Is sexual assault preventable?

It was just a job. I had just turned sixteen, my mom worked at Frank’s for the Memories when she was my age. I wanted to be independent, make my own money, pay for my own gas, be a young woman. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. I was turned into a ragdoll, a brainwashed coward. I was a trophy but an eyesore, his princess but his experiment. I will forever be sitting in a movie theater watching watching a playback of what I endured, over and over again. I am accompanied by his other victims, if there are others, I couldn’t tell you.; it’s too dark. The bruises that have since faded remain permanent in my bones. I no longer enjoy tickling, he liked to do that. I wake up every morning with the thought in my head, only for a split second, do I work with him tonight? I haven’t seen him in over a year, but his face is ingrained in my brain. I haven’t set foot in that restaurant since, yet I still feel like his slave. Unfortunately, in a way, I still am.

In the past couple of years, the United States has had a booming amount of women come forward about being personally sexually harassed. Women are sexually harassed at home, on the streets, restaurants, bars, but one of the most prevalent places is in the workplace.  Predators utilize the ability of threatening the victim to keep their mouth shut, and then treating them with rewards and attention; they mold a way to get away with sexual harassment time and time again. It is not just people in their 20s, 30s, or 40s getting assaulted. Sexual assault happens so easily; however it turns into a near impossible battle. Teens and young adults have become easy prey because they are easily persuadable against speaking out. Vulnerability is the grandest target. Threats make it so heavy, too heavy, to dig for resilience.

Social media can be an anonymous way of saying, “Hey, I need help.” The #MeToo movement has floated to the top of the ocean of hidden secrets and lies. In 2017, this movement was designed to focus on healing as a survivor, guiding women who seek help in emotionally healing, eventually encouraging women to take action. The Me Too movement first started by activist Tarana Burke in 2006, and was later popularized with a hashtag on Twitter by an American actress, Alyssa Milano (Harris). Tens of countries and millions of tweets include the hashtag #MeToo, just picking at the surface of the layer of ice, feet deep, of uncovered cases of sexual harassment. It helps victims to feel empowered, to fight back against their attacker, to finally come forward after months, in many cases, years. As these simple movements spread across the country and globe, more awareness is brought to this serious issue. It does not matter what a child, teenager, mature adult, or an elder looks like, dresses like, how intoxicated they are, sexual assault is not okay. They are never asking for it, never.

He said, She said.

What he said is always going to differ to what she said. The twisted battle of finding the truth to an alleged sex crime might become the most traumatic part of it all. The absence of substantial evidence, the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, and murky emotions cloud the possibility of justice. In an in depth discussion, my uncleexplained to me some of the reasoning behind the loose laws surrounding prosecution of sexual crimes. For one, so many “victims” lie just for revenge or plainly because they had sex and afterwards felt guilty about it. It is often said that women “cry rape” when in need of revenge (Krauker). Unfortunately, countless women do this, hindering the potential justice serving actual victims. Should that be a reason to discount the victims worthy of an investigation?

In the city of Missoula, Montana, 2008 through 2012, one of the biggest sexual assault scandals emerged. Hundreds of young women came forward about heinous sexual acts forced upon them. In a blood boiling novel written by Jon Krauker, several sex crimes are explained in gruesome detail, including painful interviews and investigations. One particular defense attorney did everything in her power to protect a football star, who violently raped a female student in the college town. Multiple football players attending this college were accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and gang rape; investigations were conducted, but the beloved football stars always remained protected. Security footage of a male student leaving with a female’s bloody jeans was not enough evidence. Extensive interviews with tens of people was not enough evidence. Bruises and scratches were not enough evidence. Recorded confessions were not enough evidence. Forensic rape kits were not enough evidence.

Here’s the thing, the offender is always going to try and get away with what he did, especially if he’s young. Excuses upon excuses are thrown around, discrediting anything the victim says, making it that much harder to prove the crime that occured. Judges and juries listened to the lies of the football stars and their buddies and watched the victims get ripped to shreds by the defense attorneys. No matter how in detail she goes, it is looked right over.

“You said you wanted it! You said you wanted it!” claimed one of the alleged offenders (Krauker). Kirsten Pabst went along with his lies, creating a well constructed statement announced in a court hearing. Pabst claimed that the victim only felt regret and was not actually raped. This contradicts the fact that the victim texted her roomate minutes after the rape, stating she had actually been raped. Her roomate watched the agony and emotional pain she endured in the following days and weeks to come.

In a case of he said, she said, he won. The prosecutors failed to investigate to a fuller extent to protect the victim and the potential of reoffense. As this girl’s peers watched her endure such a demanding trial, it silenced so many other victims in fear of being put through the torture of a trial that would never reach a justifiable result.

Correction or Avoidance?

Convicted offenders really only face prison time, probation, or something as small as a fine. This is avoidance, let’s just put them away for a couple years, give them food, water, housing, and, of wait, more criminals to hang out with! The inevitable instigation integrated in prison life encourages criminals to do what they do best, offend. Better yet, let’s put a price on assault, that’s exactly how the state of New York took care of Shane Piche. Zero prison time, $375 in court fees, and his name was put on a list (Casarez). It was his first offense, he was put through a lot with this trial, he’ll be on the sex offender registry for a “long time,” it most definitely did not pass without consequences, cut him some slack, he’ll be a good boy, right?
What are we doing as a nation to help correct unwanted behavior? Well, there’s sex offender therapy. Most don’t even know that sex offender therapy exists. Some offenders are so sick and twisted that they cannot be fixed or modified in any way. Sociopaths and psychopaths feel no remorse and have no sense of right or wrong, this is called antisocial personality disorder (Psychology Today). However, it is found that sex offender therapy actually can have an effect in at least showing them that their thoughts and actions are unacceptable.

Sex offender therapy is designed to prevent re-offense. It was found that therapy paired with stricter parole policies correlated with decreased re-offense. This is huge, this is correction. Maybe empathy can be taught. Therapy consists of identifying cognitive distortions and reframing them to fix them, or teach these offenders how to properly act in society. Challenging perverted thoughts and forcing offenders to reframe essentially conditions them to think in a societally normal way (Dokterman). Some offenders even take medications to lower their sex drive, some attend group and individual therapy, some were too young to even realize the severity of the crime they took part in. Sex offender therapy is offered in some prison correctional facilities, which is a step in the right direction if the justice system is going to let these animals out after a couple years. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that therapy can make.

What else can we do? Aversive conditioning exists and is actually well tested. Ian Pavlov studied classical conditioning with dogs. Naturally, when you feed a dog, he’ll salivate. If you ring a bell preceding every time you give a dog food, unconsciously the dog will pair the bell to feeding time. Ring the bell and there’s no food, the dog will still salivate. Aversive conditioning is a form of classical conditioning. This type of classical conditioning pairs an undesirable stimulus with an unwanted behavior designed to make the person feel an undesirable response (Goodfriend). A Clockwork Orange is a film that best exemplifies aversive conditioning. To try and change the ways of a terrible murderer-rapist-criminal named Alex, prison guards forced this horrendous human to watch terrible crimes that he used to partake in, like rape and murder, while also giving him a pill that would make him nauseous. The psychology behind this states that, if conditioned enough, every time Alex sees or thinks about rape or murder, he will get sick. Although this intense of aversive conditioning is highly unethical in modern day, but ethical versions can be constructed.

Aversion therapy nowadays consists of several different techniques. In cases of sexual offenders, pairing the smell of ammonia or a small electric shock when inappropriately sexually aroused will discourage the perverted thoughts. Aversion therapy should be a last resort, however. If sex offender therapy, medication, and consequences fail, aversion therapy should be court mandated instead of pushing him in a cell for a couple months or years.

Prevent or Punish?

Sexual assault is one of the worst crimes in the book. Trauma manifests itself for years and years. Being taken advantage of, breaking every personal boundary one could have, shattering personal worth, shapes once crisp thought processes into clouded derailments. Functioning with a traumatized brain is scarier than any horror movie to exist, cloudier than a stormy sky, more exhausting than treading water. Do we educate our boys young, or do we enforce stronger punishments? Yes.

All throughout young adulthood, girls are taught to never leave her drink unattended, not to get too drunk, hold your keys between your fingers, if you’re going to be out after dark, go in pairs. Oh! Don’t forget to cover up, you don’t want to seem like you’re asking for it, this includes: legs, shoulders, chest, arms, stomach, and collarbones. Kathryn Stamoulis, Ph.D., claims “...while as a society we make an effort to teach girls methods to avoid getting raped, we ironically do not teach boys not to rape,” (Stamoulis). According to Stamoulis, there are five big rules to teach boys:

Sexual harassment of any kind is wrong. Young boys might think it’s funny and cool to catcall a young woman, calling her sexy, hot, or even just whistling at her to get her attention. In turn, this equates insecurity and body consciousness to her, not a compliment.
Consent laws; Yes means yes. Consent is HUGE. Ask for a yes instead of waiting for a no. The absence of “no” does not mean a free pass, always ask...this goes for both males and females. So many times young boys have no idea that they are raping a girl because she did not say no, but she did not say yes. Educating teens on consent laws could really decrease sexual assault and rape simply because they know how to look for consent.
No one is entitled to sex. Although sex may be all fun and dandy, it is not a right. Sex is not even a privilege. Sex is something that both people absolutely need to agree on and consent to before anything happens, otherwise it could get really messy. Sex is not earned, it is a decision.

Alcohol makes things risky. Alcohol clouds judgement, plain and simple.

You can help reduce rape by speaking up. Speaking up about rape is one of the most important parts. The Bystander Effect states that the more people around, the less likely one will help a victim in need. (Psychology Today). There are hundreds of people in each high school and college, how come no one steps in to help? Surely a generous amount of kids know someone who has been sexually harassed, assaulted, even raped. A study showed that 80% of men felt uncomfortable when witnessing sexual harassment, that’s 8 out of 10 men (Stamoulis). If men are so strong, why can’t they help a vulnerable victim?

We all know that sex offenders often get let off the hook pretty easily. Business CEOs that commit fraud get longer prison sentences than rapists for heaven’s sake. Shane Piche admitted to raping a 14 year old girl. He invited her to his home, coerced her with alcohol, and raped her (Casarez). Piche was taught that rape only comes at one cost, court fees and sex offender registry fees. Probation, fines, and his name slapped on a list, that’s it. I guess that’s the price you pay for rape.

The sickening thought of the rapists walking our streets, without anyone having a clue of who they are, haunts the girls of our society. Males are not the enemy by any means, but 98% of female rapes, men were the offenders; 93% of male rapes, males were the offenders (Stamoulis). We need to educate young boys, it has to happen, otherwise this will never slow down. To put in perspective, for every 1000 rapes, 995 offenders get to walk free (Rainn).

Victim to Survivor.

In a survey conducted by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2017 roughly 391,000 people were raped or sexually assaulted. 93% of the victims surveyed were female (US Bureau of Statistics). I don’t like the word victim. It carries pity and shame that it shouldn’t carry. By definition in the dictionary, a victim is a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. Of course this reigns true in cases of sexual assault, but victim is just, well, bleh. By definition, survivor is a person who copes well with difficulties in their life. Coping is so essential to survival. One who pushes through the pain to become a stronger person paints the best picture of recovery. Recovery is so hard, and that's an understatement. Those who endure such pain, such trauma, are permanently scarred, but there are ways to remove that scar tissue.

A year ago, I scraped up the remainder of the courage and resilience left inside of me, deep down. I really had to look for it. I remember my last day of work with him, I think he knew what I was going to do. The night before, I told my boss that my mom and I had to meet with him about something serious. Jimmy being Jimmy, he probably told Dave--I guess I can say his name now--that something was up. I had already been working at Frank’s for the Memories for nine months at that point, I was a valued worker, of course Jimmy would voice his concern to a fellow manager. I remember clocking in, turning around to find Dave staring at me, that kind of stare, that I want to kill you stare. I was petrified, on the inside. That day he touched me for the last time, we yelled at each other for the last time, I saw his blue, beady eyes for the last time.

For a while, I was a victim, I carried that label for a while. It was almost like it was carved into my forehead, scarring me forever. But it was only written in sharpie, it just took a little while to wash off. I now carry the word survivor, speaking out for others, being other victims’ safe haven for support. Because of the abuse I went through, more and more people feel safe coming to me about their stories. I am always here to listen to whoever needs it. I want to be there for whoever needs it. I want to give my peers the support to find the resilience inside themselves to speak out, to cope, to recover, to survive. I am no longer a victim, I am a survivor.

Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. “Aversion Therapy Uses and Effectiveness.” Very Well Mind, 15 Nov. 2018.

Dokterman, Eliana. “Can Bad Men Change? What It’s Like Inside Sex Offender Therapy.” TIME Magazine, 14 May 2018.

Goodfriend, Wind. “Classical Conditioning in ‘A Clockwork Orange.’” Psychology Today, 8 May 2012.

Harris, Aisha. “She Founded Me Too. Now She Wants to Move Past the Trauma.” New York Times, 15 Oct. 2018.

Harris, Aisha. “She Founded Me Too. Now She Wants to Move Past the Trauma.” New York Times, 15 Oct. 2018.

Hassan, Carma, and Jean Cesarez. “An Ex-School Bus Driver Pleaded Guilty to Raping a 14-Year-Old Girl. He Got Probation.” CNN, 30 Apr. 2019.

Krauker, Jon. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. Doubleday, 2015.

Psychology Today. “Antisocial Personality Disorder.” Psychology Today, 2019.

Rainn. “The Criminal Justice System: Statistics.” Rainn, 2019.

Stamoulis, Kathryn. “Teaching Our Sons Not to Rape.” Psychology Today, 21 Jan. 2015.

US Bureau of Statistics. “Number of Forcible Rape and Sexual Assault Victims in the United States in 2017, by Victim/Offender Relationship.” Statista, 2017.