PSYC39H3 Chapter 12: PSYC39 - Ch. 12 Sexual Assault
Document Summary
Sexual behaviour in many societies is a subject fraught with moral codes, taboos, norm expectations, religious injunctions, myths, and unscientific conclusions. Variety of offending; sexual offenders not a homogeneous group. Sex offenders often commit a variety of crime beyond sexual offenses, although this is more likely to be the case with rapists than with child molesters. Adult sexual offenders are more likely to be convicted for nonsexual offenses than they are for sexual offenses. The term sexual assault is preferred to the term rape in both research and law: use rape if it refers to the gov"t statistics. Incest refers to nonforcible sexual intercourse between persons who are related to each other within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by law. Much of our information about sexual assault comes from a large body of research con-ducted by behavioral and social scientists as well as medical practitioners and published in professional literature.
