Handbook on Sexual Violence (39 page)

adults who are or have been and 26% of men experience at least intimate partners or family one such episode (Gilchrist and

members, regardless of gender Kebbell 2010)

or sexuality (Home Office 2005)

Stalking An intentional pattern of Estimates vary depending on

unwanted behaviours over time definitions (lifetime prevalence

towards a person or persons that range between 3–13% for males result in their experiencing fear, and 8–32% for females with

or behaviours that a reasonable average duration of two years) person would view as fearful or (Ha¨kk¨nen-Nyholm 2010)

threatening (H¨akka¨nen-Nyholm 2010)

Rape Intentional penetration of vagina, Large rate of under-reporting anus or mouth with a penis (13,093 cases in 2008); lifetime

without consent (Sexual prevalence of rape or attempted

Offences Act 2003) rape for those over 16 (and under

59) was 1 in 24 women and 1 in 200 men (Stern Review 2010)

Sexual Murder with an apparent or Difficult to assess numbers because murder admitted sexual motivation typically, if murder committed,

(Oliver
et al
. 2007) albeit with a sexual motive, the

offender is charged only with the murder (Milsom
et al
. 2003)

These broad definitions imply within them a range of either overlapping or distinctive behaviours which can be further broken down into their constituent elements. Table
7.2 presents examples from research reporting the discrete behaviours within the broad categories, together with their frequencies of occurrence.

There is obviously an overlap between sexual harassment and stalking and between stalking and domestic violence as there is between rape and sexual murder. Stealing something from the victim is present in murder, rape and stalking, tearing clothing, use of non-controlling violence and use of weapon characterises both rape and sexual murder. There is also a sexual component to sexual harassment. Berdahl and Aquino (2009) differentiate sexual behaviour from sex-based harassment, i.e. that which is experienced because of one’s gender and takes a non-sexual form such as bullying or being undermined. Sexual harassment can also have a sexual component such as being threatened with a promotion failure if the employee does not give in to a demand for sex.

Commonalities

There are several behaviours within these sexual violence offences that are common: notably threats of and actual use of violence; and the sexual content of threatening behaviours. Other behaviours are specific to the type of sexual

164

Table 7.2
Behaviours associated with sub classes of sexual violence
‌

1. Marsh
   et al
   . (2009)
   

2. Street
   et al
   . (2007)
   

3. Canter and Ioannou (2004)
   

4. Bradley
   et al
   . (2002)
   

5. Canter and Heritage (1990)
   

6. Salfati and Taylor (2006)
   

7. Brown
   et al
   . (1995)
   

* This is difficult to calculate; approx two women a week are murdered by partners in England and Wales

violence, thus keeping a partner short of money is particular to domestic violence, treating a person unfairly in a work assignment is particular to sexual harassment, sending unsolicited gifts particular to stalking. Escalation from one category to another in the form of rape or murder is also apparent.

As well as the behaviours, there are also some other common underlying features of sexual violence. These are:

1. unacknowledged victimisation;
   

2. under-reporting of behaviours;
   

3. perceptions of false accusations.
   

Unacknowledged victimisation

In the first instance, victims may not wish to acknowledge their experiences with a given label. Thus Petersen and Muehlenhard (2004) describe several reasons why, in their survey, respondents did not want to acknowledge coerced sex as rapes: unwilling to see oneself as a victim; not wishing to view the perpetrator as a rapist; not having the emotional reactions they perceived to be consistent with rape. Mary Koss refers to this as unacknowledged rape and means the non-labelling of a sexual assault that constitutes rape by virtue of the legal definition but where victims do not choose to do so (Koss 1985). Similar unwillingness to acknowledge behaviours of sexual harassment have also been reported (e.g. Harris and Firestone 2010). They analysed survey responses from the US military where 21 per cent of women and 13 per cent of men had experiences of sexual harassment which they declined to label as such. Fear of being blamed or unwillingness to name a perpetrator were among the reasons suggested for not acknowledging the behaviour as sexual harassment. Muehlenhard and Kimes (1999) report similar labelling problems associated with domestic violence. Jordan’s Chapter
12 (this volume) discusses at more length problems associated with the unacknowledegment of women’s experiences of sexual violence.

Under-reporting

A recent British Crime Survey (Povey
et al
. 2009) reports that a significant minority of rape victims had not told anyone about their assault and only a minority had told the police. HMCPSI/HMIC (2002) provide estimates that between 75 per cent and 85 per cent of rape complainants never report their assault to the police. Some of the reasons for not reporting include: loyalty because perpetrator is known to the victim, feelings of embarrassment, fear of further attacks or retaliation, worries about own perceived culpability, perceptions of the police’s treatment of complainants and fear of court proceedings (Kelly
et al
. 2005, Helen Jones, Chapter
8, this volume).

Harris and Firestone (2010) report from their analysis of sexual harassment

in the US military under-reporting of complaints often because of myths surrounding the making of a complaint, such as that the complainer will be fired, demoted or transferred. Being labelled a troublemaker was also another reason for not reporting incidents. They also report that people’s beliefs about how seriously a complaint will be taken and the strength of the organisation’s

response are also factors associated with likelihood of reporting.

False accusations

Sheridan and Blaaw (2004) report from the literature that perhaps 2 per cent of stalking accusations are false, although in their own study they found 11.5 per cent. Mullen
et al
. (2000) identified five broad classes of false allegation: anger retaliation provoked by the ending of a relationship; delusional associated with severe mental disorder; the previously stalked who misinterpret ordinary behaviours as stalking; factitious victims seeking gratification of dependency needs; and malingerers who intentionally fabricated or exaggerated for external incentives. False accusers’ accounts did differ in important details from authentic stalking victims: false claims were less likely to involve receiving unwanted letters or threats of attacks on third parties. In Sheridan and Blaauw’s study there were no demographic differences distinguishing false from true accusations. Interestingly, genuine victims were twice as likely to report assault.