9781422276068

Abuse among family and friends

The term child sexual abuse refers to sexual activity between an adult and a child. It can take a great many forms, ranging from rape to fondling to child pornography. Any sexual activity between an adult and a child is abusive. It doesn’t need to be violent to be abusive. It doesn’t need to hurt to be abusive. Some perpetrators try to disguise their abuse by calling it a “relationship.” An adult cannot have a romance with a child. That’s not a relationship, that’s sexual abuse. Sometimes people assume that sexual abuse is just another term for rape or intercourse. According to this (incorrect) definition, if a child hasn’t been physically violated in that specific way, no abuse has occurred. Others include fondling under the sexual abuse definition, but they stop there — again, wrongly assuming that some form of touching has to be involved for the behavior to qualify as sexual abuse. But, in fact, intercourse, or even touching, is not necessary for behaviors to be abusive.

Noncontact Sexual Abuse What’s known as noncontact abuse can be just as traumatizing as more stereotypical types of sexual abuse. Here are some examples of sexual abusive behaviors that don’t involve physical contact:

Myth: Rape is mainly a crime that affects adults. Fact: According to U.S. Justice Department statistics, 67 percent of all reported sexual assaults were against people under the age of 18; 34 percent were under age 12.

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