Part 3 GLOBAL ISSUES: HARASSMENT AND ABUSE RESEARCH

3.8 Unwanted sexual experiences in sport: Perceived acceptability and
reported prevalence among female student-athletes in Flanders/Belgium
Yves Vanden Auweele, Joke Opdenacker, Tine Vertommen, Filip Boen, Leon Van
Niekerk, Kristine De Martelaer and Bert De Cuyper
Background
The athlete’s ‘perception’ of a coach’s attention with a sexual connotation that
crosses a critical boundary in her personal space, rather than the coach’s ‘intention’,
has become the standard in all definitions of sexual harassment and abuse in sport.
The notion of perceived acceptability implies both possible variation according to
norms, influenced by such factors as gender and culture, and a continuum of coach
behaviour, from that with no perceived sexual connotation 3 to that which is clearly
sexual harassment or intrusive sexual abuse. 4-7
The prevalence rates for harassment and abuse reported in the international
research literature lie between 20% and 50% (e.g. Fasting, 2005). These figures
have to be interpreted with caution as they result from research that varies in
definitions, categorizations, samples and response rates.
The main purpose of our study was to quantify the reported prevalence of
‘unwanted’ sexual experiences among female student–athletes in the Flemish part
of Belgium. We focussed our study on student-athletes in universities with a different
philosophical orientation. The rationale was that, after having presented the reported
prevalence figures of a pilot study at the Catholic University of Leuven to relevant
sports managers and trainers, the overall view was that the figures may reflect a low
tolerance level of sexual issues, inspired by a stringent Catholic environment. A
1, 2
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