Supporting Victims

FACT: Sexual assault is NEVER the victim's fault

I have stated that "fact" a million times, but it needs to be said over and over so people hear and understand this.

Today, on our local TV station and reported in our local newspaper there is a story about a sexual assault victim who shot her assailant (who subsequently died) when he broke into her home for the second time in a week. Her actions are understandable, and everyone needs to support this woman, who must be enduring a roller-coaster of emotions, as she deals with the aftermath of this past week's events. Anyone who has ever been sexually assaulted or sexually abused deals with an immense amount of guilt, self blame, anger, shock and a host of other emotions. It seems obvious, at least to me, that any victim and her/his family would clearly understand that only one person is responsible for an assault and that is the offender. That is not always how victims are perceived, unfortunately, and when that happens it only adds to the victim's trauma. It also deters other victims from reporting if they feel they will be blamed.

When someone is victimized, especially an adult, they are held accountable for every minute action they take before, during and after the assault. If they knew the offender, they are suspect. If they didn't have injuries they are suspect. If they didn't call 911 first they are suspect. If they did call and spoke too slowly or too quickly or too something else they are suspect. If they didn't run or didn't run fast enough they are suspect. Victims can never do the right thing, whatever that is to "prove" they were truly assaulted, that someone forced a sexual act on them against their will. It is frustrating that in 2008 victims are still seen as the reason the assault happened, or they are seen as just not "victim enough".

Maybe we still can't wrap our minds around the fact that sexual violence is not about the sex, it is about power and control. The need to control someone is acted out in a sexual manner. If we could start to see rape and sexual abuse as an act of power, maybe we could stop blaming the victim.

In a recent article in "The Prosecutor" a publication of the National Districts Attorney's Association (NDAA), there is an article that addresses this very issue. The article is called "Prosecuting Intimate Partner Sexual Assault". In this article the author, Jennifer Gentile Long, states, "Rapist do not rape out of sexual desire or to achieve sexual satisfaction. Rather, sexual assault is about power, and, therefore, sex is a weapon and a means of expressing the rapist's aggression or power."

Of course this is all irrelevant to a victim as they were still violated whether it was an act of power or sex. But, to us as members of society, as the friends or family of victims and most importantly for those charged with the investigation and prosecution of these cases, this point is vital. If law enforcement and prosecutors can see the assault through a lens that shows this was about control then they will stop focusing on the sexual activity and be more willing to take these cases to trial. It is their job to show the jury this act was about the offender's need to feed their insatiable desire for control and not about the victim's need to have sex.

When we make that paradigm shift and start scrutinizing the offender's history of controlling behaviors vs. the victim's sexual history, then we will start to become a society that holds the appropriate party responsible for acts of sexual violence...and that is NOT the victim!

Namaste

Tammy