Sexual violence is any act (verbal, physical, etc.) that breaks a person’s trust and/or safety and is sexual in nature.  The term “sexual violence” includes: rape, incest, child sexual assault, date/acquaintance rape, marital or partner rape, sexual contact, sexual harassment, exposure, and voyeurism.

Sexual assaults are acts of violence where sex is used as the weapon.  Assaults are motivated primarily out of anger and/or need to feel powerful by controlling, dominating, or humiliating the victim. Victims/Survivors of sexual assaults are forced, coerced, and/or manipulated to participate in unwanted sexual activity. 

Victims/Survivors do not cause their assaults and are not to blame.  Offenders are responsible for the assaults.  

Facts on Teen Sexual Assault

• 32% of all victims are between the ages of 11 and 17.
• 29% of all victims are under the age of 11 (8% are under the age of 6).
• Rape victims are 4.1 times more likely to have contemplated suicide and 13 times more likely to have actually made a suicide attempt (Rape in America, 1992).
• More than 500,000 children are sexually abused each year in the U.S. (Finkelhor, 1994)
• 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys will be sexually victimized in some way by age 18.
• Young girls are the most common victims.  The offender is most often a heterosexual male, even when the victim is a boy.
• In 90% of child sexual abuse cases, the child knows and trusts the person who commits the abuse (Finkelhor, 1994).
• *About 33% are close family members of the victim – fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, or uncles.
• *Over 50% are distant relatives, family friends, babysitters, teachers, ministers, coaches, or neighbors.
• 7 out of 10 teenage rape or sexual assault victims knew their attacker.
• A sexual assault occurs in America very 2 minutes.
• 69% of the teen sexual assaulted reported to law enforcement in the United States occurred in the residence of the victim, the offender, or the residence of another individual.
• In 1999, only 28.3% of total rapes in the United States were reported to the police.
• 42% of the U.S. girls younger than 15 years reported that their first intercourse was nonconsensual.
• 23% of all sexual offenders were under the age of 18.

• An estimated 6,020 sexual assaults were reported in 1996. 
• 84% of victims were female, 93% of offenders were male.
• 93% of all sexual assaults were perpetrated by someone known to the victim; 7% were committed by strangers.
• 61.9% of assaults took place in either the victim’s home or offender’s home.
• 77% of all sexual assault victims were minors (under 18 years old).  Over 70% of all victims were 15 years old or younger.
• 48% of surveyed Wisconsin teens believed that if a girl says yes to sex and then changes her mind and the guy has sex with her anyway, it is not sexual assault.
• The average age of the offender was 25, ten years older than the average victim age of 15.
• 44% of surveyed Wisconsin teens believed that if a girl had sex with a guy before, it is not sexual assault if he forced her to have sex later.
• 18% of surveyed Wisconsin teens believed that if a guy buys a girl dinner, he has the right to have sex with her.
• 19% of surveyed Wisconsin teens believed that if a guy and a girl have been dating for at least 6 months, he has the right to expect and force her to have sex.
• In 61% of reported cases of sexual assault in Wisconsin, an offender was arrested.
• 42% of surveyed Wisconsin teens believed that if a girl or guy have been drinking and a little drunk, then it is not sexual assault if he forced her to have sex.
• 22% of all sexual assaults offenses in Wisconsin were statutory rape. (Statutory means where one person in an adult and the other a minor.)