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SEXUAL ABUSE

Adult Sexual Abuse

Adult sexual abuse is any non-consenting sexual act or behavior.

Examples include your partner forcing sexual activity when:

• you indicate "no" and your limits are not respected

• you are sleeping

• you are drunk or high and are unable to say "no"

• you are afraid to say "no" or when your partner:

• insists that you dress in a more sexual way than you wish to dress

• makes demeaning remarks about how you dress

• makes demeaning remarks about your body and/or body parts

• minimizes your feelings about sex

• berates you about your sexual history; blames you if you were sexually abused in the past or as a child

• criticizes you sexually (calling you "frigid," for example)

• insists on touching you sexually when you do not want to be touched, either when the two of you are alone or in the presence of others

• calls you a whore or a slut

• has affairs with other women (often flaunting them) after agreeing not to have sex with anyone but you

• physically attacking sexual parts of your body (grabbing your breasts, pinching your buttocks, any touch that is unwanted)

• forcing you to perform any specific sexual act that you do not wish to do (for example oral sex, or acting out pornography)

Child sexual abuse is the sexual exploitation or victimization of a child by an adult, adolescent, or older child. The difference in age and sexual knowledge between a child and an older person makes informed consent to sexual activity impossible.

· Sexual abuse includes a range of behaviors, including vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, fondling, exhibitionism, prostitution, and photographing a child for pornography. The sexual activity does not necessarily involve force. Children are often bribed or verbally coerced into sexual acts.

· Child protective service and law enforcement statistics do not present the full extent of child sexual abuse since children often do not tell anyone of sexual abuse.

· Incest is sexual relations between family members. Relatives may include parents, stepparents, siblings, uncles, grandparents, and other blood relations as defined by law. Incest constitutes abuse when the child is unable to give informed consent to sexual activity due to the authority of the relative, the child's dependency and lack of power, and/or the difference in ages between the child and the relative.

· Child sexual abuse usually creates emotional and psychological problems that last into adulthood.

· Incest may cause even greater harm because of the betrayal and the complications of the close personal relationship.

· Psychological reactions of child sexual abuse and incest usually result in the development of Post Traumatic Stress syndrome. Symptoms of this include: Depression, Anxiety, Sexual problems, Relationship difficulties, Self-destructive behaviors including substance abuse, self-mutilations, suicide attempts, self defeating behaviors, Perceptual disturbances such as seeing or hearing things, Somatic complaints such as pelvic pain, migraines and sleep disturbances, Aggressiveness including sex offending and physical abuse.

· 90 – 95% of all sexual abuse cases go unreported to the police. Fabricated sexual abuse reports constitute 1 to 4 % of cases reported.

· Children who grow in a family where there is Domestic Violence are 8 times more likely to be sexually molested within that family.

· Approximately 1/3 of all juvenile victims of sexual abuse are children younger than 6 yrs. of age. Between 1/3 and 2/3 of known sexual assault victims are age 15 or younger. 61% of rape victims were sexually assaulted before the age of 18.

· Of sexually abused girls, 53% are abused by their biological fathers; 15% by stepfathers, and 8.8% by uncles.

· 99% of persons incarcerated for sexual assault or rape are men. About 35% were sexually assaulted or abused as children.