When is it too far?
Abuse can be emotional, physical, sexual or financial.
The abuser can be a partner, ex-partner, family member, school mate, community leader or member, a friend, someone at work or a stranger.
It can happen to anyone, anywhere, in any setting (online or in person).
The examples below are ALL too far.
In public
- Making sexual comments or gestures on the street, in a bar, on transport etc
- Unwanted sexual attention including asking someone for sex
- Upskirting (taking pictures or filming up someone’s skirt without them knowing
- Flashing (exposing your genitals)
- Stalking (a pattern of fixated, obsessive, unwanted or repeated behaviours which can include sending unwanted presents, making unwanted communication, damaging property or assault)
- Groping (unwanted sexual touching anywhere on the body)
- Spiking (when someone puts alcohol or drugs into another person’s drink or their body without their knowledge and/or their consent)
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At work or school
- Inappropriate comments (including ones of a sexual nature), gestures or touching
- Asking for sexual activity in exchange for promotion
- Stalking
“I blocked him on everything that I could, including social media. He could still phone the house phone, but I don’t answer that. But he could still leave messages. And then one day in February, I had 17 phone calls from him, including to my work. And that was really bad because the second day this was happening, I had to go to my line manager and say, ‘Look, this is happening.’ Because my colleagues were trying to cover up because, let’s face it, it’s embarrassing. But at that point, my line manager contacted our phone providers and got them to block his number.”
Anonymous
Sexual abuse
- Unwanted touching
- Sexual assault (touching in a sexual way without consent)
- Getting someone to engage in sexual activity without their explicit consent
- ‘Stealthing’ (removing a condom during sex without the other person knowing)
- Choking, slapping or spitting on someone during sex without their consent
- Assault by penetration (penetration of the vagina or anus using anything other than a penis without consent)
- ‘Sex for rent’ (giving someone accommodation in exchange for sexual activity)
- Sexual exploitation
- Grooming someone for sex
- Rape
Online
- Making unwanted sexually explicit comments on social media
- Sending unwanted sexual messages to someone
- Cyber-flashing (sending someone an explicit picture they haven’t asked for)
- Putting pressure on someone to send nude pictures of themselves
- Cyberstalking (the use of internet and other technologies to harass or stalk another person online)
- Image-based abuse (posting sexually explicit images or videos of a person on the internet without their consent, typically by a former sexual partner)
Domestic
- Emotional or psychological abuse (eg putting someone down, playing mind games, making them feel they’re to blame for everything, also known as gas lighting)
- Controlling or coercive behaviour (eg controlling someone’s finances, telling them who they can see, telling them what they can wear)
- Stalking (this can occur within an ex-intimate partner setting, eg monitoring someone’s phone, tracking their movements)
- Economic abuse (eg coerced debt, controlling spending, bank accounts, investments, mortgages, benefit payments)
- Violent or threatening behaviour (eg non-fatal strangulation)
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse (see above)
- So-called honour-based abuse (harmful things that are done in the name of a family’s or community’s so-called honour)
- Forced marriage
- Children and young people under the age of 16 can also be victims or domestic abuse if they see, hear or experience the effects of it and are related to or under parental responsibility of the victim or perpetrator
- Domestic abuse doesn’t necessarily need to be between partners who live together, it could be between a child and parent or people living separately
“He knew all my social media and email passwords. He would check them every morning, before I woke up, for messages from anyone. When I realised what was happening, I changed passwords and he was furious I had done that.”
Anonymous