Sexual violence is frighteningly common among young people between ages 14 and 21, according to a new study. Almost a tenth of young people admit perpetrating at least one act of sexual violence and 4% say they have attempted or completed rape, researchers found after speaking to more than a thousand young people, the LA Times reports. The researchers defined sexual violence as coercing or forcing some type of sexual contact upon another person. Young people who reported watching violent or X-rated material were more likely to have been involved in sexual violence, researchers found.
"Sexual violence can be perpetrated by anybody—a dating partner, a friend or somebody you don't know," the president of the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, the nonprofit group that conducted the study, tells USA Today. "We asked perpetrators about their relationship with their most recent victims, and one in four said it was not a dating partner." Disturbingly, 40% of the perpetrators of sexual violence believed the victim was somewhat or completely responsible—and only two reported being arrested. (More sexual assault stories.)
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