“It will never be me.” That’s what everyone says to themselves when learning about sexual assault. We say, “I will never be that girl that gets that drunk at that party and decides to go home with that random boy.”
But, what happens when you are that girl, got drunk at that party, went home with that guy and cannot make the conscious decision of consenting. We always think we won’t be that girl, but tell that to the approximate 293,000 sexually assaulted individuals that never thought this would happen to them. Each year an estimated of 97,000 college students are sexually assaulted.
Many times in our lives our parents, teachers, siblings, and friends all talk about being aware of our surroundings. When all is said and done no one remembers the golden rule about sticking together and never leaving anyone behind. Sexual assault is not personal until it happens to you or someone you know. We hear this, yet we are reading these words on a page, while we were secure in our loving and supportive educational bubble.
We learned the basic facts about how sexual assault refers to sexual contact that is made without explicit consent from the victim. Our parents emphasized the statistic that two out of three times, sexual assaults are committed by someone we know.
After constantly being reminded of these facts through personal experiences, parents, teachers, and friends, we continue to have a misunderstanding for what sexual assault and rape entail. The Department of Justice classifies sexual assault as a forced insertion in the victim’s body, attempted rape, touching, child molestation, incest and unallowable penetration. Although, rape is not all assault. The FBI defines rape as, “penetration, no matter how slight, of any body part or object, by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” Today’s society uses the term rape and sexual assault loosely, but this matter is nothing to tread lightly.
After years of learning this information, we continue to hear heartbreaking stories of young college students getting sexually assaulted or raped. As bystanders, we watch those coming forward, being labeled as a victim and perceived as “weak” “lying” or “part of the problem.” We question, “Was it the way she was dressed?” or “was she too drunk?” Our generation continues to read these horror stories and instead of having compassion for the victim, we find ourselves questioning the accuracy of the story. Meanwhile, an average of 17.7 million American women and 1 out of every 33 males are victims of sexual assault, and this number continues to grow.
As a young woman that attended a private high school on the east coast, then continuing my educational journey at a large university, there is a frightening juxtaposition. The best years of my young life faced with the harsh reality of 1 in every 5 women are sexually assaulted throughout college life today. Not to mention the statistic that 19% of sexual assaults occur in only the first year of college.
How can the supposed best times of our lives, full of discovery, independence, and freedom, be draped in the horror of an environment participating in the destruction of young women and men, hurting us and ripping the freedom of choice from our body?
But the statistics are real. We have become a society of skeptics. And yet, while empathizing with the victim’s stories, we don’t understand. We don’t feel their pain and what it feels like to not be heard or how to emotionally break free from the violation. It is incomprehensible to imagine having to cope alone and being trapped in our own horrific thoughts; tolerating the false guilt and finger pointing from outsiders as if it was our own fault that we were sexually assaulted. We could never comprehend the pain and suffering that will never leave the victim. That incident will stay with them forever. That feeling is ungraspable to the common bystander unless you are that unlucky girl or boy who will never stop wondering, “why me?”
We would like to believe that we would always do the right thing by stopping our friends from going home with a stranger, assuming nothing will happen. We even are confident that if we were in that position, we could fend off an unwanted approach. Still, the numbers tell us a different story. Sexual assault is progressing and every 107 seconds, another American has been sexually assaulted.
We reassure ourselves that out of all of the sexual assaults, we would be able to brave the violation and to stand up for ourselves. Out of the approximate 293,000 victims, 68% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police and 98% of perpetrators will never see a day in jail. The victims that do come forward to share their story or press charges are often frowned upon and have their story examined, questioned and torn apart as the perpetrator denies all involvement.
