Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is any forced or coerced sexual act or behavior motivated to acquire power and control over the partner. It is not only forced sexual contact but also contact that demeans or humiliates the partner and instigates feelings of shame or vulnerability – particularly in regards to the body, sexual performance or sexuality.
Common examples are:
- Unwanted touching
- Demeaning remarks about the partner’s body or appearance
- Minimization of the partner’s sexual needs
- Berating the partner about his sexual history
- Demeaning remarks about the partner being too femme or butch
- Forcing sex or sexual actions on the partner without consent
- Using force or roughness that is not consensual, including forced sex (rape)
- Rape with an object
- Refusing to comply with the partner’s request for safe sex
- Coercing the partner into sex with others
- Purposefully and repeatedly crossing the partner’s sexual boundaries
- Violating an agreement for monogamy by having sex with others
- Exposing the partner to sexually transmitted diseases
- Treating the partner as a sex object
- Criticizing sexual performance or desirability
- Withholding sex as a punishment
- Unwanted sadistic sexual acts
Some forms of sexual abuse are crimes.
