In the course of their lives, many women and girls face sexual coercion and physical or sexual violence. Across the world, such gender-linked violence has been a major focus of feminist movements, beginning in “speak-outs” and anti-rape demonstrations in the 1970s (Gavey, 2009). Until then, it was believed that rape and other forms of sexual assault were rare; rapists were assumed to be violent criminals attacking unknown female victims. Feminists have shown that both these surmises are wrong (Gavey, 2009). Sexual coercion and violence by men against women are not rare. The typical perpetrator of violence and sexual coercion is not a stranger, but someone known to the woman (Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2002).

Feminist researchers view sexual violence as a broad continuum of acts, with rape as the extreme. Thinking in terms of a continuum of sexual violence opens the way to new conceptions of both sexual violence and heterosexual intimacy. For example, many of women's experiences that were previously seen simply as sex might be reconceived as sexual victimization. Furthermore, normative heterosexual practices – both normal male sexuality and normal female sexuality – need to be rethought and re-evaluated (Gavey, 1999). In this chapter we present the work of Nicola Gavey, one of the feminist researchers who have led the way toward such rethinking and reconceptualization. Gavey's way of thinking about and researching issues of heterosexual coercion and violence draws on discursive psychology and post-structuralist theory as well as feminist thought.