TW: discussion of rape & sexual assault.
This blog post was written in collaboration with a number of individuals. Some have experienced sexual assault either personally or within their family/social groups. In addition to the perspective of personal experience, a Forensic Mental Health Clinician dedicated to working with sexual assault survivors also assisted me in compiling the topics discussed herein. Varied backgrounds, educational level, and ages contributing to this have allowed for a view into the minds of those who have been personally affected by such horrible experiences such as sexual assault.
In this blog, sexual assault & rape will be used interchangeably. Although sexual assault covers more than just rape, I think it would be a disservice to survivors to only include rape in our discussion. Furthermore, victim and survivor will also be used interchangeably. Lastly, the term rapists and attacker will also be used interchangeably.
I will just come out and say it: If I were to be sexually assaulted I would want you all to believe me. I wouldn't want you to believe me because you find me credible. Or, rather you don't think I'd lie about something like that. I don't want you to think about if I have something to gain from it or that I lack a resentful attitude. "Karis doesn't hold grudges like that." I also wouldn't want you to do research or vet the situation. I think this may be the only situation where I'd say deciding for yourself what is truthful doesn't apply. You may be shocked at the statement however the fact is statistically humans do not lie about being sexually assaulted.
Someone you may know may have been accused of such an atrocity and you may think to yourself: "you don't know that person like I do" or "they'd never do that." But, that is the thing about rapists: they aren't statistically the man hiding in the bushes. They are not all the creepy men lurking in the dark waiting to pounce on their next victim. They are not all men. Rapists will not always give you a bad feeling when you meet them. Often, rapists have outgoing, attractive personalities. They tend to be manipulative and know how to read a room. They are people in your life. Relatives, friends, coworkers and acquaintances. People you know. People you wouldn't expect because they do not look "the part" or act how you'd expect a rapist to. A lot of us hold these stigmas in our minds of what a rapists should look like/act and it puts us in grave danger. The truth is, far less sexual assaults would occur if all attackers were creepy and gave us that intuition to STAY AWAY. This is how rapists live among us; they are unsuspecting. They have people in their corner willing to back them up.
Furthermore, you may think: "well they have never been creepy/violent/sexually aggressive towards me." Statistically, rapists are either opportunists (i.e. they end up alone with someone passed out from drinking/drugs - google Brock Turner) or the abuser is one that preys on vulnerable individuals via manipulation or grooming techniques. The vulnerable may only appear that way to the rapist- you may not identify such a person as vulnerable but that is the deranged ability of the attacker to find a victim that will comply in the ways they require to stay undetected. The attacker gathers a good sense prior to assaulting who they would have more of a likelihood of manipulating and who they have could easily prey upon. Attackers often use tactics to make the victim feel safe in their presence. The attackers can also threaten the victim, in either a passive or aggressive way, to ensure the victim feels too insecure to come forward and report.
Again, I'd like to reiterate that you likely have not seen these personality traits obtusely in someone accused of sexual assault. They are able to put on a façade to show people in their life who they do not want to victimize or assess they wouldn't be an ideal victim that they are "good" humans. This means, you need to strip away what you may think you know of a person before rushing to their defense. Reflect. Think deeply about times that person has said something off-colored or made you uncomfortable (not necessarily in a sexual way). They may get irrationally angry at something. They may appear encouraging and supportive. However, when you sit down to parse out these feelings about a potential attacker think about what is factual versus what is perceived and could potentially just be an illusion the attacker has created.
Let us continue this conversation with discussion of famous sexual predators and the people that still stand by their innocence. Famous individuals such as Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, and Donald Trump have "fans" / "followers" that insist on the innocence of these men. However, upon a simple Google search you can find lists of victims that have accused these individuals of various heinous acts. The harmful narrative exists that the victims have accused these powerful men for money or notoriety. The people that perpetuate these narratives are neglecting to think of how humiliating accusing someone of power is. Victims of these individuals have received hate mail and death threats. These victims have been ostracized and their lives/decisions put on blast- whether they took two hours or two years to report. Whether they willingly went somewhere alone with their attacker. So forth and so on. I challenge you to change the narrative to think more deeply about the potential of these powerful men using their status to abuse people rather than victims taking advantage of said status.
People have repeatedly discounted the victims of the aforementioned attackers whether it be that they were too young to have their testimony be trusted, that they somehow through their actions and/or dress were asking for it, or maybe that they held a grudge against the abuser for "rejecting" them and they wanted to retaliate by reporting lies. These beliefs about victims are extremely dangerous. We adopt these beliefs. We internalize them. Most of the time, we aren't even aware we believe them until someone close to home is accused and/or someone we know is doing the accusing. We believe we have a decision to make about who to believe. We make excuses for the attacker and reinforce the cycle that people make false accusations about being raped.
Historically, there have been leaps and bounds made in improvement to credit victims in court. It was once not a crime to rape your wedded partner. Thankfully, we have grown and marital rape exists. Another safeguard was added when it became impossible to bring up a victim's past behavior as way to garner evidence against their testimony. The court of law has adapted and changed as the narrative of victim blaming has been uncovered. This is a great thing. However, we must do the work inside of ourselves so that we no longer perpetuate the beliefs that even the courts do not allow as "proof" of an assault occurring or not occurring.
Ok Karis, you've gone on and on but have yet to present the alleged numbers you alluded to in the caption of this blog. Let's get into it then.
First let me say: obtaining statistics on sexual assault is EXTREMELY difficult. And, they are many reasons for this. I would say most commonly victims are too scared to come forward. God, there are so many reasons for not coming forward that I do not have the time to detail all the ways victims are too nervous to report. The list includes: intimidation, lack of faith in the justice system, humiliation, retaliation and so forth and so on. With that being said, please know the numbers we are about to discuss are likely staggeringly LOWER than what we presently have.
The statistic goes that approximately 2% of victims "false report." Why in quotations? Well, jumbled in with "false reports" are "unfounded" cases where there was no evidence to prove/disprove the assault (i.e HE SAID/SHE SAID). Unfortunately with sexual assaults the liklihood of there being any evidence at all are slim to none. This is due to MANY reasons such as delayed reporting. Contrary to popular belief: it takes courage to report. Another damning false narrative is that victims are quick to run to a police station and report someone. What is not being considered here are the probing questions and the stigma held by interviewing officers that can make the reporting process extremely uncomfortable, and in some cases, humiliating.
In addition to unfounded cases, that 2% includes victims who recant their statements. Again, there are endless reasons for a victim to do this. First could be intimidation by the attacker/attacker's family and/or friends. In addition to that, a victim may recant due to the intimidating process that is the justice system and the court of law. An officer or lawyer may tell the victim that the chances of prosecuting successfully are slim to none. Again, I want to reiterate how very unlikely it is that there is any physical evidence in a sexual assault case. Even more unlikely are there any witnesses- again, I encourage you to read the case of Brock Turner who was literally found by concerned citizens in the process of sexually assaulting a girl and received 3 months in jail. There are people with charges of weed possession (a nonviolent crime) that have received longer sentences than Brock Turner. But, I digress.
We have to look at these numbers and statistics and realize there is so much more to them than what we see at the surface level. We may say approximately 2% of sexual assault reports are false - but now we know, it is less than 2% seeing that there are other categories grouped together not involving false reporting that are included in that percentage.
Ok, what else? What about denial of the event by the attacker? What about those that deny the sexual assault even when confronted with evidence? Our society has done a good job at making sexual assault "wishy washy." Our society has allowed for a grey area to develop so that instead of the law deciding whether a sexual assault did or did not occur, we decide what qualifies as rape or not. We say "she wore this" or "he did that" or "they wanted to initially" or "we were both drinking." The accused do this internally as well. They see their actions as acceptable or even justifiable given the narrative of society choosing to place blame on victims. Attackers can even convince themselves to believe they did no wrong by utilizing societal views of sexual assault. Attackers can reflect on the accusations and convince themselves a rape didn't occur because their particular situation didn't look like what we view as a traditional sexual assault (i.e. the attacker used the cover of night to conceal themselves until the right moment when they could pounce on their victim who screamed "NO" and fought against the attacker the entire time).
The example of a sexual assault I just gave is very commonly not the case in most rapes. While these instances do occur in very small numbers it is harmful to believe they are what occurs most commonly. Most commonly, an abuser is someone that you know. In fact, approximately 73% of sexual assaults are committed by a NON-stranger. Our mental view of what rape should look like perpetuates the narrative that rapists cannot be our friends/family/coworkers/acquaintances - in the narrative I gave rapists are "traditionally" creepy strangers that jump out at us unexpectedly when we are alone at night. If we choose or subconsciously adopt this narrative of stranger rape being the most common it allows for us to use these beliefs to explain away accusations of those we know personally. It closes our view down and creates a grey area where we feel inclined to use our own judgement of whether a rape occurred instead of stopping and giving credit to the victim for being brave enough to come forward at all. For sexual assault victims, even though reform has occurred in the court of law, the odds are still stacked against them. Many victims feel "what is the point of reporting?" The track record of successful sexual assault prosecutions are horrible. The victims will feel they have been violated by the judicial process just for the charges to be dropped due to lack of evidence. Personally, I cannot blame someone for feeling this way.
In my personal life, I work alongside of law enforcement. I have seen case after case be dropped due to the overburdened judicial system. Since I have seen this firsthand, I myself am disheartened by the lack of justice that occurs daily. This alone would personally discourage me from reporting aside from the stigma victims must live with for reporting. Victims are forced to relive a traumatic event when reporting. There are endless reasons a victim may be hesitant to report - so I beg the question: why would someone willingly lie about such a thing and put themselves through all the unnecessary baggage that comes with reporting a sexual assault? The numbers suggest: they do not.
I would like to leave you with these thoughts. I studied Criminal Justice in college and minored in Psychology. I was particularly drawn to abnormal psychology and even was lucky enough to attend a University that had classes on the study of sexual assault. The courses I took were life changing and helped me identify behavior that otherwise I would've accepted as normal from manipulative/gas lighting individuals.
With this background, I entered the workforce in law as a paralegal. I was left unfulfilled aiding big businesses in suing small business. Thus, I begun the dreaded job search. This lead me to the position I am currently in. In my current position, I have attended numerous trainings (by the State Police and FBI) regarding interview and interrogation. In these trainings, I learned again how psychology can help us interview an individual and ascertain whether they are being truthful by applying certain tactics. One of the things I learned was that when confronted with accusations of crime, the criminal (obviously caught) will often admit to SOME wrong doing. This wrong doing they allude is rarely criminal and/or pales in comparison to the over arching accusation. They will say things like: "I did some bad things; but not what you're accusing me of." This tactic is used by the manipulative criminal to deflect and distract.
I challenge you to keep this logic in mind and watch interviews of infamous liars of the past (ex: Bill Clinton). The tactics of acknowledging the accusation and shedding some light on it - that is usually irrelevant but distracting- are often employed by liars to give the impression they are credible and being truthful. The liar will embellish stories with nonimportant, irrelevant details in order to appear more credible. We saw this a lot in Amber Heard's testimony against ex-husband, Johnny Depp. Amber Heard would give these elaborate details but with absolutely no point to them. Random example: I remember standing there with the tears running down my face grasping my jacket and feeling fearful. None of these details are important to the accusation / testimony, however, you find the liar desperately attempting to sound credible by describing something that will pull at your emotions.
I further challenge you to take the previous paragraph and apply that to a real-life situation, such as a sexual assault. The attacker may own up to drinking too much or saying something they shouldn't have (NOT criminal) but will deny allegations entirely. The attacker will hardly ever divulge specific facts because that would allude to truthfulness by the part of the victim. Instead, the attacker will often use blanket statements to explain the accusations away. Furthermore, the attacker will harp on playing the victim. The attacker will plunge into sob stories to make that attempt to pull emotion from whoever is listening. Again, we saw this in the Amber Heard v Johnny Depp trial. Amber Heard would detail events, that often didn't follow or even make sense, to paint herself as the victim and distract from the horrific accusations she was facing.
I do want to clarify something that at its surface may seem that I am contradicting myself. I want to acknowledge that Amber Heard did bring up accusations of sexual assault during her testimony against Johnny Depp. This was not the part of her testimony that I was referring to wherein I stated she employed certain lie tactics. I am not saying she was never sexually assaulted by Depp or anyone else for that matter. However, I am claiming that as a victim herself, as she alleges, she did in fact lie on the stand about other topics. That leads me to say this: there is no such thing as a perfect victim. We never want the victim testifying to lie about particulars regarding any circumstance surrounding their assault. However, there is a stigma of wanting the victim to be "perfect." This reinforces the narrative that a survivor must have done everything "right" to be credible. A survivor might then want to lie about things that make them look less credible due to this false narrative. Victims can have willingly used drugs/ have a drinking problem / lied about something, etc. There is no perfect victim as there is no perfect human. Not every situation is going to be all lies or all truth. People can tell the truth and also be capable of telling lies or even omit something from a story to avoid judgment. Telling a lie in and of itself does not discredit the survivor's claim that a sexual assault occurred. It was not my statement that victims never lie. My statement is that false reporting of a sexual assault rarely, if ever, occurs.
This is what I want to leave you with: fact based research, personal experience background knowledge, and case studies. I poured my heart into this blog post as this topic hits VERY close to home. It is extremely important to me because victims are often the first doubted rather than the first believed. If it was your mom, your brother, your best friend that was a victim of sexual assault you would want them to be believed. You would also want the attacker to own up fully with what they had done. You would cringe at the sight of a potentially powerful attacker obtaining support from the masses just because of who they are/what they do. Often the supporters do not even know the attacker personally before jumping to their defense. Again, we saw this with Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson & Donald Trump and many others that acquired fame and fans stood by their side.
I am of the opinion that I would rather support and believe a victim than ever be wrong by unknowingly supporting an attacker. The attacker may be likeable, in a position of power (pastor, teacher, wealthy) and have the backing of hundreds or even thousands. This can be incredibly disheartening for the victim. The victim's mental health is likely to suffer from a sexual assault all the while their attacker appears to be flourishing with support. The victim is often left feeling hopeless and alone.
Please know, you always have a supporter and confidant in me.
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