Sexual Violence, Nonverbal Communication, Language and Culture

Sociology is a science, which helps us understand sexual violence and be aware of our surroundings from a micro perspective. In order to understand sexual violence, we must understand the meaning, identify causes and risks, know the consequences, and we can then start to learn how to prevent it. I will examine in depth based on numerous studies done by psychologists, how society can shape our views and attitude towards life, how nonverbal communication, language and culture can play an important role in sexual violence. Do you know someone who has been sexually abused? If the answer is yes, who was the aggressor? Dominance is the power and influence one can have over others. Based on statistics that will be shared later on, men are more dominant than women and sexual violence is one of the areas where this is reflected. Sexual violence is a terrifying event that has profound health and psychological consequences to the victims, but can be prevented with proper guidance. Sexual violence is any sexual activity executed against a person’s will (Macionis 2013). This can be experienced by anyone at any age, mostly females. The aggressor can be someone very close to the victim, not limited to, a family member, neighbor, co-worker or friend (http://www.cdc.gov). Sexual violence can include physical acts such as rape, which is undesirable touching, and date rape, that involves someone known. Sexual harassment and threats are another form of violence, but do not involve physical contact. Rape is a way to show dominance and degrade a person in a sex act. The government’s definition of date rape is, “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will (Macionis 2013).” Known individuals, in familiar places, perpetrate date rape. It is referred to as, “acquaintance rape” forcibly sexual violence against women by men they know (Laumann et al., 1994: The U.S. Department of Justice, 2011(Macionis 2013). This is why we should pay very close attention who we