Types of Abuse
No one should ever minimize or deny your experience of abuse. The following is a detailed, but not exhaustive list of common types of abuses.
and Sexual Assault Line
#250-438 Victoria Avenue East, Regina, Saskatchewan, 522-2777
Sexual abuse
- Anger about women in general
- Views women as sex objects
- Sexual jokes about women
- Sexual teasing
- Sees women's role as only to satisfy men's sexual needs
- Touches victim when unwanted
- Denies or withholds sex as a form of manipulation
- Incessant sexual desire - whether she wants it or not is not important
- Demands sex
- Flaunts his affairs
- Labels victim frigid or promiscuous or both
- Forces victim into sexual acts
- Uncomfortable sex - no sensitivity
- Has sex before, with or after beating the victim
- Forces victim to be involved in pornography
- Forces victim to have sex with another person
- Is sadistic
- Putting victim down
- Making victim fell bad about themselves
- Calling victim names
- Making her think she's crazy
- Playing mind games
- Using humiliation
- Making victim feel guilty
Using children
- Using the children to relay messages
- Using visitations to harass victim
- Threatening to take the children away
- using threats, intimidation and/or force against children
Using "male privilege"
- Treating her like a servant
- Making all the big decisions
- Acting like master of the castle
- Not letting her know about or have access to family income
Intimidation, coercion, threats
- Abusing pets
- Displaying weapons
- Smashing or destroying things
- Threatening to hurt victim or others close to her
- making the victim do illegal things
- making the victim afraid by using looks, actions or gestures
Pushing, shoving, hitting
- Beating, throwing the victim down
- Using a weapon against her
- Restraining, sitting on her
- Slapping, choking, pulling hair
- Punching, kicking, grabbing
Using Isolation
- Controlling what victim and others do, who they see and talk to, what they read and/or where they go
- Limiting their outside involvement
- Using jealousy to justify actions
Minimizing, denying, blaming
- Making light of the abuse and not taking their concerns about it seriously
- Saying the abuse did not happen
- Shifting responsibility for abusive behaviour
- Saying the victim caused it
Financial abuse
- Preventing her from getting or keeping a job
- Making her ask for money
- Giving her an allowance
- Taking or controlling all the money
- Not letting her know about or have access to family income