course participation revealed that CARE students were less accepting of cultural rape myths than those in human sexuality.

Understanding Sexual Perpetration Against Children: Effects of Attachment Style, Interpersonal Involvement, and Hypersexuality

This study explores in an adolescent sample hypotheses about child sexual abuse perpetration drawn from contemporary theories that implicate insecure attachment and adolescent social development. Specifically, three 13- to 18-year-old adolescent male samples (sex offenders with child victims, sex offenders with peer/adult victims, and nonsex delinquent youth) were compared in a cross-sectional design. Participants completed a computer-administered self-report questionnaire and a semistructured attachment style interview. Attachment style was coded by two independent raters blind to study hypotheses and group membership. The results indicated an indirect effect for attachment style. Attachment anxiety affected involvement with peers and interpersonal adequacy. Feelings of interpersonal inadequacy, combined with oversexualization and positive attitudes toward others distinguished sex offenders with child victims from nonsex delinquents and from sex offenders with peer/adult victims. These data provide a preliminary model of sexual abuse perpetration consistent with contemporary theories. Attachment anxiety with a lack of misanthropic attitudes toward others appears to lead to isolation from peers and feelings of interpersonal inadequacy. Individuals with this constellation of factors may turn to children to meet their intimacy and sexual needs, both of which seem to be exaggerated compared with other troubled youth.

Anxious Attachment, Social Isolation, and Indicators of Sex Drive and Compulsivity: Predictors of Child Sexual Abuse Perpetration in Adolescent Males?

It has been suggested that child sexual abuse is related to poor attachment to parents, which is associated with an inability to form intimate relationships. Seto and Lalumière indicated that there were too few studies of adolescent males to determine whether poor attachment was associated with perpetration. This study was designed to follow up on a previous study and further explored the association between insecure attachment to parents, social isolation, and interpersonal adequacy to child sexual abuse perpetration in adolescents. We compared two samples of adolescent males who had committed sexual offenses, those who committed offenses against children (n = 140) and those who committed offenses against peer or adults (n = 92), with a sample of similarly aged males in treatment for mental health or substance use issues (n = 93). Data were collected using a semi-structured interview and computer-administered questionnaire. We found an indirect association between anxious attachment and sexual offenses against child victims, which was accounted for by measures of social involvement and social isolation. These involvement and isolation measures also did not have a direct association with sexual offenses against child victims, in that their contribution was accounted for by a measure of Masculine Adequacy. This Masculine Adequacy, combined with decreased levels of Sexual Preoccupation and Hypersexuality and increased Sexual Compulsivity, was associated with commission of child sexual abuse. The interpersonal variables did not enter a model predicting sexual offending against peers/adults, which seemed solely associated with the interaction between Sexual Compulsivity and Hypersexuality.

Predicting Reoffense for Community-Based Sexual Offenders: An Analysis of 30 Years of Data

This study contributes to the area of risk prediction by exploring whether the Static-99R is useful for predicting reoffense in community-based samples, and for noncontact offenders with and without identified victims. A total of 744 participants drawn from an outpatient sex offender treatment program in a large metropolitan area were followed for a period of up to 30 years. Multiple Cox Regressions were run; covariates included length of treatment, status in treatment, Static-99R items, and number of technical probation violations. Overall, reoffending was an infrequent occurrence in this sample regardless of how it was defined, with sexual reoffenses identified in 13% of the sample and any criminal reoffense identified in 20% of the sample. Consistent with previous research, the Static-99R was a better predictor of sex-related reoffenses than of nonsexual reoffenses. However, in no case were more than a couple of the items significantly related to reoffending and these items differed depending on reoffense definition.

Sex education and transgender youth: ‘Trust Means Material By and For Queer and Trans People’

ABSTRACT The sex education made available to transgender youth has rarely been studied empirically. In this study, we sought to explore the sex education experiences of transgender young people and summarise their recommendations for transgender-inclusive curricula. Qualitative data from 14 transgender youth in the upper-Midwest USA were collected by means of an online questionnaire and group interview. Data was analysed using a consensual qualitative approach. Three themes emerged: (1) sources and reactions to sex education, (2) the importance of trust, and (3) missing information and recommendations. Sources and reactions to sex education included sexual health information sources and the strategies participants employed to supplement the sex education they received. Trust included trustworthy information sources and strong qualities of sexual health resources. Missing information and recommendations included unmet sex education needs, including the scope of information and from whom the information is delivered. Findings suggest that important curricular considerations include the diversity of content, but also the diversity of voices delivering it.

Creating gender: A thematic analysis of genderqueer narratives

ABSTRACT Background and Aims: Increasingly, research is emerging on the subjective experience of genderqueer people. This study explored how genderqueer identities are understood and managed in both personal and social domains. Method: Interview data from 25 genderqueer-identified American adolescents and emerging adults, aged 15 to 26 (M = 21.28, SD = 3.20), were pulled from a larger study of 90 transgender and genderqueer participants. The 90-minute semi-structured interviews included questions about gender identity, the developmental pathway of participants, and relationships with others regarding gender. Results: Participants described “genderqueer” as a sufficiently broad category to capture their diverse experiences, and descriptions of genderqueer identities were heterogeneous, directly contradicting binary understandings of gender identity. A thematic analysis of interview transcripts resulted in three themes: intrapsychic experience, descriptions of master narratives about gender identity, and the co-construction of identities. Discussion: Participants described navigating a series of master and alternative narratives, such that all transgender people transgress a cisnormative master narrative, but genderqueer people further transgress normative understandings of a medicalized, binary transgender identity. The experience of co-creating identities was the process by which participants actively navigated constraints of the master narrative experience. Participants described the integral role of language in crafting new narratives to legitimize genderqueer experiences, as well as the subsequent intragroup conflict resulting from conflicting relationships to narratives in the transgender community. This study highlights genderqueer identities as a source of strength and positivity, and the importance of expanding beyond the hegemonic gender binary within research and clinical practice.