Almost a quarter of Australians have inflicted some sort of sexual violence since turning 18, new study shows

More than one in five Australians have admitted to inflicting acts of sexual violence since the age of 18, in shocking figures released by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).

A survey of 5,000 anonymous Australians aged between 18 and 45 has revealed almost 10 per cent had perpetrated sexual violence in the past 12 months.

The age range was picked by researchers to understand the influence of pornography on sexual violence, with participants picked who "were likely to have had easy access to the internet during their teenage and early adult years".

The findings of the study come as the nation grapples with surging levels of family and domestic violence, and a conversation about healthy relationships and attitudes towards sex across the country.

"It's quite shocking to see a number attached to specific acts of sexual violence, which represents how many people in our sample freely admit to having done it," AIC researcher Christopher Dowling said.

"But I think broadly these results confirm what we've long been able to glean from victimisation rates and other research — Australian and international — which is that a notable proportion of adults are perpetrating sexual violence."

Dr Dowling said the figures also confirmed there were differences in the number of men and women perpetrating sexual violence.

Men more likely to have committed sexual violence

The study found 26.4 per cent of men reported having perpetrated sexual violence, compared to 17.7 per cent of women.

"And men furthermore reported having engaged in a significantly greater variety of sexually violent behaviours as well," Dr Dowling said.

There were a range of acts considered to be examples of sexual violence, from pressuring someone to go on dates or have sex, through to the recording and sharing of intimate images and video, and sexual assault and rape.

"Participants were informed at the outset information they provided would be anonymised," Dr Dowling said.

"So I think that certainly encouraged some more honest responses than we would get in other forms of research."

The study did note that "any comparison of men and women on self-reported sexual violence perpetration may underestimate the true magnitude of gender-based differences".

Dr Dowling said there was a better understanding of some forms of sexual violence often reported to police, including rape and other types of assault.

"But in our research, we also looked at how commonly other forms of sexual violence, which people usually wouldn't consider reporting, are perpetrated — such as repeated harassment to sex, emotionally and psychologically blackmailing someone for sex and pressuring someone to take alcohol and drugs in order to have sex with them," he said.

"And it was actually these forms of violence that our research found where perpetrated most commonly – more so than those more physically direct and forceful forms of sexual violence, which you tend to hear more often about and which you tend to see more often in policing and criminal justice data."

Entitlement 'normalised' by media, researcher says

It is behaviour that has enabled by a culture of entitlement, according to senior lecturer at the Reducing Gender-based Violence Research Group at La Trobe University, Jessica Ison.

"These gender norms around what sex is, and that men are entitled to sex from women, and that women need to be pressured into sex, this is something that we have normalised across our media, across our movies."

She is not surprised by the data and argues gender inequality in society helps fuel sexual violence.

"We see that in interpersonal relationships as well. 

"We see that in situations of family violence and intimate partner violence, where male entitlement against victims and including children is really prevalent."

Associate director at the Centre for Innovative Justice at RMIT Elena Campbell believes pornography is also a driver.

"There's a lot of access for young people to imagery and concepts that normalise violence as part of an intimate relationship," she said.

She is emphasising the importance of trauma-informed responses for people who have experienced sexual violence.

"Acknowledging all of the challenges that we see in the criminal justice system, people are still looking to it as a way of kind of stopping further harm.

"We have to make sure that at the very least, to the very minimum that occurs. But we also have to make sure that we are linking people with support that means that they know that they can come forward."

The Australian Law Reform Commission is currently examining justice responses to sexual violence in Australia and is due to provide its final report to the attorney general by January 22 next year.

Hope survey will help breaks down 'sexist and misogynistic attitudes' 

Dr Dowling said he hoped the data would be useful to policymakers in the future.

"The results of this research, first of all, really speak to the importance of broad and targeted primary prevention measures that have the potential to prevent sexual violence that isn't being reported to the police, but that we are seeing in our survey," he said.

"And we're obviously seeing growing emphasis on these measures across Australia, including consent and healthy relationships education, strong messaging around appropriate sexual behaviour and breaking down sexist and misogynistic attitudes, breaking those intergenerational cycles of violence which can acclimatise people to violence and addressing some of the commercial and technological enablers of sexual violence.

"But I think the other point of value in our research is in providing a more accurate and direct measure of perpetration, which can obviously inform the scope of these efforts to reduce it, but critically also can assist us in assessing the effectiveness of these efforts, and of efforts to reduce violence against women and children generally."