CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to the Issues
2. Understanding Alcohol Abuse
3. Understanding Violence Against Women
4. Alcohol and Domestic Violence
5. Alcohol, Sexual Assault, and Rape
6. Prevention and Early Intervention
7. Screening and Assessment
8. Diagnosis and Treatment
9. Legal and Ethical Issues

Supplements
Fact Sheets
Videos
Resources

Silence Hurts
Alcohol Abuse and Violence Against Women

Introduction

Contrary to popular belief, rapists usually are not strangers. Friends or acquaintances commit nearly half of the rapes and sexual assaults reported to police by women of all ages.¹ When someone known to the victim-a date, steady boyfriend, friend, or coworker-forces her to have sex, it is still rape. Date rape is about power, control, and anger, not romance and passion. It is a serious crime and a betrayal of trust that can have long-lasting emotional consequences.²

In spite of the frequency of acquaintance rape, many people continue to think of the "typical" rape as a stranger jumping out and dragging the victim into an alley at night. In fact, a very small percentage of rapes can actually be characterized in this way.³ Using rapes that occur on college campuses as an example, as many as 95 percent are committed by someone the victim knows.⁴

Those who believe sexual assault is not a problem should think again. Based on the number of reported rapes, we know that a woman over 18 years of age is raped every minute in the United States. That comes out to 683,000 per year-and those are only the rapes that are reported. More than 80 percent of rape victims do not report the rape to police.⁵

Sexual Assault

The U.S. Department of Justice describes sexual assault as a wide range of victimizations, distinct from rape or attempted rape. These crimes include completed or attempted attacks generally involving unwanted sexual contact between the victim and the offender. Sexual assault may, or may not, involve force. It includes grabbing or fondling as well as verbal threats.

CDC defines sexual assault as a sexual act, either attempted or completed, against a victim's will. This includes situations in which the victim is unable to consent due to age (too young), illness, disability (e.g., unable to talk), or the influence of alcohol or other drugs. The date rape drugs cause a woman to become unconscious, so she cannot consent to sex or remember it after the drug wears off.

Sexual assault may involve physical force, the threat of physical force, the use of guns or other weapons, or pressure. Sexual assault also includes forced touching of the genitals, anus, groin, or breast against a victim's will or choice. The perpetrator may be a stranger, friend, family member, or intimate partner.⁶

Rape

Rape is forced intercourse, including both psychological coercion and physical force. Forced sexual intercourse includes vaginal, anal, or oral penetration by the offender. This includes when the penetration is from a foreign object such as a bottle. The definition includes attempted rapes, male and female victims, and heterosexual and homosexual rape.⁷