Ideas in this flowchart

• Risk and protective factors related to sexual violence
• A risk factor increases the likelihood of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence.
• A protective factor decreases that likelihood by providing a buffer against risk.
• Risk factors do not cause violence or guarantee that violence will occur.
• Victims are never responsible for the harm inflicted upon them.
• Understanding risk and protective factors helps focus prevention efforts.
• Perpetration risk results from a combination of individual, relational, community, and societal factors.
• Individual factors include male sex, alcohol or drug use, coercive sexual fantasies, impulsive or antisocial tendencies, hostility toward women, hypermasculinity, preference for impersonal sex, childhood abuse, and witnessing family violence.
• Relationship factors include sexually aggressive or delinquent peers, violent or emotionally unsupportive families, limited family resources, and patriarchal relationships or environments.
• Community factors include limited employment opportunities, weak institutional support, tolerance of sexual violence, and weak sanctions against perpetrators.
• Societal factors include poverty, norms supporting sexual violence or male superiority, women's sexual submissiveness, weak gender-equity policies, and high tolerance of crime and violence.