This week, I was going over what to write for the FSU Her Campus blog and I honestly felt creatively stuck; just because I had so much freedom. Being in such a bind, I thought I’d ask my friends from high school what they thought I should write about. I prefaced it with, “I think I want to write about sexual assault, given the recent events with the girl carrying her mattress around Columbia until her abuser is expelled, but I’m not sure if it’ll be too heavy.” Now I must admit that my friends and I aren’t the most mature band of goons in the universe, and I did ask if it was too heavy for my audience, but seeing what my one particular friend replied almost made me flip out of control. As seen in the screen cap above,
“How about writing about something nice that won’t bum people out?”
Have you ever read something and said, “no that can’t be right,” so you read it over a few more times until the words changed into something you could understand? I did that, but for some reason this time the words didn’t change. I was actually talking with someone who thinks like this? Who just thinks its ok to shove the issue of sexual assault into the pile of “bad news” and never talk about it again? But then I realized that this idea of pushing sexual assault underneath the carpet happens all the time, even recently at our own university. It’s important for college students today to know that saying “sexual assault” doesn’t work the same way saying “Beetlejuice” three times does, and acknowledging it as an issue can be the first step in destroying it as a problem in the first place.
According to a recent study from the journal Gender & Society, 44% of sexual assault victims are under the age of 18 and 60% of sexual assaults are not reported. An article in Sociologists for Women in Society by Andreea Nica states that young girls believe that sexual violence and assault are just “parts of life.” These obviously startling and horrific facts usually fall on deaf ears. Actually, more accurately, on ears with fingers in them and a person saying, “NA NA NA NA!” But in all seriousness, why has society created such a “hush hush” mentality around such a harmful crime that even the survivors of it don’t even tell anyone? Well there are some obvious theories:
1. Survivors are given a bad rep
We’ve all seen those posts of horrible daily reactions to survivors of sexual assault on our Tumblr dashboards, like, “if you were my daughter, I would have killed you,” and “Well he said he didn’t do it, so there’s nothing we can do.” And male survivors are frequently seen by society as “weak” or “lucky” rather than as a victim, and are afraid to admit to having been sexually assaulted. When we attack people who’ve just been attacked, we’re creating an idea that bad people doing bad things to you is your business, which makes everyone seem a little quieter about possibly dangerous events.
2. Sex
Just by signing onto Yikyak on FSU’s campus, you’ll find plenty of randoms applauding men and women being more comfortable in their bodies and telling them how beautiful they are, and the next morning both sides talking about the night before, usually one side claiming it was significantly more exciting than the other. It’s a story we Collegiettes see almost everyday on our phones, and most of us laugh it off because we are very comfortable with the topic. But unfortunately, not everyone feels the way we do. Sex is a sensitive topic for a lot of people and is frequently idolized and considered extremely private. So when a survivor talks about how someone used sex in a negative way, people get very uncomfortable, confused, and tend to lean toward a topic that they feel more at home with, which leads me to my last point:
3. It makes people sad
It’s a sad thing, hearing about another person hurt by someone else. In all honesty, it “bums people out” because they don’t like thinking about how generally beautiful and romantic things could be used in such a negative and hurtful way. After my friend’s shocking statement, they asked about the girl at Columbia. My other friend quite eloquently explained the purpose of her actions, factually and honestly and when he was done my original friend replied with a “:c” and quickly changed the subject to “maybe you should write about diets.”
Of course sexual assault isn’t a happy topic, but that’s the point. It doesn’t make anyone giggle and no amount of GIF’s can make this article anymore fun, but we don’t have to be afraid of sexual assault. If we address it as a problem, it’ll stop being a problem. As the popular sexual assault awareness organization says, No More. No More pretending it doesn’t exist. Let’s get to work on how to fix this.
First of all, if you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, don’t just pretend like it’ll get better or go away because it doesn’t—not without help, anyway. Olivia Benson on Law & Order SVU literally says that all the time, and we can’t just ignore the wise words of Mariska Hargitay. Tell someone, tell everyone. Don’t let people run away from the truth of an event. You can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1800-656-HOPE or even check out the Victim’s Advocacy Programs here on campus in the University Center.
Secondly, don’t think it’s ok that sexual assault happens. Don’t just shrug and say, “boys will be boys, its just part of their DNA.” You always have a choice to do or not do something. Always.
And finally, don’t run and hide from people trying to make something horrible better; that only makes it seem like it’s a bad thing to be fighting for in general. We get angry at murders, at thieves, at frauds, and we band together as a nation saying that it’s not right. Sexual assaulters are all of these things, and we frequently shy away if there isn’t any physical evidence pointing to the harm it causes just because it makes us uncomfortable. No longer can we just focus on the “nice” things and pretend like bad things aren’t happening. Because if we do, we’ll have a lot more people who are seriously bummed.
Resources:
http://www.socwomen.org/pr2-sex-violence-norm/
http://www.victimadvocate.fsu.edu/Victim-Resources/Types-of-Victimizatio…