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Abuse by a Person in a Position of Trust

Abuse by a person in a position of trust in context is where one individual has responsibility for, holds authority or influence over, or is in a professional-client relationship with the other. However, the legal definition for sexual abuse by a person in a position of trust is more specific and generally applies to children. Some of the individuals in a position of trust might include; parents, caretakers, legal advisors, medical personnel, psychiatrists/counselors, religious authorities, and teachers/professors. This behavior is an abuse of trust and power and can have long-term effects on the victim, even if the victim considered the act “consensual” at the time. This type of abuse can be even more damaging if the victim is a minor.

Acquaintance Rape

Acquaintance rape describes forced or unwanted intercourse by a person known to the victim. Acquaintance rape is usually a spontaneous act, but is rarely an “accident” or “misunderstanding.”There is usually some sort of planning involved with acquaintance rape. The assault can be planned hours or days in advance where the assailant plans to have sex with a woman even if they have to force it. Acquaintance rape is often an attempt to assert power and control.

Child Sexual Abuse

Child sexual abuse occurs when a child is exploited for the sexual gratification of another person who may be older, stronger, and/or more mature. Children are most commonly sexually abused by someone they know and may be a single occurrence, but most likely will occur over a period of time. Eventually the continued abuse may lead to full sexual intercourse. The child continues to participate out of guilt, confusion, or fear something terrible will happen if someone finds out. The majority of child molesters are teenage or adult males. Abusers come from all different backgrounds. Children who are sexually abused are usually not violently abused, but are coerced and manipulated. They are usually afraid to tell anyone because of fear that they will be blamed, punished, or not believed.

Cyber Stalking

Cyber stalking is defined as threatening behavior or unwanted advances directed at another using the internet or other forms of online communication. Cyber stalkers target their victims primarily through forums where the user interacts with others; chat rooms, message boards, and discussion forums. Cyber stalking takes many forms such as threatening or obscene e-mail, sending the victims multitudes of junk mail (spamming), live chat harassment or online verbal abuse (flaming), leaving improper messages on message boards or in guest books, sending electronic viruses, sending unsolicited e-mail, and electronic identity theft. Many cyber stalking situations do evolve into offline stalking, and a victim may experience abusive and excessive phone calls, vandalism, threatening or obscene mail, trespassing, and physical assault.

Date Rape

Date rape describes forced or unwanted intercourse that occurs at any point in a dating relationship. Date rape is one of the most confusing forms of sexual assault. Many of the teen and adult males who assault do not see it as rape because they believe it is o.k. to force sex with their date at the end of the evening. Date rapists may have a pattern of forcing sex and getting away with it. Some men also believe that when a woman says “no” she really means “yes” and is just playing hard to get, therefore it is o.k. to force the woman to have sex.

Gang Rape

Gang rape is defined as non-consensual sex committed by two or more people against another. Perpetrators of gang rape can be strangers or acquaintances. Men who participate in gang rapes may never (or may) commit rape alone. It is an act of dominance and a shared activity. Degradation and humiliation of the victim, an element in all sexual assaults, may be more extreme in cases of gang rape.

Marital and Intimate Partner Rape

Rape may occur in any form of relationship—whether partners are legally married, living together, or dating and regardless of whether they are in heterosexual, gay, or lesbian relationships. Marital/intimate partner rape is not as well known as other areas of sexual assault. In regards to marital/intimate rape; wives may neither consider forced sexual activity in marriage to be rape, nor realize that it is now considered a crime in many states, women who are raped by their husbands are more likely to blame themselves and remain silent about the rape than women who are raped by strangers, and partner rape has been largely confined to studying rape within legally married couples, leaving out other forms of intimate relationships.

Prostitution

Prostitution is commonly believed to be an equal exchange of sex for money based on mutual consents. Prostitution allows males unconditional sexual access to females, limited solely on their ability to pay. Culturally supported tactics of power and control facilitate the recruitment or coercion of women and children into prostitution and effectively impede their escape. These tactics include; educational deprivation, job discrimination, poverty, child sexual abuse, battery, racism, classism, and heterosexism. Prostitutes are subjected to any number of sexual acts that in any other context, acted against any other woman, would be labeled assaultive or, at the very least, unwanted or coerced. Yet because an exchange of money occurs, irrespective of whether the woman herself maintains control of or benefits from this exchange, the client is given permission to use the woman in a manner that would not be tolerated in any other business or social arrangement (including marriage), and the woman’s acceptance of money is construed as her willingness to engage in such commerce.

Ritualistic Abuse

Ritualistic abuse is a brutal form of abuse of infants, children, adolescents, and adults consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse and torture involving the use of rituals. Ritualistic abuse has been reported in a variety of settings including; satanic, Christian, Dionysian, and matrilineal goddess. Ritualistic abuse typically involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time. The majority of ritualistic abuse cases are cult-based. The sexual abuse of victims/survivors is excessively brutal, sadistic, and humiliating. The psychological abuse and manipulation causes severe emotional suffering. Profound terror and sophisticated mind control techniques frequently result in victim/survivors developing extreme dissociative responses (such as multiple personalities) and losing their sense of free will. Because of the bizarre stories urrounding the abuse, many victims are not believed. Perpetrators are typically working members of society whose identities as members of such groups are not known outside of the cult.

Sexual Harassment

Like other forms of sexual assault, sexual harassment is an issue of power and control, as opposed to sexuality. Sexual harassment is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The definition of sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, when that conduct creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or if the employment related decisions are based on submission to or rejection of such conduct.

Stalking

Stalking generally refers to harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly. Stalking behaviors may or may not be accompanied by a credible threat of serious harm, and they may or may not be precursors to an assault or murder. Stalking behaviors might include; violation of protective orders, telephone calls to the victim, threatening mail to the victim, trespassing, following the victim on foot or in a vehicle, vandalism of victim’s property, vehicle, or workplace, tampering with victims outside lights or security, disabling the victim’s car, secretly installing listening devices in the victim’s home, and monitoring or contacting someone via e-mail.

Stranger Rape

It is important to report child sexual abuse. If you suspect a child is being abused, call: Larimer County Child Protection (970) 498-6990; 911 or

Larimer County Sheriff's Department (970) 416-1985

Fort Collins Police Department (970) 221-6540