UNITED STATES
Rolling Stone
September 17, 2019
By EJ Dickson
When it comes to assessing the prevalence of sexual assault, there’s still a lot we don’t know. We do know, for instance, that sexual assault is underreported, but we don’t know by how much — and that’s particularly true for incidents that fall in the “grey area” of sexual assault, such as coercive sex or partner rape. A new study, however, is attempting to shed light on the prevalence of one specific type of sexual assault, and in doing so underscores just how little we know about sexual assault rates in general.
According to the study in JAMA Internal Medicine — which surveyed more than 13,300 women between the ages of 18 and 45 across the United States, from 2011 to 2017 — approximately one in 16 women, or about 6% of women surveyed, reported that their first sexual encounter was not consensual (which the study refers to as “forced sexual initiation”). Of the women who said their first sexual encounter was not consensual, 56% said they were verbally pressured into having sex, while 25% said they were subject to violence. The study also indicates that women who reported their first encounter was nonconsensual were more likely to report issues with ovulation or menstruation, unwanted first pregnancy, and drug abuse. Perhaps most devastatingly, most of these women were quite young: of the women who said their first time was not consensual, the average age at the time of the encounter was just 15.
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