By understanding that anyone can be a victim of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and/or stalking, we can begin to find answers that benefit our whole communities.
Partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking are not woman problems, man problems, straight problems, gay problems, or problems of race, class, age, or geography.
They are human problems. This graphic, produced by the CDC, “highlights key findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey and presents facts everyone should know about Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Violence, and Stalking.” (CDC)
Go to www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention
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Thank you for the stats and the clarity in presenting them. But now that they numbers are in, other then the countless VAWA type/supported efforts, what do we do now?
And can we break down some of these stats a little further? In particular the “sexual orientation” category? For example, the bisexual, lesbian and heterosexual? Who are the perps? Education,right? Where there is great controversy as to weather or not a female can rape men, can a female rape a female?
I’m toying with lobbying about this in the UK. Haven’t the first notion how to start doing it, but given that our definition of rape is “penetration by penis”, I think there’s a lot more rape victims than just male victims of female rapists left out in the cold. People penetrated by objects or digits can’t charge their assailants with rape. I know some places do – wasn’t it the fact that Ohio legislation counted digital penetration as rape that one of the Steubenville perps ended up on a rape charge? And also I suspect given that they are already… Read more »
Doh, that should read “I’m toying with the idea of lobbying about this in the UK….” And to be clear, my overall point is that I think if we can expand the campaign to involve other groups, it might have better odds of being successful, as well as being more beneficial to more people in total. I know ideally that men’s issues should be considered valid issues in their own right, but practically speaking I think being able to get a minority like lesbians or even the broader LGBT community on-side could defuse some of the potential mockery and dismissal… Read more »
But then we also have to look at the broader picture, not to make things more difficult, but that would be to look at severity of the crime. A women being fondled and mauled in an ally can be just as devastating as if she’d been raped. What’s more traumatic to a man? Being forced to penetrate a women? Having an object up his behind? Being forced to give a BJ, or go down on a women? (sorry for the crudeness). But in broad terms, all that I have mentioned is clearly an invasion on another human being. IMO, any… Read more »
It is important to drum this into people’s heads because there are too many stereotypes surrounding domestic violence.
*applause* ^_^