Sexual Terrorism

This chapter lays the groundwork for understanding campus sexual violence as a form of sexual terrorism. This chapter outlines the theoretical formation of sexual terrorism by situating the term and discussing it within both traditional and feminist terrorism literature. Sexual terrorism is explained in the context of systems of oppression that have a long history of controlling marginalized groups. Conceptually, sexual terrorism has been adopted by scholars and activists to discuss a variety of issues such as wartime atrocities, street harassment, and domestic violence. The chapter reviews the five components of sexual terrorism that describe how women experience the world. While sexual terrorism is a particularly useful concept for discussing the current state of affairs on campuses, in this chapter there is also discussion of the ways the concept has been primarily heteronormative, cisgendered, and does not always address the ways campus sexual violence is experienced from an intersectional perspective. The strengths and weaknesses of the concept are provided to lay the foundation for the remaining chapters which take an intersectional perspective, reflective of the ways LGBTQA+ individuals and non-white individuals may experience sexual terrorism on campus in a different way.