Every Month is Sexual Violence Awareness Month: Definitions

April is typically the month designated to heighten awareness to and prevention and treatment of sexual assault and sexual violence crimes, but awareness of this horrendous behavior needs to be on-going.  

To start, the following are definitions of the terms typically used when discussing sexual violence:

Assailant/Perpetrator/Offender/Abuser is someone who attacks another. This is someone who does something, as in a perpetrator of violence or abuse. These terms can be used more or less interchangeably.

Battering is a sociological term coined by the battered women's movement to describe a pattern of physical violence, intimidation, coercion, manipulation and other forms of abuse committed by a person (the batterer) to establish or maintain control of his or her partner.

Child Abuse/Incest/Molestation is the physical, sexual, and/or emotional harming or neglect of a child. Molestation is the sexual abuse of a child; incest is sexual abuse which is perpetrated by a blood relative or other family member, such as a step-parent.

Consent is a continual process by which partners each explicitly and mutually agree and give permission to sexual contact without force, coercion or threat of coercion.

Dating Violence is the verbal, physical, and/or sexual abuse of one partner by the other, in an intimate relationship. Relationship violence implies that the "couple" is not married, does not have a child in common and is not living together. This type of abuse may involve pushing, shoving, hitting, choking, intimidation, threats, humiliation, insults, pressure, destruction of property, isolation, sexual relations without consent, unwanted sexual touching, or pressure to engage in humiliating or degrading sexual activity.

Domestic Violence refers to any criminal offense involving the use or threatened use of physical force, in which the offender and the victim have a familial or household relationship. Domestic violence is a pattern of physically, sexually, and/or emotionally abusive behaviors used by one individual to assert power or maintain control over another in the context of an intimate or family relationship or have a child in common.

Forced Object Penetration is penetration of a sexual orifice (anus or vagina) by a finger (digitally) and/or a non-animate object.

Forced Sodomy is anal or oral intercourse without consent.

Gang Rape is when two or more offenders act together to rape the same victim. The offenders include those who actually obtain sexual relations with the victim as well as those who threaten or use force to make the victim submit but do not themselves have sexual relations.

Indecent Exposure (sometimes referred to as "flashing") refers to an individual exposing sexual body parts to another when it is unwanted and unasked for.

Rape: laws and legal definitions of rape vary from state to state, but rape is generally defined as forced or non-consensual sexual intercourse. Rape may be accompanied by fear, threats of harm, and/or actual physical force. Rape may also include situations in which penetration is accomplished when the victim is unable to give consent, or is prevented from resisting, due to being intoxicated, drugged, unconscious, or asleep.

Voyeurism (sometimes referred to as "Peeping Tom Syndrome") refers to a disorder that involves achieving sexual arousal by observing an unsuspecting and non-consenting person who is undressing or unclothed, and/or engaged in sexual activity.

 
 

 

(c) Copyright 2014 Robyn King. All Rights Reserved.

Source:  Moving to End Sexual Assault
(c) Robyn King. All Rights Reserved.