The 116 males and 388 females, students at Eastern Kentucky University, represented 94 percent of the students receiving the questionnaires, which were anonymous and confidential. The questionnaire's six sections dealt with demographic information, attitudes toward women, self-descriptions regarding social desirability, and physical abuse. Violent acts listed ranged from throwing something to using a weapon. Two additional behaviors relating to sexual aggression were also listed. Milder forms of physical aggression were more common than the more serious acts. Those with violence experience had usually both committed and received it, were involved in relatively few different types of violence, and first experienced violence when a relationship had moved beyond the casual dating stage. Physical violence was somewhat associated with sexual aggression. Discriminant analyses revealed that men who abused their partners were not readily distinguished from men who did not. Women who abused were more distinct from female nonabusers. They scored low in social desirability, were abused as children, and were from non-Appalachian areas. Similarly, cohabitation was related among women to being a target of violence, as were having been abused as a child and scoring low in social desirability. In all the relationships, most of the violent events were mild and isolated. Tables, recommendations for further research, and 36 references are supplied. (Author abstract modified)