Sexual Abuse is all too common and when sexual abuse is occurring from someone that you love it can be confusing. I hope you will familiarize yourself with signs of sexual abuse. Everyone deserves safe and healthy relationships!
Sexual and Reproductive Abuse
An abuser may also use tactics of sexual and reproductive abuse. You may think your partner just likes “rough sex,” but if you’re not consenting each and every time, this is rape. And if your partner is strangling you during sex, you cannot legally consent to this.
You may think your partner is really eager to start a family, but if the person is forcing or coercing you to get pregnant, this may be a type of reproductive abuse in which getting a partner pregnant is a means of control. There are many other ways sexual and reproductive abuse can present. Do any of these sound familiar in your relationship?
- A forced sexual act, such as vaginal, anal or oral intercourse.
- An incomplete forced sexual act where sex is attempted but unsuccessful.
- Touching or hurting someone’s private areas.
- Applying pressure to a partner’s neck during sex and saying it is safe (there is no safe way to choke someone during sex)
- Noncontact sexual abuse, such as exposing one’s private parts to an unwitting victim or forcing someone to watch pornography.
- Sexual harassment and verbal sexual assault.
- Forbidding a victim from taking or using birth control, often with the intent to conceive, or forcing a partner to end a pregnancy. Then there’s stealthing, or removing a condom during intercourse without the partner’s permission.
- Distributing sexually graphic images of a partner without their consent (even if there was consent when the image was taken). This is referred to as revenge porn.
- Coercing a partner to perform sex acts in front of or involving children, which can also be a form of incest.
- Taking advantage of a partner sexually when they are unable to consent because they’re underage or a vulnerable adult, or they’re on drugs, inebriated, sleeping or unconscious.
- Asking for sex repeatedly and not respecting a partner’s boundaries.
- Saying things like, “You got me this far. Don’t you want me to finish?” or “I thought you loved me and wanted to make me happy?”
- Telling a victim it’s their obligation as a spouse or partner.
- Giving a partner alcohol or drugs in order to lower inhibitions.
- Threatening to break up with a partner unless they engage in sexual activity.
- Threatening to go elsewhere for sex.
- Withholding money or other needs if a partner doesn’t have sex.
- Saying sex is owed because your partner paid for dinner, did you a favor, etc.
HAVEN Advocates are here to help!
