What is Sexual Assault  |  Numbers  |  Legal Definitions  |  Vocabulary

1. Adult Survivor: Any individual who was a victim of sexual abuse during childhood and who is currently 18 or older. The perpetrator of the childhood sexual abuse may have been a relative or caregiver, a non-related peer or adult, a stranger, or any combination of these.
2. Assailant/Perpetrator: Someone accused of a sexual crime.
3. Bystander: A bystander is a concerned stranger, friend, roommate, or classmate who refuses to remain silent in the face of abusive behavior or comments.
4. Child Sexual Abuse: Involves forcing, tricking, bribing, threatening, grooming or pressuring a child into sexual awareness or activity.
5. Coercion: threat or fear of kidnapping, extortion, force or violence immediately or in the future.
6. Consensual: Both people agree to a sexual act without coercion and/or force. The age of consent in Tennessee is 13.
7. Defendant: The legal term for one charged with a crime.
8. Elder Abuse: An elderly person who is physically, emotionally, or sexually abused by anyone. Or a patient at a long-term care facility is victimized by anyone.
9. Force:
   • Physical -- hitting, slapping, kicking, holding someone down, and using a gun, knife or any other weapon.
   • Emotional -- not respecting “no” for an answer, making you feel guilty.
   • Vulnerability -- taking advantage of someone who is drunk, high on drugs or passed out.
   • Peer Pressure -- a group of people ganging up on someone.
10. Gender: It is not sex, but rather a construct.  It is the social pressure to behave and experience self in concert with what the culture expects for a man or a woman.
11. Intimate Parts: Includes the primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttock or breast of a human being.
12. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): The diagnosis following a traumatic event(s). A person presents certain symptoms: flashbacks, anxiety, fear, and depression.
13. Rape: The unlawful sexual penetration of a victim.
14. Rapist: Someone accused of a sexual crime with penetration of any kind.
15. Sexual Abuse: Any undesired sexual act against the vulnerable: children, elderly, or disabled.
16. Sexual Assault: Any assault of a sexual nature on another person. This is the umbrella term used for all sexual offenses, such as: harassment, rape, or sexual abuse.
17. Sexual Contact: The intentional touching of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's intimate parts, or the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's intimate parts, if that intentional touching can be reasonably construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.
18. Sexual Penetration: Is sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse, or any other intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person's body or of any object into the genital or anal openings of the victim's, the defendant's, or any other person's body, but emission of semen is not required.
19. Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD): a group of diseases transmitted through direct sexual contact. The exchange of saliva or semen is not required to contract some diseases.
20. Stalking: A pattern of behavior directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.
21. Survivor: A person who is empowered to overcome the trauma of being a victim of a crime.
22. Victim: A crime has been committed against a person regardless whether it's been reported to the police or not.