Experiences and Psychopathological Manifestations among Victims of Sexual Objectification

Sexual Objectification (SO) refers to the act of viewing an individual’s body as a mean of satisfying sexual desire. In 2018, the #MeToo Movement empowered Indian women to speak up about their experiences of sexual harassment. Such traumatic experiences have shown to be positively correlated with mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, stress disorders and trauma related disorders. The present study aims to explore the experiences and psychopathological manifestations among the female victims of sexual objectification in India. The Interpersonal Sexual Objectification Scale (ISOS) was used as a screening tool and a semi-structured interview was conducted on the ten chosen female, Indian subjects, ranging from 18 to 25 years of age. This was followed by a thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke. The results showed that SO experiences lead to depressive and anxiety symptoms, suicidal ideations, social withdrawal, fear from the male gender, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), paranoid feelings, dissociation, sexual and intimacy issues along with multiple emotional, psychological and physiological changes. It was also seen that the victims blamed various factors for such experiences including their clothes and people’s mindset and used various help seeking behaviours and coping mechanisms to deal with their mental health issues. Thus, SO experiences can have long term psychopathological effects.
The current data includes the ISOS, the consent form and the colour coding and themes of the data analysis. Since, the research takes into account a very sensitive topic - sexual objectification, the responses, audio recordings of the interview as well as the transcripts cannot be shared (as mentioned in the consent form signed by the subjects). The codes and themes show the mental health issues faced by the subject after they became the victims of various experiences of sexual harassment, abuse, rape, etc. The Interview Schedule used has been added in the research manuscript itself. The themes have also been explained in detail with verbatim in the manuscript.

性客体化（SO）指将个体的身体视为满足性欲的手段。2018年，#MeToo运动赋予印度女性发声其遭受性骚扰经历的权力。此类创伤性经历与焦虑、抑郁、饮食失调、压力障碍以及创伤相关障碍等心理健康疾病呈正相关。本项研究旨在探讨印度女性性客体化受害者的经历及心理病理表现。本研究采用了人际性客体化量表（ISOS）作为筛选工具，并对十名18至25岁的印度女性进行了半结构化访谈。随后，通过 Braun 和 Clarke 的主题分析方法进行了分析。结果显示，性客体化经历会导致抑郁和焦虑症状、自杀意念、社交退缩、对男性性别产生恐惧、创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）、偏执情绪、解离、性及亲密关系问题，以及多种情绪、心理和生理变化。研究亦发现，受害者将各种因素归咎于其经历，包括衣物和人们的观念，并采取各种寻求帮助的行为和应对机制来处理其心理健康问题。因此，性客体化经历可能产生长期的病理心理影响。当前数据集包括ISOS、知情同意书以及数据分析的色彩编码和主题。鉴于研究涉及一个极为敏感的话题——性客体化，受访者 responses、访谈音频记录及转录本均不能共享（如知情同意书中所述）。代码和主题揭示了受访者成为性骚扰、虐待、强奸等各种经历受害者后所面临的心理健康问题。所使用的访谈提纲已包含在研究论文中。主题亦在论文中进行了详细的解释和逐字引用。