Why Can’t We Speak About Rape?

Corroborating findings of the National Sexual Violence Research Center (1918), the Center for Disease Control (2022) reports that sexual violence is common:

• Over half of women and almost one in three men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes.
• One in four women and about one in 26 men have experienced completed or attempted rape.
• About one in nine men were made to penetrate someone during their lifetime.
• One in three women and about one in nine men experienced sexual harassment in a public place.

Sexual Violence Starts Early

According to the National Sexual Violence Research Center (2018):

• More than four in five female rape survivors reported that they were first raped before age 25 and almost half were first raped as a minor (i.e., before age 18).
• Nearly eight in 10 male rape survivors reported they were made to penetrate someone before age 25.

The Silence About Rape Is Dangerously Loud

The silence about rape reflects the nature of the crime, the victim, society’s reactions, and the interaction in response to it.

The Impact of Rape on the Victim

Rape is a violent crime. It brutally assaults the victim’s core self and the physical, psychological, neurological, and cognitive systems that integrate functioning. In the immediate aftermath, rape is often experienced as an annihilation of the ownership of self — a loss of the self’s ability to act, to make meaning or register what is happening and to remember. Feelings are overwhelming or numbed. Narrative is destroyed. There are no words for what is too horrific to comprehend. In her book, After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back, survivor Nancy Raine writes: “The instant I was free the seed of terror that had been planted in those hours burst open… Words had no referents and no beauty of their own. Memories were drained of meaning because the person who had them no longer existed.”

Shame and Blame

So often in the aftermath of catastrophic trauma, the victim feels shame and blame. This is exacerbated for the rape victim. Having experienced sexual violation and exposure, there is enormous shame, self-doubt, and misconstrued self-blame.

Reporting Rape

The thought of reporting a rape or disclosing the details of the assault is underscored with fear of reliving the nightmare, of further exposure, personal or family embarrassment, or reprisals and disbelief. When one victim in an emergency room was asked who she would like to call, her response was “No one – What would I say?”

Society’s Reaction

As discussed by Sarah Ullman in her book Talking About Sexual Assault: Society's Response to Survivors, society both acknowledges and denies rape. Rape threatens social mores and demands empathy with victims. Accordingly, rape is a crime that has been obscured by legal definition, stereotype, gender bias, and media hype in a way that too often silences victims or confirms their worst fears of blame and re-victimization.

Definition of Rape

In 2012, the federal government expanded “the rape stereotype." The crime had previously been widely defined as assaults against women and girls committed by men under a narrow set of circumstances. The new definition includes, among other things, forcible oral or anal penetration. It includes men as victims of rape and recognizes as rape nonconsensual sex that does not involve physical force, like the rape of people unable to grant consent because they are drugged, very drunk, or younger than the age of statutory consent in their state. This re-definition is a crucial step but it will take some time for the culture (including victims) to look beyond the narrow stereotype. Criminologist Callie Rennison notes, “Rape is the only crime in which victims have to explain that they didn’t want to be victimized.” Too often juries look for an injury as evidence that sex was not consensual, although rape experts report that there are injuries in fewer than half of sexual attacks. The public distances itself from its own fear of sexual violence by discrediting victims, or blaming them for putting themselves in dangerous or vulnerable situations:

• “What was she wearing?”
• "Why would she walk home alone?”
• “He is part of the gay cruising culture.”

Victim Self-Blame

In her book, Talking About Sexual Assault, Sarah Ullman writes that many victims blame themselves and overlook the legitimacy of having been raped, particularly if they have been drinking or using drugs, or were raped by a partner or acquaintance. Given the reality that half of female victims have been raped by an intimate partner or an acquaintance—more than half of male victims report that the assailant was an acquaintance—there is a tragic questioning of the legitimacy of their assaults:

• "I never told anyone – I just stopped dating.”
• "I never called the police – I thought they wouldn’t believe me because I had been involved with him.”
• "I woke up in my own apartment. I was bleeding, I was disoriented. How did I let this happen?”

Self-Care by Victims

As discussed in The Rape Recovery Handbook and on sites like RAINN that address sexual violence, we need to fight the self-doubt and stunned silence. We need to communicate as a society that nothing justifies rape.

Gender Bias

Until now, the only role for men in the rape narrative was as perpetrators. With the expansion of the accepted definition of rape, however, there is finally recognition of rape as a crime also committed against men. The problem for the male victim is that he is still subject to a cultural bias, which expects him to be strong, virile, and capable of protecting himself. An important resource that offers another perspective is MaleSurvivor.org.

Sexual Abuse Essential Reads

How Can Child Sexual Abuse in Schools Be Stopped?

Why Hope Matters After Childhood Sexual Abuse

How Does a Victim Find a Voice and Break the Silence?

Probably the most important step toward finding a voice is for victims of rape to recognize that they have suffered but survived and that they can reclaim their own future. The disclosure of rape, an unspeakable event, is beyond what many can do in the immediate aftermath of an attack, but that need not preclude reaching for help at any time. It is in that first step toward help that a small re-ordering of life can begin.

In the best of situations a rape victim finds the courage to call a friend or family member or the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-HOPE). It is important to find a Rape Crisis Center or emergency room within 24 hours, to receive medical care, counseling, and help with gathering forensic evidence, whether or not a victim ever chooses to pursue legal action. To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.