Introduction

Abstract

This chapter considers who are the victims of male violence, and discusses the connection between sexual and aggressive motives for sexual aggression. Many researchers have perpetuated the confusion between physical aggression and violence by labelling studies involving the behaviourally based Conflict Tactics Scales as ‘marital violence’ or ‘dating violence’. The victims of male violence can be men, women or children, but the context in which each becomes a victim tends to differ. Inter-male violence has been less studied than the other two, partly because it tends to be more dispersed and to occur between strangers in more public places. The evolutionary framework coincides with the feminist perspective in emphasizing that the sex of the interactors is of primary importance in understanding the outcome of their interactions, for different, but potentially reconcilable reasons. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.