What is SA?
1. According to Metropolitan Police: sexual or indecent assault is an act of physical, psychological and emotional violation in the form of a sexual act, inflicted on someone without their consent. It can involve forcing or manipulating someone to witness or participate in any sexual acts. Not all cases of sexual assault involve violence, cause physical injury or leave visible marks. Sexual harassment is a much broader category than SA and legally is considered to be less severe. It is often linked to employment and education.
It takes form of sexual comments/jokes, inappropriate comments, requests of sexual nature. It does not need to be done with intention to harm.
2. It does not need to involve violence for it to be considered SA. There are many different “tactics” that a perpetrator could use. Sexual coercion occurs when a person is forced (not in a physical way), threatened, pressured, manipulated or tricked into taking a part in an unwanted sexual activity.
It is irrelevant whether the victim said “yes” because it was impossible to give real consent in situations like these.
3. Most common forms of Sexual Harassment: Inappropriate staring, sexually suggestive comments/jokes, intrusive questions about your private life, unwelcome or inappropriate physical contact, sexual gestures, indecent exposure, sharing sexual content. Most common forms of Sexual Assault: r**e, attempted r**e, forcible sodomy or object penetration, unwanted or coerced physical contact.
Most common forms of Sexual Coercion: false sense of obligation or guilt, threats, manipulating insecurities, wearing someone down (persistently asking for it), pressure from an authority figure, exploiting their power/privilege/status, insults, humiliation
What is Consent?
At its bare bones, consent is the noncoerced, freely given agreement between two or more people. This means each and every individual needs to be sober, of age, and not under threat of violence or manipulation to be able to give consent. Just as consent can be given, it can also be taken away at any moment. A yes now isn't an automatic agreement to the future, near or far, or different acts, no matter how similar.
The surest way to gain and give consent is through verbal communication. It's always best to err on the side of caution and not use body language or 'reading between the lines' to find consent. If you think something is going somewhere, getting verbal, clear confirmation is the way to go, both for consent in general and to find out what the other person is consenting to exactly.
While consent is applicable to any situation, sexual or not, we'll focus on the misconceptions and truths of consent regarding sex.
What is rape and sexual assault? | Metropolitan Police