What is sexual assault and coercion

Sexual assault is any form of sexual intimacy or interaction that occurs without the consent of everyone involved. Sexual assault isn’t just one thing, and can include:

• Image abuse (eg. sending unwanted sexual images)

• Forcing someone to watch porn

• Rape or genital touching or displaying (eg. flashing or masturbating in front of you)

• Pressuring or forcing someone into any sexual activity against their will

• Removing a barrier (eg. a condom) without the other person’s knowledge

• Tricking someone into sex

• Deliberately transmitting an STI

• A sex work client not paying the agreed upon price, or

• Being filmed during sex without consent.

Transfemme provides information about navigating sex and consent, including fetishisation, objectification and sexual exploitation content. Sexual assault can occur in different situations and settings, including when someone has explicitly said no and been ignored, if they’ve said yes because they feel pressured or are threatened into doing so, because they are so affected by drugs or alcohol that they can’t consent, or because they are a minor and not legally able to consent.

People are sometimes referred to as ‘victims’ or as ‘survivors’ of sexual assault. We use the term “person who has experienced sexual assault” because the way someone feels, or identifies, after sexual assault is unique. There’s no right or wrong way to feel after experiencing sexual assault or coercion, or how to refer to what happened.

Whatever you have experienced, and whenever it occurred, being subject to sexual assault or coercion is a crime and is never your fault.

How might I feel?

Every person responds differently after a sexual assault, and that’s okay. There’s no ‘right’ way to respond.

People describe a range of feelings and reactions after experiencing an assault, including:

• feeling unsafe

• feeling numb or shocked

• disbelieving and wanting to block it out

• feeling angry or irritable

• feeling jumpy, anxious or panicked

• feeling depressed or moody

• feeling overwhelmed by confusion

• feelings scared or frightened that it may happen again

• thinking you are mentally unwell

• feeling guilty or embarrassed

• being worried that somehow everyone knows what happened

• not wanting to or being able to eat

• not sleeping, having nightmares

• having flashbacks or triggers

• not trusting anyone

• not wanting any sexual contact, or not being able to stop wanting sexual contact

• being in physical pain

These are all normal feelings to have after an experience of sexual assault. What you need, want, and feel able to do in response to these feelings will vary from individual to individual.

Sexual coercion is persuading someone into any sexual scenario by direct or assumed (indirect) threats, manipulation, or persuasion. For example, if you know someone has a history of being violent to others, you may feel coerced into sexual activity with them even though there was no direct threat; or if someone who you live with implies that they require sexual activity in return for providing a place for you to live.

Coercion may feel more difficult to explain than other forms of sexual assault, or “not as bad,” but you have every right to your feelings and to want to respond.

To understand how someone might act non-consensually, we first need to know what consent is.

Consent means that you and everyone else involved in an activity (i.e.. sex) want to be doing what you’re doing. Consent isn’t something you agree upon and then get on with it, but a process that takes place before, during and even after sex (such as keeping intimate photos private), and will mean different things to different people.

You can learn more about consent, including how to talk about it and make sure everybody involved is still on the same page on our Sex & Sexuality page.

Sexual assault and coercion are experienced by people of all genders and gender experiences.

The Australian Trans and Gender Diverse Sexual Health Survey found that 53.2% (n=762) of participants reported experiencing sexual violence or coercion at least once, which is nearly four times higher than found in the general Australian public. Despite this, trans people’s experiences of sexual violence are not as well understood or talked about.

For those of us who have experienced assault, it’s important to talk to health professionals and people that we trust, and to receive care and support, even if it happened a long time ago. For everyone else, we should continue to talk, listen, and learn about how sexual violence affects our many communities. Supporting one another is a big step to strengthening our access to healing and justice.

To develop this page, we were gratefully funded by, and worked closely with, the NSW Health Prevention and Response to Violence and Neglect branch (PARVAN). We also worked with the ACON team responsible for Say it Out Loud, ACON’s digital platform addressing sexual, domestic and family violence in LGBTQ+ communities and the NSW Health Education Centre Against Violence (ECAV).