reproductive health services for adolescents - Pathfinder International

Trainer's Tool 11.1: Sexual Abuse Truth or Myth
Module 16/Trainer's Tools
1. _____Truth __X__Myth Rape happens only to females.
It can also be perpetuated by females against males and by males against males.
2. _____Truth __X__Myth Sexual abuse only means rape.
Sexual abuse includes all forms of sexual coercion (emotional, physical, and
economic) against a child or adolescent. It may or may not include rape. Any type of
unwanted sexual contact is considered sexual abuse.
3. __X__Truth _____Myth Someone who sexually violates another can also
be a loving person.
People who are sexually violent can be loving and caring when they are not being
violent.
4. _____Truth __X__Myth Rape is an act of uncontrollable sexual desire.
Rape is about control and power, not desire. It can sometimes be an angry
response to a situation, such as expecting sex and not having that expectation met.
5. _____Truth __X__Myth Sexual abuse happens only in lower socioeconomic
groups.
Sexual abuse occurs in rural, urban, and suburban areas and among all ethnic,
racial, and socio-economic groups.
6. _____Truth __X__Myth Once someone realizes that s/he is being sexually
violated, it is easy to leave the relationship.
By the time a person realizes that s/he is being sexually violated, s/he may already
feel committed to the relationship and find it hard to leave.
7. _____Truth __X__Myth Most rapes are committed by strangers.
In 84% of all rapes, the perpetrator knows the victim. Perpetrators can include a
parent, partner, ex-partner, boyfriend, family member, another person in the home,
teacher, neighbor, acquaintance, or more rarely, a stranger.
8. _____Truth __X__Myth Someone can change another person’s sexually
violent behavior by changing some of his/her own
behaviors.
The only behavior you can change is your own. You can do specific things that put
you in less risky situations, but you can't control how someone else will act.
9. __X__Truth _____Myth It is rape if someone puts his/her fingers inside a
woman's vagina against her will.
Though rape laws vary from country to country, rape is commonly defined as the
use of physical and/or emotional coercion—or threats to use coercion—in order to
forcibly penetrate a child, adolescent, or adult vaginally, orally, or anally.
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Adolescent Curriculum