Out-of-body experience. Sex-based harassment linked to general dissociation, sexual dissociation, and sexual communication

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-11-2018-0211
• Published date: 23 May 2019
• Date: 23 May 2019
• Pages: 38-52
• Author: Alexis A. Adams-Clark,Marina N. Rosenthal,Jennifer J. Freyd
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law

Out-of-body experience

Sex-based harassment linked to

general dissociation, sexual dissociation,

and sexual communication

Alexis A. Adams-Clark, Marina N. Rosenthal and Jennifer J. Freyd

Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA

Abstract

Purpose –Although prior research has indicated that posttraumatic stress symptoms may result from sex-

based harassment, limited research has targeted a key posttraumatic outcome –dissociation.Dissociation has

been linked to experiences of betrayal trauma and institutional betrayal; sex-based harassment is very often a

significant betrayal creating a bind for the target. The purpose of this paper is to extend existing research by

investigating the relationship between sex-based harassment, general dissociation, sexual dissociation and

sexual communication.

Design/methodology/approach –This exploratory study utilized self-report measures from a sample of

male and female Oregon residents using Amazon Mechanical Turk (N¼582).

Findings –Results of regression analyses indicated that harassment statistically predicted higher general

dissociation, higher sexual dissociation and less effective sexual communication, even after controlling for

prior sexual trauma experiences. Results did not indicate any significant interactions between gender and

harassment.

Practical implications –When considering the effects of sex-based harassment on women and men,

clinicians and institutional organizations should consider the role of dissociation as a possible coping

mechanism for harassment.

Originality/value –These correlational findings provide evidence that sex-based harassment is uniquely

associated with multiple negative psychological outcomes in men and women.

Keywords Harassment, Dissociation, Sexual communication, Sexual trauma

Paper type Research paper

“It was like an out-of-body experience […][…] I pretended it hadn’t really happened […] I kept

moving because it was part of my job, and I knew he was, at the time, a very important guy, and

certainly important to me. I trusted him.”-Jessica Teich, describing Richard Dreyfus (Yuan, 2017)

In 2006, Tarana Burke, a civil rights activist from the Bronx, began using the phrase “Me

Too”to raise awareness for sexual violence. The use of the #MeToo hashtag exploded

online on October 15, 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted: “If all the women who have

been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’as a status, we might give people a sense

of the magnitude of the problem.”By the next day, 4.7m people used the hashtag in 12m

posts on Facebook, sharing personal accounts of sexual violence (Khomami, 2018). Sexual

violence and sex-based harassment, topics that are often stigmatized and hushed, were

suddenly thrust into popular discourse.

Sex-based harassment

Although the recent #MeToo movement raised public awareness of sexual violence, scholars

have conducted research on sex-based harassment for decades. The term “sex-based

harassment”is more comprehensive than the term “sexual assault,”which tends to focus solely

on criminal sexual behavior (Cook et al., 2018). Sexual violence researchers generally consider

sex-based harassment to include three types of discriminatory conduct: sexual coercion,

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 39 No. 1, 2020

pp. 38-52

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-11-2018-0211

Received 12 November 2018

Revised 16 March 2019

27 April 2019

29 April 2019

Accepted 29 April 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

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