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PHYSICAL ASSAULTS
Physical abuse may include spitting, scratching, biting, grabbing, shaking, shoving, pushing, restraining, throwing, twisting, slapping (with open or closed hand), punching, choking, burning, and/or use of weapons (e.g., household objects, knives, guns) against the victim. The physical assaults may or may not cause injuries. Sometimes a seemingly less serious type of physical abuse, such as a shove or push, can result in the most serious injury. The perpetrator may push the victim against a couch, a wall, down a flight of stairs, or out of a moving car, all of which could result in varying degrees of trauma (e.g., bruising, broken bones, spinal cord injuries). Sometimes the physical abuse does not cause a specific injury but does cause other health problems. For example, one perpetrator frequently abused his partner during meals and late at night. He would push, restrain, and spit at his partner as well as abuse her verbally. While there were no visible injuries, the victim suffered from severe sleep deprivation and poor nutrition, since both her sleep and eating patterns were repeatedly interrupted by her abuser’s conduct. .
SEXUAL ASSAULTS
Some perpetrators sexually batter their victims. Sexual battering consists of a wide range of conduct that may include pressured sex when the victim does not want sex, coerced sex by manipulation or threat, physically forced sex, or sexual assault accompanied by violence. Victims may be coerced or forced to perform a kind of sex they do not want (e.g., sex with third parties, physically painful sex, sexual activity they find offensive, verbal degradation during sex, viewing sexually violent material) or at a time they do not want it (e.g., when exhausted, when ill, in front of children, after a physical assault, when asleep). Some perpetrators attack their victims’ genitals with blows or weapons. Some perpetrators deny victims contraception or protection against sexually transmitted diseases. The perpetrators’ message to the victims is that they have no say over their own bodies. Sometimes victims will resist and are then punished, and sometimes they comply in hopes that the sexual abuse will end quickly. For some battered victims this sexual violation is profound and may be difficult to discuss. Some victims are unsure whether this sexual behavior is really abuse, while others see it as the ultimate betrayal.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSAULTS
There are different types of psychological assaults. a. Threats of violence and harm The perpetrator’s threats of violence or harm may be directed against the victim or others important to the victim or they may be suicide threats. Sometimes the threat includes killing the victim and others and then committing suicide. The threats may be made directly with words (e.g., “I’m going to kill you,” “No one is going to have you,” “Your mother is going to pay,” “I cannot live without you”) or with actions (e.g., stalking, displaying weapons, hostage taking, suicide attempts). Perpetrators may be violent towards others (e.g., neighbors, family members) as a means of terrorizing victims. Perpetrators may coerce victims into doing something illegal (e.g., prostitution, larceny) and then threaten to expose them, or may make false accusations against them (e.g., reports to Child Protective Services, to the welfare department, or to immigration). b. Attacks against property or pets and other acts of intimidation. Attacks against property and pets are not random acts. It is the wall the victim is standing near that gets hit, or the door she is hiding behind that gets torn off of its hinges, the victim’s favorite china that is smashed or her pet cat that is strangled in front of her, the table that she is sitting near that gets pounded or one of the perpetrator’s favorite objects that gets smashed while he says, “Look what you made me do.” The message to the victim is always, “You can be next.” The intimidation can also be carried out without damage to property, by the perpetrator yelling and screaming in the victim’s face, standing over the victim during a fight, driving recklessly when the victim or children are present, stalking, or putting the victim under surveillance.