When Your Assault *Isn’t* Assault

Trigger warning:  references to rape, sexual assault, violence, etc.  

When you aren’t explicitly raped, it’s hard to get the help you need.  

It’s harder to define what’s happened to you as wrong.  

It’s easier to make excuses for your assailant.  

It’s easier to blame yourself.  

But hang in there.  

Merriam-Webster defines sexual assault thus:  

“illegal sexual contact that usually involves force upon a person without consent or is inflicted upon a person who is incapable of giving consent (as because of age or physical or mental incapacity) or who places the assailant (as a doctor) in a position of trust or authority”

And “contact?”

“the state or condition that exists when two people or things physically touch each other : a state of touching”

and

“an occurrence in which people communicate with each other”

So guess what? 

Sexual assault doesn’t have to involve penetration.  It doesn’t even need to be tactile, really.  Verbal harassment?  A form of sexual assault, albeit a subcategory of its own.    

What does this mean for survivors?  

We need to band together.  We need to recognize that our experiences are different but oh-so-similar.  We need to stay strong.  

We need a support network of people who’ll, at the very least, try to understand— it’s all we can ask. We need a sc

We need a society that realizes our assailant is to blame, no matter the situation.  

We need hope.  

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