“When You’re in a Relationship, You Say No, but Your Partner Insists”: Sexual Dating Violence and Ambiguity Among Girls and Young Women

Abstract

Sexual dating violence (DV) is highly prevalent and associated with deleterious outcomes. Unfortunately, this form of violence remains poorly understood. Furthermore, the measures used to assess sexual DV may not account for the various manifestations of sexual DV, which limits our understanding of this problem. This study aimed to (a) explore how girls and young women describe their experiences of sexual DV and (b) explore whether the taxonomy on intimate partner sexual violence developed by Bagwell-Gray and colleagues could be applicable to girls and young women’s experiences of sexual DV. A total of 71 adolescent girls and young women who identified themselves as heterosexual were recruited. Sexual DV was assessed using an adapted version of the Sexual Experiences Survey, followed by a semistructured interview. Findings revealed that 29.6% of participants reported sexual DV victimization in the past 12 months. A direct content analysis was performed based on the taxonomy of Bagwell-Gray and colleagues. Four manifestations of sexual DV were illustrated from the youth’s narratives: (a) sexual coercion, (b) sexual assault, (c) sexual abuse, and (d) forced sexual activities. Our results underscore the ambiguity of sexual consent and definition of sexual DV among adolescent girls and young women. This research further supports the necessity to develop and implement prevention programs that specifically target sexual DV in this population.

Youth intimate partner violence: prevalence, characteristics, associated factors and arenas of violence

“…Here, a youth's general inexperience of sexual relationships may also affect the perception of IPSV (Överlien, Hellevik, and Korkmaz 2019;Korkmaz forthcoming). Qualitative data have shown that girls express feeling like they owe sexual activities to their partner, and giving consent despite not really wanting to (Fernet et al 2019). Correspondingly, in one qualitative study, we showed that female youth might 'agree' to have sex as a way to protect themselves from further harm (Korkmaz and Överlien 2020).…”

“…Moreover, previous research shows that when sexual violence includes low invasiveness or force, participants tend to minimize or not recognize the behaviour as such (Fernet et al 2019). Here, a youth's general inexperience of sexual relationships may also affect the perception of IPSV (Överlien, Hellevik, and Korkmaz 2019;Korkmaz forthcoming).…”

“…Within the relatively small body of research on intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV), most studies have focused on adults, leading scholars to express an omnipresent need for further research on young people's experiences of such violence (Fernet et al 2019). In this study, following their lead, we chose to explore the phenomenon of IPSV more thoroughly by singling out severe IPSV, referring to violence including penetration.…”

“…In this study, we show how youth IPV takes place in different arenas. Arguably, the notion of arenas of violence follows on from research that takes a contextual approach to youth IPV (Överlien, Hellevik, and Korkmaz 2019;Fernet et al 2019;Logan, Walker, and Cole 2015), where the situational setting, as well as youth social networks and their responses, have been in focus. In two studies analysing interview data (Korkmaz and Överlien 2020;Överlien, Hellevik, and Korkmaz 2019), we showed that parents -both the youth's and the partner's -are present in youth's narratives about IPV, and are a possible resource for help, depending on their responses (Korkmaz and Överlien 2020).…”

Can Physical and/or Sexual Abuse Play a Role in the Female Choice of a Partner? A Cross-Sectional, Correlational Pilot Study

“…The criterion of a minimum age differential between victim and perpetrator was applied, including in this range both the abuse of the adult and the minor towards the child. In addition, the presence of real or perceived coercion, with a negative reaction by the victim regarding physical contact and/or penetration, was also considered as abuse [ 41 ].…”