Dating and Domestic Violence

Healthy relationships, from Saturday night hookups to "long-term" relationships, are based on a foundation of respect. In healthy relationships:

• Each partner feels safe.
• There is open and honest communication.
• Partners trust each other.
• Boundaries are respected.
• There is fair negotiation.
• Partners encourage and allow each other to spend time with family and friends.
• Partners are able to express themselves without fear.
• Consent is a cornerstone.
• There is equality.
• Partners are considerate and support each other's well-being.
• Each person is dependable and responsible.
• Partners aren't required to check-in.
• Conflicts are resolved in a fair manner without intimidation or the threat of violence.
• Each partner values the other.
• Partners respect each other's right to privacy.

Check out love is respect's Relationship Spectrum, a useful first step to help determine how a relationship measures up — healthy, unhealthy, or abusive.

Overview

Whether the abuse is committed by an intimate partner (current or former), immediate family member, other relatives, or another individual, abusive relationships are based on inequality and the nonconsensual exercising of power and control over another person.

Abusers use a variety of tactics designed to establish fear and exert control. The warning signs or the specifics of what these tactics look like vary depending on the individuals involved. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intimate partner violence can include sexual violence, physical violence, stalking, and psychological aggression.

Abuse can comprise non-criminal and criminal conduct. Non-criminal behaviors often lead to and occur simultaneously with criminal conduct. Like criminal dating and domestic violence, abusive activities that are not criminal acts are perpetrated to exert control, humiliate, and harm.

The Power and Control Wheel

The Power and Control Wheel was developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) of Duluth, MN to illustrate what female victims of domestic violence commonly experience. The Wheel describes strategies used by abusers to exert power and control over their victims. These tactics include coercion and threats; economic abuse; emotional abuse; intimidation; isolation; male privilege; minimizing, denying, and blaming; using children; and violence (physical and sexual).

Dating and domestic violence in LGBT relationships, abuse in immigrant populations, cultural and societal contexts, and other adaptions have also been developed by DAIP and other agencies. The original Wheel and subsequent adaptations are useful tools in identifying and understanding abusive relationships.

For information on the original Power and Control Wheel and adaptations, click on The Duluth Model.

Warning Signs of Abuse: Know What to Look For

Recognize the warning signs of abuse

At the start of a new relationship, it’s not always easy to tell if it will later become abusive. In fact, many abusive people appear like ideal partners in the early stages of a relationship. The warning signs of abuse don’t always appear overnight and may emerge and intensify as the relationship grows.

Yet, every relationship is certainly different, and domestic violence doesn’t always look the same. However, one feature shared by most abusive relationships is that the abusive partner tries to establish or gain power and control through many different methods at different moments.

Common signs of abusive behavior in a partner include (additionally, even one or two of these behaviors in a relationship is a red flag that abuse may be present):

• Telling you that you never do anything right.
• Showing extreme jealousy of your friends or time spent away from them.
• Preventing or discouraging you from spending time with others, particularly friends, family members, or peers.
• Insulting, demeaning, or shaming you, especially in front of other people.
• Preventing you from making your own decisions, including about working or attending school.
• Controlling finances in the household without discussion, such as taking your money or refusing to provide money for necessary expenses.
• Pressuring you to have sex or perform sexual acts you’re not comfortable with.
• Pressuring you to use drugs or alcohol.
• Intimidating you through threatening looks or actions.
• Insulting your parenting or threatening to harm or take away your children or pets.
• Intimidating you with weapons like guns, knives, bats, or mace.
• Destroying your belongings or your home.

Types of Abuse

Relationship abuse is a pattern of behaviors used to gain or maintain power and control over a partner. This can manifest in different ways. Multiple types of abuse usually occur in an abusive relationship.

Understanding how abuse occurs and intersects can help you safely respond to situations. Below are some ways to identify the different types of abuse.

Physical abuse

Physical abuse is one of the most easily identified types of abuse. It involves the use of physical violence, or threats of it, to maintain power over an individual. Because of this, survivors are afraid and uncertain when more abuse will occur. This often reinforces the regular use of other, more subtle, types of abuse.

You might be experiencing physical abuse if your partner has or repeatedly does any of the following abusive behaviors:

• Pull your hair or punch, slap, kick, bite, choke, or smother you.
• Forbid or prevent you from eating or sleeping.
• Use weapons against you, including firearms, knives, bats, or mace.
• Prevent you from contacting emergency services, including medical attention or law enforcement.
• Harm your children or pets.
• Drive recklessly or dangerously with you in the car or abandon you in unfamiliar places.
• Force you to use drugs or alcohol, especially if you have a history of substance abuse.
• Trapping you in your home or preventing you from leaving.
• Throw objects at you.
• Prevent you from taking prescribed medication or deny you necessary medical treatment.

Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone. These behaviors are often more subtle and hard to identify but are just as serious as other types of abuse.

You may be in an emotionally- or verbally-abusive relationship if your partner attempts to exert control by:

• Calling you names, insulting you, or constantly criticizing you.
• Acting jealous or possessive and refusing to trust you
• Isolating you from family, friends, or other people in your life because it makes someone easier to control.
• Monitoring your activities with or without your knowledge, including demanding to know where you go, who you contact, and how you spend your time.
• Attempting to control what you wear, including clothes, makeup, or hairstyles.
• Humiliating you in any way, especially in front of others.
• Gaslighting you by pretending not to understand or refusing to listen to you; questioning your recollection of facts, events, or sources; trivializing your needs or feelings; or denying previous statements or promises.
• Threatening you, your children, your family, or your pets (with or without weapons).
• Damaging your belongings, including throwing objects, punching walls, kicking doors, etc.
• Blaming you for their abusive behaviors.
• Accusing you of cheating, or cheating themselves and blaming you for their actions.
• Cheating on you to intentionally hurt you and threatening to cheat again to suggest that they’re “better” than you.
• Telling you that you’re lucky to be with them and that you’ll never find someone better.

Sexual abuse

Sexual abuse is when a partner controls the physical and sexual intimacy in a relationship. This often involves acting in a way that is non-consensual and forced.

You might be experiencing sexual abuse if your partner has or repeatedly does any of the following:

• Make you dress in a sexual way you’re uncomfortable with.
• Insult you in sexual ways or call you explicit names.
• Force or manipulate you into having sex or performing sexual acts, especially when you’re sick, tired, or physically injured from their abuse.
• Strangle you or restrain you during sex without your consent.
• Hold you down during sex without your consent.
• Hurt you with weapons or objects during sex.
• Involve other people in your sexual activities against your will.
• Ignore your feelings regarding sex.
• Force you to watch or make pornography.
• Intentionally give you or attempt to give you a sexually transmitted infection.

Financial abuse

Financial or economic abuse occurs when an abusive partner extends their power and control into your financial situation.

Below are ways to identify the different types of abuse in your relationship pertaining to financial abuse.

Examples of financial abuse:

• Providing an allowance and closely monitoring how you spend it, including demanding receipts for purchases.
• Depositing your paycheck into an account you can’t access.
• Preventing you from viewing or accessing bank accounts.
• Stopping you from working, limiting the hours that you can work, getting you fired, or forcing you to work certain types of jobs.
• Maxing out your credit cards without permission, not paying credit card bills, or otherwise harming your credit score.
• Stealing money from you, your family, or your friends.
• Withdrawing money from children’s savings accounts without your permission.
• Living in your home but refusing to work or contribute to the household.
• Forcing you to provide them with your tax returns or confiscating joint tax returns.
• Refusing to provide money for necessary or shared expenses like food, clothing, transportation, medical care, or medicine.

Technology-facilitated abuse

Technology-facilitated abuse, also known as online abuse, is the use of technology, image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), sextortion, intimate partner surveillance, Internet of Things abuse, and online spaces (e.g. social media) to bully, harass, stalk, intimidate, or control a partner. This behavior is often a form of verbal or emotional abuse conducted online.

Examples of technology-facilitated abuse:

• Telling you who you can or can’t follow, or be friends with on social media.
• Sending you negative, insulting, or threatening messages or emails.
• Using social media to track your activities.
• Insulting or humiliating you in their posts online, including posting unflattering photos or videos.
• Sending, requesting, or pressuring you to send unwanted explicit photos or videos, sexts, or otherwise compromising messages.
• Stealing or insisting on being given your account passwords.
• Constantly texting you or making you feel like you can’t be separated from your phone for fear that you’ll anger them.
• Looking through your phone or checking up on your pictures, texts, and phone records.
• Using any kind of technology (such as spyware or GPS in a car or phone) to monitor your activities.
• Using smart home technology, smart speakers, or security cameras to track your movements, communications, and activities.
• Creating fake social media profiles in your name and image, or using your phone or email to send messages to others pretending to be you, as a way to embarrass or isolate you.

Things to consider when dealing with technology-facilitated abuse:

• You never have to share your passwords.
• You don’t have to send any explicit pictures, videos, or messages that you’re uncomfortable sending (“sexting”).
• Sexting can have legal consequences: nude photos or videos of someone under the age of 18 could be considered child pornography, which is illegal to own or distribute.
• It’s okay to turn off your phone or not respond to messages right away. You have the right to your privacy. (Be sure that the people who might need to reach you in an emergency still can.)
• Save or document threatening messages, photos, videos, or voicemails as evidence of abuse.
• Don’t answer calls from unknown or blocked numbers; your abuser may try calling you from another line if they suspect that you’re avoiding them. Find out if your phone company allows you to block numbers (and how many, if so).
• Once you share a post or message, it’s no longer under your control. Abusive partners may save or forward anything you share, so be careful sending content you wouldn’t want others to see.
• Know and understand your privacy settings. Social media platforms allow users to control how their information is shared and who sees it. These settings are often customizable and may be found in the privacy section of the website. Know that some apps may require you to change your privacy settings in order to use them.
• Be mindful when checking-in places online, either by sharing your location in a post or posting a photo with distinguishable backgrounds.
• Ask your friends to always seek permission from you before posting content that could compromise your privacy. Do the same for them.
• Avoid contact with your abuser in any capacity, through technology, online, or in person. Consider changing your phone number if the abuse and harassment don’t stop.

Sexual coercion

Sexual coercion lies on the continuum of sexually aggressive behavior. It can range from begging and persuasion to forced sexual contact. But even if your partner isn’t forcing you to perform sexual acts without your consent, making you feel obligated to do them is still sexual coercion.

No matter what type of relationship you are in, you never owe your partner intimacy of any kind.

Ways sexual coercion can occur:

• Implying that you owe them something sexually in exchange for previous actions, gifts, or consent.
• Giving you drugs or alcohol to “loosen up” your inhibitions.
• Using your relationship status as leverage, including by demanding sex as a way to “prove your love” or by threatening to cheat or leave.
• Reacting with sadness, anger, or resentment if you say no or don’t immediately agree to something, or trying to normalize their sexual demands by saying that they “need” it.
• Continuing to pressure you after you say no or intimidating you into fearing what will happen if you say no.

Reproductive coercion

Reproductive coercion is a form of power and control where one partner strips another of the ability to control their own reproductive system. It can be difficult to identify this form of coercion because it’s often less visible than other types of abuse occurring at the same time and may appear as pressure, guilt, or shame about having or wanting children (or not having or wanting them).

Examples of reproductive coercion:

• Refusing to use a condom or other types of birth control.
• Breaking or removing a condom before or during sex, or refusing to pull out.
• Lying about methods of birth control (i.e. having a vasectomy or being on the pill).
• Removing birth control methods like rings, IUDs, or contraceptive patches, or sabotaging methods by poking holes in condoms or tampering with pills.
• Withholding money to purchase birth control.
• Monitoring your menstrual cycles to inform their abuse.
• Forcing pregnancy or not supporting your decisions about when or if to have children.
• Intentionally becoming pregnant against your wishes.
• Forcing you to get an abortion or preventing you from getting one.
• Threatening you or acting violent if you don’t agree to end or continue a pregnancy.
• Keeping you pregnant by getting you pregnant again shortly after you have a child.

Stalking

Stalking occurs when someone watches, follows, or harasses you repeatedly, making you feel afraid or unsafe, and may occur from someone you know, a past partner, or a stranger. This can include different types of abuse.

Stalking can look like:

• Showing up at your home or workplace unannounced or uninvited.
• Sending you unwanted texts, messages, letters, emails, or voicemails.
• Leaving you unwanted items, gifts, or flowers.
• Calling you and hanging up repeatedly or making unwanted phone calls to you, your employer, a professor, or a loved one.
• Using social media or technology to track your activities.
• Spreading rumors about you online or in person.
• Manipulating other people to investigate your life, including using someone else’s social media account to look at your profile or befriending your friends in order to get information about you.
• Waiting around at places you spend time.
• Damaging your home, car, or other property.
• Hiring a private investigator to follow or find you as a way of knowing your location or movements.

Spiritual abuse

Spiritual abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. It may involve an elder or faith leader inflicting abuse on members of the congregation, fostering a toxic culture through shame or control. However, it’s important to recognize that spiritual abuse can extend beyond organized religious settings and occur within intimate relationships. Individuals of any belief system, irrespective of their religion, can experience spiritual abuse.

Spiritual abuse can look like:

• Religion or spiritual beliefs of another person are ridiculed or insulted
• Denies the other partner the right to practice their religion or spiritual beliefs
• Manipulates or shames their partner’s religious or spiritual beliefs
• Raising children in a faith that the other partner does not agree with
• Religion is used to justify or minimize abusive behaviors (such as physical, financial, emotional, or sexual abuse).

The content of this section is used by permission and taken from the following National Domestic Violence Hotline resources:

• Warning Signs of Abuse
• Types of Abuse

Domestic Violence Defined

According to California Family Code §6211 and Penal Code §13700, domestic violence is abuse perpetrated against:

• A spouse or former spouse.
• A cohabitant or former cohabitant.
  • A person who regularly resides in the household or formerly regularly resided in the household.
• A person with whom the respondent has or has had a dating or engagement relationship
• A person with whom the respondent has had a child.
• Others (e.g., child, close relative) depending on circumstances.

Abuse Defined

Abuse is defined by California Family Code (CPC) §6203 and Penal Code §13700 as:

• Intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause bodily injury.
• Sexual assault.
• Placing a person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to that person or to another.
• Engaging in any behavior that has been or could be enjoined pursuant to CPC §6320.
• Abuse is not limited to the actual infliction of physical injury or assault.

Disturbing the Peace and Coercive Control

Disturbing the Peace and coercive control are among the behaviors identified in CPC §6320.

Disturbing the Peace

Disturbing the peace is defined as "conduct that... destroys the mental or emotional calm of the other party. This conduct may be committed directly or indirectly, including through the use of a third party, and by any method or through any means including, but not limited to:

• Telephone
• Online accounts
• Text messages
• Internet-connected devices
• Or other electronic technologies..."

Coercive Control

Disturbing the peace also "...includes, but is not limited to, coercive control, which is a pattern of behavior that in purpose or effect unreasonably interferes with a person’s free will and personal liberty.

Examples of coercive control include, but are not limited to, unreasonably engaging in any of the following:

• Isolating the other party from friends, relatives, or other sources of support.
• Depriving the other party of basic necessities.
• Controlling, regulating, or monitoring the other party’s movements, communications, daily behavior, finances, economic resources, or access to services.
• Compelling the other party by force, threat of force, or intimidation, including threats based on actual or suspected immigration status, to engage in conduct from which the other party has a right to abstain or to abstain from conduct in which the other party has a right to engage.
• Engaging in reproductive coercion, which consists of control over the reproductive autonomy of another through force, threat of force, or intimidation, and may include, but is not limited to, unreasonably pressuring the other party to become pregnant, deliberately interfering with contraception use or access to reproductive health information, or using coercive tactics to control, or attempt to control, pregnancy outcomes."

Abusive relationships are often associated with crimes (as defined by the California Penal Code) other than domestic violence, including:

Battery (§242)

• Intentional and illegal use of force or violence against another person.

Child Abuse and Neglect (§11164-11174.3)

• Willful abuse, harming, unlawful corporal punishment or injury, neglect, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation of a child (person under 18 years of age).

Child Witnessing Domestic Violence (§1170.76)

• Committing or attempting sexual battery, an assault with a deadly weapon, or inflicting corporal injuries in the presence of a child or where a child has witnessed the crimes.

Corporal Injury (§273.5)

• Intentional infliction of a corporal injury which results in a traumatic condition. A traumatic condition is a wound or injury (external or internal) caused by physical force. It includes, but is not limited to, minor and serious injuries caused by strangulation or suffocation (impeding normal breathing or blood flow by applying pressure on the throat or neck.

Criminal Threats (§422)

• Threatening to commit a crime which will cause death or significant injury-even when there is no intention of carrying out the threat-that due to circumstances surrounding the threat the threat is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific that the person threatened believes it will be carried out and results in sustained fear for their safety or the safety of their immediate family.

Stalking (§646.9)

• Willful, malicious, and repeated following or harassment of another person that seriously alarms, annoys, torments, or terrorizes the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose; and making a credible threat with the intent to place that person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of his or her immediate family.

Additional Crimes

• Abusers may commit additional crimes, such as sexual assault, theft, robbery, trespassing, violation of protection/restraining orders, vandalism, and murder.

Refer to the CSU Nondiscrimination Policy.

Dating Violence

Dating violence means physical violence or threat of physical violence committed by a person:

• Who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the Complainant; and
• Where the existence of such a relationship shall be determined based on a consideration of the following factors:
  • The length of the relationship
  • The type of relationship
  • The frequency of interaction between the persons involved in the relationship

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence means physical violence or threat of physical violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the Complainant, by a person with whom the Complainant shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the Complainant as a spouse or intimate partner, or by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the Complainant.

Physical Violence

Physical violence means physical conduct that intentionally or recklessly threatens the health and safety of the recipient of the behavior, including assault.

• Peace Over Violence Campus Advocate
• Cal State LA Departments
  • Office of Civil Rights and Title IX
  • Counseling and Psychological Services
  • Student Health Center
• Directory of Domestic and Sexual Violence Assistance Agencies (ValorUS)
• Local and Online Help Directory (California Victim Compensation Board)

See Project SAFE's Resources and:

24-Hour Hotlines

• Find national and local 24-hour hotlines and agencies at 24-Hour Hotlines and Local Services

Campus Options for Victims and Survivors

• Visit Cal State LA Title IX and Cal State LA Office of Civil Rights and Title IX for reporting options
• View additional rights and options at Rights and Options for Victims of Sexual Misconduct/Sexual Assault, Sexual Exploitation, Dating and Domestic Violence, and Stalking
• File a complaint at Title IX/DHR Online Reporting Form