 The stereotype of black women as sexually deviant and aggressive “Jezebels” finds one contemporary reflection in the “hoochie” image, which is increasingly prominent in black as well as white cultural and media venues (Collins 2000, 81–84). One study, designed in part to measure the influence of the Jezebel stereotype on young black women’s perceptions of their own rapes, found that the “stereotype of Black women as sexually loose appeared to be internalized by Black participants and identified as an important reason why they were raped” (Neville et al. 2004, 91). Another researcher, having found that the African-American women in her study were less likely than white women to have disclosed their rapes (Wyatt 1992, 86), attributes this difference in part to the fact that “African American women …. do not anticipate that they will be protected by traditional authorities and institutions” (88). Meanwhile, both the stereotypes of black women and their structural vulnerabilities contribute to a situation in which, for too many, sexual abuse is a routine condition of life: “being routinely disbelieved by those who control the definitions of violence, encountering mass media representations that depict Black women as ‘bitches,’ ‘hoes,’ and other controlling images, and/or experiencing daily assaults such as having their breasts and buttocks fondled by friends and perfect strangers … may become so routine that African American women cannot perceive their own pain” (Collins 2005, 229).