Sexual coercion in adolescence: From non-consensual sexuality to sexuality under constraint

Introduction. — Adolescence is a crucial period of psycho-sexual development during which sexuality may express in a violent way. Objectives. — Our study analyzes the conducts of sexual coercion acted and experienced by adolescents, implying two distinct samples of teenagers (n1 = 301/40% girls; n2 = 355/65% girls).The first study focuses on evaluation by means of self-reported measures of conducts of sexual coercion, delinquency and experiences of sexual victimization. The second study evaluates conducts of sexual coercion acted and experienced in romantic relationship and attitudes relating to these conducts. Results. — For both studies, it emerges that adolescents perpetrating severe sexual coercion (using threat and/or physical force) are mostly male and display violent conducts in other areas than sexuality. They report more experiences of sexual victimization than non-coercive adolescents. Although prevalence rates of sexual coercion in romantic relationships are low, phenomena of polyperpetration and polyvictimization have been pointed out. Boys are more often perpetrators of sexual fondling without consent and girls are more often victims. The potential of escalation from minor sexually coercive conducts (non-consensual kissing) to severe sexually coercive conducts is noted for boys and not for girls. Finally, boys exhibit more tolerant attitudes towards sexual coercion than girls and both are more tolerant towards sexual coercion perpetrated by girls than by boys.