Dating Abuse Overview You’re standing at the entrance to an
unfamiliar street. You know that there’s a one-in-five chance
(if you’re a girl) or one-in-ten chance (if you’re a boy) that
something unpleasant will happen to you if you walk down it. But
you walk down it anyway. Not likely? Actually, it’s very likely
you have already done something quite similar. You’ve started
dating. The unpleasant experience is dating abuse. While many
behaviors constitute dating abuse, they can be reduced to a
single sentence: Dating abuse is any behavior that seeks to
deprive its victim of the independence and respect that the
abuser demands for himself in the relationship. The abuser, in
short, seeks to turn his (or her) victim into a thing—an object
serving the abuser’s ends, with little or no regard for the
victim’s needs and wishes. All dating abuse is aggressive, but
not all aggressive behavior within a dating relationship
constitutes abuse. Acts of physical aggression between dating
partners may or may not stem from eff