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The "Missing Perpetrator" and The Sexual Coercion Playbook
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For 40 years, researchers found millions of victims of sexual coercion — and almost no perpetrators willing to say so. They weren't missing. We were asking the wrong questions.
A landmark 2024 study by O'Sullivan & Ronis surveyed 2,689 ordinary community-dwelling men using neutral, behavioural language — and 95.1% disclosed using at least one coercive sexual strategy. In this episode of Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy, we unpack the full coercive pipeline: from a 36-strategy playbook with a 65% success rate, to the role of female "Trojan horses," to the childhood trauma that plants the seed — and the single statistic that predicts everything: prior behaviour.
Sources:
Isolate, Inebriate, Intimidate, Repeat: High Rates of Sexual Force Against Women Are Reported When Young Men Given Anonymous Surveys
Sexual Assault Perpetration and Reperpetration From Adolescence to Young Adulthood
Key findings:
- 95.1% disclosure rate when legal language is removed
- 36 specific coercive strategies — average man used 9
- 65% success rate for overcoming explicit non-consent
- 43.8% used a female friend as cover (Trojan horse)
- Prior behaviour: 4.1× to 11.2× increased risk of college perpetration
- Only 3 men faced charges out of 2,254 incident reports
This episode closes with a genuinely actionable message: knowledge is the friction this system currently lacks. You now have it.
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Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas.
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