Weighing in: Mock jury perceptions of male sexual assault victims

For scenarios involving female victims of sexual violence, attractiveness and, more specifically, body weight seem to have an effect on perceptions of victims and perpetrators. As it is assumed that sexual victimisation is a result of sexual attraction to the victim by the perpetrator, female victims who are viewed as unattractive may not be seen as likely targets for victimisation. While this relationship holds true for women, higher weight men seem to be regarded the same as average weight men, potentially negating this effect of attractiveness observed in women. A sample of 186 participants from across Canada and the United States were recruited from social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. Using a mock jury paradigm, participants were asked to provide their judgements on a case involving a perpetrator (presented as either male or female) and a male victim (presented as either thin or overweight) and answer several standardised measures of prejudicial attitudes. Results indicate that there is no effect of victim weight or perpetrator gender for male victims of sexual violence. There were several differences based on participant gender indicating that men tend to hold more prejudicial attitudes and generally endorse more pro-perpetrator/anti-victim attitudes than women. These results suggest that victim weight is not a salient variable to consider with male victims of sexual violence and that higher weight men are perceived similarly to average weight men.