History of Abuse Predicting Current Experiences and Perceptions of Sexual CoercionSexual assault among college students has been a popular topic of examination over the past three decades. One reason for these repeated analyzes is the fact that sexual assault remains a common and enduring experience among college students. An initial survey on this topic revealed that 54% of female students reported having experienced some form of sexual victimization (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987). The same year, Muehlenhard and Linton reported that 78% of female students had experienced some kind of sexual coercion and 15% had been victims of rape. Since then, studies have consistently replicated these findings. Sexual coercion is commonly defined as any method used to obtain sexual contact from an initially reluctant partner, including negotiation and reasoning, guilt or emotional pressure, and the threat or use of physical assault (Lyndon , White and Kadlec, 2007). If sexual coercion is common, it is likely that many students accept this behavior as expected and within the bounds of social norms (Johnson, 1980). One of the few studies examining perceptions of sexual coercion used written vignettes to examine the impact of the gender of the initiator and the type of coercive act on interpretations of actors and behaviors (Oswald & Russell, 2006 ). In this study, students did not rate the target of sexual coercion as experiencing high levels of victimization, regardless of the aggressiveness of the coercive strategy used, nor did they consider the strategies of influence or the person who used them as particularly aggressive. Although the study provides useful information on the perception of sexual coercion... middle of paper ...... as a risk factor for sexual harassment among U.S. Army soldiers. Violence and Victims, 13(3), 269-286. Turchik, JA, Probst, DR, Irvin, CR, Chau, M., & Gidycz, CA (2009). Predicting female college students' experiences of sexual assault based on rape scenarios: A prospective analysis. Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, 77(2), 361-366. doi: 10.1037/a0015157VanZile-Tamsen, C., Testa, M. and Livingston, JA (2005). The impact of sexual assault history and relationship context on assessment of and responses to risk of sexual assault by an acquaintance. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20(7), 813-832. doi: 10.1177/0886260505276071Wolfe, DA, Scott, K., Reitzel-Jaffe, D., Wekerle, C., Grasley, C., and Straatman, AL. (2001). Development and validation of the inventory of conflicts in romantic relationships between adolescents. Psychological assessment, 13(2), 277-293.