Sexual Assault is Never the Victim’s Fault :: Essays Papers

Sexual Assault is Never the Victim’s Fault I could see the fear in her eye, and could feel the pain in her trembling hands. I could sense her discomfort when she talked about the night. I had never known, and never would have guessed, that something happened to her at a party with kids I knew from my school. She told me first. She only told me. She spoke to me about how she can not be in a room with a stranger, or how she feels that part of her died that night. She explained that hugs didn’t feel good anymore, they felt intrusive. She explained that she won’t stay in a room with a male teacher if the other students leave. Every part of her life, she explained, has been changed. She wasn’t the same girl anymore, and she blamed herself for it. Even contemplating suicide, like many victims often do, seemed better than living with the memories. She was too afraid to talk to her parents, because she had drank a little the night of the incident; and too afraid to tell her friends, because they though t that the guy was cool. She didn’t trust anyone anymore, not even her old best guy friends. She had known him; they had been friends in junior high. She knew him†¦ Her story changed me. I would no longer wait for the issue of sexual assault to approach me. I would educate myself about it. I was going to help. I didn’t want to see anyone else have to feel the way my friend did. I joined the Sexual Assault Response Team, and began to fight back. The issue of sexual assault needs to be addressed openly so that everyone changes their current paradigms, or perspectives. People that believe that sexual assault can be prevented, is the victim’s responsibility, or is just miscommunication, are allowing perpetrators too much freedom. Sexual assault is always the perpetrators decision, thus never being the victim’s responsibility, or decision. This is a simple concept, but let me show you how presently we are not acting this way. It is all too likely that each one of us knows the victim of a sexual assault. One in four Colorado women and one in fourteen Colorado men have been the victim of a completed or attempted sexual assault.