About sexual violence
What is sexual violence?
Sexual violence is any kind of sexual activity or act that is unwanted or involved one or more of the following:
- pressure
- manipulation
- bullying
- intimidation
- threats
- deception
- force
This doesn't have to be in person. It can take place online too.
Sexual violence is any kind of sexual activity that took place without consent.
Find out more
Find out more about consent.
Types of sexual violence
There are a number of different types of sexual violence including child sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault.
Rape Crisis provide more information about types of sexual violence.
Many of the myths surrounding sexual violence can make victims and survivors feel as though they are somehow to blame or that what happened to them wasn’t ‘real’ sexual violence.
No-one ever deserves or asks for sexual violence to happen. All of the blame lies with the perpetrator or perpetrators.
Important things to remember
You should know that sexual violence:
- may not leave visible injuries
- may not involve other physical violence or weapons
- happened, even if the victim didn't try to run away or fight - find out more about responses
- is not always committed by a stranger - victims often know or trust their attacker, they may be a friend, colleague, family member, partner or ex-partner
- can involve feelings of arousal or having an orgasm - experiencing these doesn't mean what happened wasn't sexual violence
- victims and survivors never 'asked for it' - it doesn't matter what they were wearing or what happened before the sexual violence took place