When Sexual Violence Isn’t Sexual Violence
When Sexual Violence Isn’t Sexual Violence In honour of 'Sexual Violence Awareness Week' next week, I am sharing this story from a survivor, with her permission of course!! Abuse works in a very strange way. Only recently are the more complicated elements of coercion and control being explored and understood fully and there is still so far to go. as we sat down to discuss this with Emma (Not her real name.) she said "but when you live it, you just know". Here is her story about the role of sex in her controlling and coercive relationship and it isn't what you first think when we say the words sexual violence within a relationships. As we so often hear in cases of domestic abuse there are acts of extreme physical and sexual violence resulting in unfathomable harms and of course death. Alongside and before the brutality which may be seen by the outside world, there are so often, nay always, elements of control that are so hard for anyone to describe. Emma trie...
