Intimate Partner Violence
Not Just a Women’s Issue
Heather Hernandez, MS, LCADC
1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men
in the United States have
experienced some form of
physical violence by an
intimate partner.
NCADV. (2015). Domestic violence national statistics. Retrievedfromwww.ncadv.org
-Forty-four percent of lesbian women, 61% of bisexual women, and
35% of heterosexual women experienced rape, physical violence,
and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their
Lifetime.
-Twenty-six percent of gay men, 37% of bisexual men, and 29% of
heterosexual men experienced rape, physical violence, and/or
stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime.
-Approximately 1 in 5 bisexual women (22%) and nearly 1 in 10
heterosexual women (9%) have been raped by an intimate partner in
their lifetime.
And that doesn’t include teens/tweens!
-CDC. NISVS: An Overview of 2010 Findings on Victimization by Sexual Orientation.
Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nisvs
-Approximately one in three adolescent girls in the United
States is a victim of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse from a
dating partner – a figure that far exceeds victimization rates for
other types of violence affecting youth.
-A survey of 7th graders in a high risk community found that
more than one in three boys (35.2 percent) and nearly one in
four girls (24.1 percent) reported being a victim of physical
dating violence in the past year.
-Teens in same-sex relationships experience rates of violence
and abuse similar to rates experienced by teens in heterosexual
relationships.
Futures Without Violence. The Facts on Tweens and Teens, and
Dating Violence. Retrieved from
https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/the-facts-on-tweensand-teens-and-dating-violence/
The term “Domestic Violence”
doesn’t adequately cover all
instances of violence between
intimate partners. Therefore, the
term “Intimate Partner Violence” is
being used to include all types of
violence between married and
dating partners.
What is Intimate Partner Violence?
-World Health Organization. (2012). Understanding and addressing violence against
women.
Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/77432/1/WHO_RHR_12.36_eng.pdf
Digital Abuse
In today’s technological era, Emotional/Psychological Abuse as well as Controlling
Behaviors are often perpetrated using technology.
The Internet (especially social media) can be readily used as a means to humiliate, track,
and exploit other people.
Cell phones make it easy to demand immediate responses, as well as even showing the
sender when the message has been read.
Financial Abuse
• Occurs in 99% of abusive relationships
• Forbidding the victim to work
• Sabotaging work or employment opportunities by stalking or harassing the victim
at the workplace or causing the victim to lose her job by physically battering prior
to important meetings or interviews
• Controlling how all of the money is spent
• Not allowing the victim access to bank accounts
• Withholding money or giving “an allowance”
• Not including the victim in investment or banking decisions
• Running up large amounts of debt on joint accounts, taking bad credit loans
• Refusing to work or contribute to the family income
• Withholding funds for the victim or children to obtain basic needs
• Forced family (victim’s life’s work is to care for children and partner while never
knowing what it is like to taste financial freedom and independence).
Purple Purse. About the Invisible Weapon: Financial Abuse and the Weaponry Abusers Use. Retrieved from
http://purplepurse.com/get-the-facts/about-domestic-violence/about-the-invisible-weapon
NNEDV. About Financial Abuse. Retrieved from: http://nnedv.org/resources/ejresources/about-financial-abuse.html
Huffington Post. (July 28, 2014). Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ginger-dean/financial-abuse-6-signsa_b_5627463.html
RAPE
A perpetrator can have any relationship to a victim, and that includes the role of an
intimate partner. There are many different terms to refer to sexual assault committed
by a person in a relationship with the victim, including: intimate partner sexual
violence, domestic violence, intimate partner rape, marital rape, and spousal rape.
No matter what term is used or how the relationship is defined, it is never okay to
engage in sexual activity without someone’s consent.
How does sexual assault relate to domestic violence?
Sexual assault in a relationship rarely exists in a vacuum. It often occurs alongside
other forms of abusive behavior. The majority of women who were physically
assaulted by an intimate partner had been sexually assaulted by that same partner1.
To learn more about dating and domestic violence, visit the National Domestic
Violence Hotline website.
https://www.rainn.org/articles/intimate-partner-sexual-violence
What is consent?
Consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. There are
many ways to give consent. Consent doesn’t have to be verbal, but verbally agreeing
to different sexual activities can help both you and your partner respect each
other’s boundaries.
How does consent work in real life?
When you’re engaging in sexual activity, consent is about communication. And it
should happen every time. Giving consent for one activity, one time, does not mean
giving consent for increased or recurring sexual contact. For example, agreeing to kiss
someone doesn’t give that person permission to remove your clothes. Having sex with
someone in the past doesn’t give that person permission to have sex with you again in
the future.
You can change your mind at any time.
You can withdraw consent at any point if you feel uncomfortable. It’s important to
clearly communicate to your partner that you are no longer comfortable with this
activity and wish to stop. The best way to ensure both parties are comfortable with
any sexual activity is to talk about it.
https://www.rainn.org/articles/intimate-partner-sexual-violence
Positive consent can look like this:
• Communicating when you change the type or
degree of sexual activity with phrases like “Is
this OK?”
• Explicitly agreeing to certain activities, either
by saying “yes” or another affirmative
statement, like “I’m open to trying.”
• Using physical cues to let the other person
know you’re comfortable taking things to the
next level
https://www.rainn.org/articles/intimate-partner-sexual-violence
It does NOT look like this:
• Refusing to acknowledge “no”
• Assuming that wearing certain clothes, flirting, or kissing
is an invitation for anything more
• Someone being under the legal age of consent, as defined
by the state
• Someone being incapacitated because of drugs or alcohol
• Pressuring someone into sexual activity by using fear or
intimidation
• Assuming you have permission to engage in a sexual act
because you’ve done it in the past
https://www.rainn.org/articles/intimate-partner-sexual-violence
Males as Victims of Females
Male victims may experience pressure to interpret
sexual victimization by women in a way more
consistent with masculinity ideals, such as the idea
that men should relish any available opportunity for
sex (Davies & Rogers, 2006). Or, sexual victimization
might be reframed as a form of sexual initiation or a
rite of passage, to make it seem benign. In some
cases, male victims are portrayed as responsible for
the abuse. Particularly as male victims move from
childhood to adolescence, they are ascribed more
blame for encounters with adult women.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-femalesexual-predator/503492/
Stereotypes about women “include the notion that women are
nurturing, submissive helpmates to men,” they write. “The idea that
women can be sexually manipulative, dominant, and even violent
runs counter to these stereotypes. Yet studies have documented
female-perpetrated acts that span a wide spectrum of sexual abuse.”
They argue that female perpetration is downplayed among
professionals in mental health, social work, public health,
and law, with harmful results for male and female victims,
in part due to these “stereotypical understandings of
women as sexually harmless,” even as ongoing
“heterosexism can render lesbian and bisexual victims of
female-perpetrated sexual victimization invisible to
professionals.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-femalesexual-predator/503492/
To date, no existing clinical studies
examine large numbers of female
sexual perpetrators. As a result, we
understand less than we might of a
category of sexual perpetrator that,
while not the most common, will
still victimize many thousands each
year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-femalesexual-predator/503492/
Does that information shock you?
It should!
Now, let’s move on to reviewing the
Supplemental Materials Booklet