Characteristics and associated factors of self-reported sexual aggression in the Belgian population aged 16–69

Abstract Sexual violence is a major public health, societal, and judicial problem worldwide. Studies investigating the characteristics of its perpetrators often rely on samples convicted offenders, which are biased by low reporting conviction rates. Based self-report study in Belgian general population aged 16 to 69 ( n = 4687), we provide lifetime past-year prevalence rates sexual aggression report events, including type, target, applied coercion strategies. Future research should use behaviourally specific questions that take perpetrator’s perspective into account limit interpretation ambiguity could reduce unintentional non-disclosure aggression.