Victimizing The Victims!

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If you ask your friends, nearly every knows an incident or more instances in which a woman/girl was sexually assaulted, harassed, threatened, inappropriately touched or even raped.Yet few told anyone about it at the time nor reported it to the police.

Legal experts on sexual assault and rape report that even today, despite improvements in early sex education and widespread publicity about sexual assaults, the vast majority of both felony and misdemeanor cases never come to public or legal attention at all.

This is all too easy to see why. More often than not, women who bring charges of sexual assault are victims twice over, treated by the legal system and sometimes by the news media as lying until proved truthful. Can you think of another crime where the victim is more victimized? I think not!

Generally charges of sexual harassment often boil down to “she said-he said” with no tangible evidence of what really took place unless corroborated by videos or medical tests. But even when there is DNA evidence of a completed sexual act, as there was in the Strauss-Kahn case(dominique-strauss-kahn-case), the accused commonly claim that the sex was consensual, not a crime. And often settled out of court.

The main problem is that rapists are not the only serial sexual offenders. Just witness the all-too-frequent revelations of sexual abuse of children involving multiple victims and persisting for decades even when others in positions of authority knew it was going on. Most of the sexual assault reported in sports, health centres, schools, parties and in religious institutions indicate show that someone in authority knew about them but didn't bother to report first.

For female victims, about three-quarters are assaulted by men they know — friends, acquaintances or intimate partners, according to federal statistics. But less than 30% of such cases is reported unfortunately.

And guess what? Such result of under-reporting and poor prosecution lead to 15 of 16 rapists to never spend a day in jail, according to the network and statistics.

We all know that victims may be reluctant to report a rape because they are embarrassed, fear reprisals and public disclosure, or think they won’t be believed. Ironically overwhelming majority of the Victims often think they somehow brought it on themselves. And worse rape is the only crime in which victims have to explain that they didn’t want to be victimized.

These feelings are especially common among college women and girls who may have been drinking alcohol or taking illicit drugs when raped by a date or acquaintance. The extra fear of been exposed as a drug addict and an alcoholic worsen the situation and deter reporting them.


Those victimizing them, especially men, think the pain is not their problem. Their bodies are not their own. Their voice, even at its strongest, is still weaker than any man’s, no matter how sniveling and snide it's. Such men are there to protect the order, an old order, in which men rule, even when unruly and reprobate.

What those men are saying to all of us is that, for them, patriarchy and privilege occupy positions of primacy in any country. And, when that order is threatened, it is perfectly reasonable that those affected would whine and rage at the possibility of being denied that to which they are owed, as birthright and gender benefit.

This has severely damaged the confidence of survivors of sexual assault, particularly childhood sexual assault, to come forward to the authorities and talk openly about what happened to them. Because they know it would be hard for anyone to believe them. And would only bring forth an ever lasting hurt and pain in their life.

And we hypocritically still have the gall to feign astonishment that people wouldn’t immediately report an attack, instead holding it for a year, decades, maybe even a lifetime.
Majority of the people don’t come forward because of authorities like these on the committee or governance are the ones who will scoff at you, blame you and not believe you.

Many victims may not realize that any form of sexual behavior that is not consented to and that causes discomfort, fear or intimidation is considered sexual assault in most jurisdictions. For example: indecent exposure, unwanted physical contact (including kissing and fondling) and lascivious acts, as well as oral and anal sex and vaginal rape, whether with a body part or an instrument.

A minor — in general, 16 or 17 or 18, depending on the country — can legally consent to sexual activity. Any person, of any age, who is forced or threatened, developmentally disabled, chronically mentally ill, incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, unconscious or preparing to undergo a medical procedure cannot legally consent to sexual activity.

For young children, girls and boys are equally at risk of being sexually abused. However, as they age, girls increasingly become easier targets; among adults, women represent about 90 percent of cases.

The debate of whether rape should be seen as an act of aggression and control or the product of an irresistible sexual urge has long been there. To the victim, the distinction is moot. Rape is an ultimate soul breaker and destroyer of peaceful mind.

Sexual assault consequences can include pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and low self-esteem, self-blame and depression, substance abuse and eating disorders, fears of intimacy, numbness,  nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, difficulty functioning,  borderline personality disorder, unexplained physical problems; and even suicide.

Normality is an illusion. Let's remember that what's normal for the spider is chaos for the fly. We should never normalize rape, sexual assault and any inhumane crime in out society. Furthermore, something bad in our culture shouldn't be normal because it has been like that, but rather it should be questioned and not tolerated at all. For the sake and goodness of everyone.