I feel like I have “Abuse Me” written across my forehead! Why does this keep happening to me?
Over the years I’ve lost track of how many people have asked me that question.
The first time an individual is victimized, they often take on the responsibility for the abuse. This can be a way for a victim to reclaim control. It is reassuring to believe that changing habits, behaviors, or interactions will ensure that the abuse will not reoccur.
When someone is victimized a second or third time (or more), research shows they are even more likely to feel guilt and shame and to judge themselves harshly. Unfortunately, they are not alone. Family, friends, professionals, and the media often respond to revictimized people with far more judgment than compassion.
Saints, sinners, heroes, villains, the beautiful, the scarred, disciplined, undisciplined, strong, weak, and people of every other type have been victimized. Abuse, whether it is a single or a repeated event, is not elicited by victims; it is perpetrated against them by an offender.
A traumatizing abuse experience will often leave a victim in severe emotional and psychological distress, and sometimes in physical pain. The resulting symptoms, including those of post-traumaticstress disorder (PTSD), are attempts by the body, mind, and emotions to regain stability and to reduce this extreme distress. Ironically, defensive responses can place the victim at greater “risk for later interpersonal trauma.” (Jaffe et al. 2019) These trauma symptoms include: dissociation, alcohol and substance abuse, distorted perceptions, low self-esteem, risky behaviors, cognitive accommodation to on-going violence, learned helplessness or passivity in the face of danger, willingness to tolerate maltreatment in order to avoid abandonment, adaptation to socioeconomic stressors and discrimination, (Briere, 2019) increased irritability and anger. (Jaffe, et al. 2019)
Facts, provided by research, can serve as instruments of kindness.
Jaffe, et al. (2019) stated it succinctly: “The most consistent predictor of future trauma exposure is a history of prior trauma exposure.” A child who is abused is at a significantly higher risk of being revictimized in adolescence and/or adulthood. (Aakvaag, et al., 2019; Zamir, et al., 2018)
These facts, established by scientific research and supported nearly unanimously by experts across the fields of mental health and the social sciences, provide a strong rebuttal to knee-jerk reactions that place blame for revictimization on the innate characteristics of individual victims.
The field of psychology has gone through its own evolution in understanding revictimization. In 1920 Freud published Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in which he identified repetition compulsion as a repeating and reliving of painful experiences in lieu of holding them in memory. (Zamir, et al. 2018) This theory, part of Freud’s developing understanding of human instinct, when applied more recently to revictimization, places the bulk of responsibility squarely on the psyche of the victim.
As the understanding of trauma and PTSD developed in the field, via both research and practice, new theories of revictimization developed based on the impact of an original trauma on a repeatedly abused person.
The facts establish that when a person is sexually assaulted multiple times or in several domestic violence relationships, the cause of that pattern is not some underlying masochism, a characterological failing, or any other personal flaw. All abuse, original and subsequent, is due to the actions of offenders. A victim’s vulnerability to revictimization is often directly related to the impact of inflicted trauma.
A central component to the theoretical models of revictimization, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, was the role of dissociation as a risk factor. (Zamir, et al., 2018)
Dissociation is a defense mechanism that protects the individual by breaking up consciousness to avoid being overwhelmed by an experience, memory, or sensation. This fragmenting can be as commonplace as distraction or daydreaming, or it can manifest more problematically as emotional detachment, numbing, or out-of-body experiences.
Disassociation may provide relief from distress, but when it develops into a behavioral pattern, outlasting the threat of the immediate abuse, it leaves the person increasingly vulnerable. They miss cues of danger and have a disrupted, discontinuous experience of themselves and their life.
Guilt and shame are two distinct, common remnants of having been victimized. While guilt involves the belief that one “should have thought, felt, or acted differently,” shame is a “painful emotion related to beliefs about threats to one’s social position, including devaluation and rejection.” (Aakvaag et al., 2018)
Guilt can increase the risk of revictimization by focusing our attention, in an exaggerated manner, on our own thoughts and feelings, leaving us vulnerable to missing external cues of danger.
Shame often leads to social withdrawal and isolation. (Aakvaag et al., 2018) Decreasing our connections to others increases our vulnerability because while we may be avoiding people likely to cause us harm, we are also losing access to those who would provide protection, support, an increased sense of personal worth, and the expectation of being well-treated.
Shame is strongly correlated with mental health problems in general and with many PTSD symptoms specifically. The Aakvaag et al. findings suggest that shame may be central to the causal link that earlier studies found between mental illness and revictimization.
Kindness and compassion demand that we consistently hold a conscious place for the role of the abuser in any dialogue with or about victims. Experience has taught me that when an abuser is forgotten, the victim is implicitly left to absorb responsibility for the abusive acts and the resulting conditions, thereby increasing the victim’s feelings of both guilt and shame. This pattern is all the more common when the offender is a loved one, providing further motivation for a victim (child or adult), to absorb responsibility for the actions and patterns of the other in an attempt to rescue a crucial, valued relationship.
Source: Dave Lowe/Unsplash
A person who has been victimized needs to heal from the injuries of abuse. Family, friends, support networks, medical, and mental health professionals should be united in promoting that healing for the purpose of restoring health and wellness. A secondary benefit of compassion is the reduction of trauma symptoms, hence a decrease in vulnerability to revictimization.
References
Jaffe, A. E., DiLillo, D., Gratz, K.L., Messman-Moore, T.L. (2019). Risk for revictimization following interpersonal and noninterpersonal trauma: Clarifying the role of posttraumatic stress symptoms and trauma-related cognitions. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32, 42-55.
Briere, J. (2019). Treating Risky and Compulsive Behavior in Trauma Survivors. New York: The Guilford Press.
Aakvaag, H. F., Thoreson, S., Strom, I. F., Myhre, M., Hjemdal, O. K. (2019). Shame predicts revictimization in victims of childhood violence: A prospective study of a general Norwegian population sample. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, Vol 11, No. 1, 43-50.
Zamir, O., Szepsenwol, O., Englund, M. M., Simpson, J. A. (2018). The role of dissociation in revictimization across the lifespan: A 32-year prospective study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 79, 144-153.
Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.Morereferences
Detail from Suzzan Blac’s painting entitled ‘Let me entertain you’ which depicts the sexual and physical violence now commonplace in mainstream pornography
This is an edited transcript of the second part of Suzzan Blac’s talk at the ‘An evening with Suzzan Blac’ webinar we held in July 2021 and the subsequent discussion with Ygerne Price-Davies. The transcript of the first part of the talk, which was about her extraordinary paintings, is in a separate article. You can watch the recording of the whole talk on YouTube.
Of all the harms done to girls and women, pornography is the most damaging and far-reaching, affecting not just the victims within the porn industry, but also women and girls outside of it.
I first saw pornography when I was six years old. It was shown to me by one of my mother’s boyfriends as he sexually abused me. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, every older boy and man who sexually abused and raped me had pornography. And that’s not forgetting the sex traffickers who forced me into pornography. [Editor: Suzzan talks about this in the first part of her talk.]
So, I knew that there was a connection between sex offending and pornography. Over the years, and in my obsession with perpetrators and why and how they could so easily abuse and hurt girls and women, I researched sex offending, rapes, kidnapping, torture and sexually motivated murders and noticed that high pornography use was a significant and prime factor in their offending. I began writing about this in my blog, The Violence of Pornography, in 2016, documenting such cases.
I also read about research on the aggression in pornography. Whenever I posted about this on social media, however, I would be attacked by men. Some would laugh and say ‘You’ve never seen any pornography’. Well, yes that was true, I hadn’t seen any pornography – at least not since I was trafficked into it in 1977. I knew I would be traumatised if I accidently came across any.
So, in 2017 I decided that I had to watch it. How could I speak out against porn if I had never seen any recently? I chose Pornhub, because it was the most popular mainstream porn-site, having 115 million hits a day. I watched and took screen-shots of hundreds of videos on it.
Like many women who don’t watch porn, I had no idea about it’s true content. You just assume that much of it is ‘adults having consensual sex’ with maybe a bit of hair pulling and slapping going on. How wrong I was!
Crime scene videos
I could not believe what I was seeing, I thought that these things could only be seen on the dark web. I watched women being sexually and violently abused, humiliated, degraded, raped and tortured.
These were not sex videos. They were crime-scene videos.
There were women being raped when they used their safe words in ‘kink’ videos and when they were sleeping or passed out from alcohol or high on drugs. There were drug addicted prostitutes unaware that they were being filmed. Women being suffocated with plastic bags, water-boarded, strangled manually or with ligatures. Women being really hanged with ropes.
Many are ‘professional videos’, but a significant amount of user-generated content is uploaded onto Pornhub, often with no consent from the women appearing in it.
I watched one man film a woman standing on a chair with her neck in a noose. He would kick the chair, let her hang for a few seconds, then pick her up, place her back on the chair and do it again. And again. And again.
I watched a tied-up naked female being shot continuously for fifteen minutes by a man with an automatic BB rifle. I watched women’s breasts being tortured with needles, cigarettes being stubbed out on their nipples, and breasts already heavily bruised being punched or stood on by men in heavy boots. I watched women having their genitalia whipped with nettles or being sharp whipped, causing deep lacerations, some were ‘live streamed’ with requests from paying males.
Many of these videos have millions of views and endless derogatory comments along the lines of, ‘Loving the torture and seeing women suffer’.
There were tons of ‘domestic violence’ videos, mostly home-made by men who abuse their wives and girlfriends, filmed on their mobiles.
I frequently came across child sexual abuse imagery, some of real children and also CGI child abuse. I only saw these as thumbnails. I never clicked on the videos. Obviously, I couldn’t research this. I reported it to the Internet Watch Foundation, but never heard back.
There is also a lot of extremely disturbing and realistic CGI bestiality videos.
There were a significant number of men sexually offending outside the home, filming their offences with mobile phones and uploading them onto Pornhub. Offences ranged from up-skirting, secret toilet filming, indecent exposure, to masturbating and ejaculating onto unsuspecting females.
There is an incredible amount of criminal activity on Pornhub and I have evidenced much of it in my blog in the form of screen-shots for all to see.
Pornhub is completely unregulated and violates its own uploading terms. I am happy to say at least they are now being held accountable and have many lawsuits against them.
And, there are so many views. You can’t actually ascertain how many views a video has, because one video might have two million views and is then uploaded with a different title that has 600,000 views, and then another, and so on.
Strangulation (aka ‘breath play’)
I’d also like to talk about how common strangulation is on Pornhub. The kink community have changed the language, so it’s no longer called strangulation. They now call it ‘breath play’, which can mean suffocation or strangulation or hanging or choking. Quite often they call it choking when it’s not actually choking.
Choking is the act of having something stuck in the oesophagus. Strangulation is completely different. It can be done manually or with ligatures or with their arms or legs. It’s extremely dangerous because even for a few seconds it can cause a lot of health issues including brain damage – and that is if it’s non-fatal. It really is extremely dangerous. There are thousands of videos of men strangling women until they lose consciousness, either suffocating them, putting things in their mouth, suffocating them with plastic bags and strangling them or hanging, and I mean really hanging, them.
Rape, donkey punch, incest…
There are other disturbing videos like of rape but they don’t call it rape anymore. You can’t type in the word rape. Pornhub removed that term, but other words that mean the same thing are there – for example, unwilling sex or surprise anal.
There’s hate fuck, and donkey punch where men kick and hurt women and then punch them in the back of the head as hard as they can. I’ve seen women’s vaginas being stapled shut. Electric torture, punch fisting. Women being pissed on, either in their mouths or in their vaginas or anuses and they have women licking toilet bowls. Or, their heads being flushed down the toilet while they’re being pummelled from behind.
The most humiliating and degrading stuff.
There are also tons of incest videos with titles such as ‘No Daddy Stop’ or ‘I’m Not Mommy’. They dress 18-year-old girls to make them look like little girls and put them in child-themed rooms with much older men or sometimes elderly men, like it’s a granddad abusing his granddaughter. There’s a lot of incest, an awful lot of incest, brothers and sisters and so forth.
There are also horrible channels called sexually broken where they destroy women in every way possible.
Normalising and eroticising sexual violence against women and girls
I have documented all these types of videos on my website, The Violence Pornography. I have blurred the genitalia and it is very distressing to see, but I put it out there because I think people, especially women, need to see what it’s like without having to watch it themselves.
My research makes it absolutely clear that pornography normalises and eroticises sexual violence against women and reinforces rape myths. It is common for the girls and women who are being abused in these ways to be portrayed as if they are loving it. As if they’re not really saying no. It is made to look as if they say yes because they’re worthless whores and they love it.
This is extremely dangerous – especially knowing that young boys are watching this kind of content.
I believe that pornography should be deemed hate speech and that it is a violation of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act: the right not to be tortured in an inhumane or degrading way.
I could talk a lot more about pornography but most of it, as I said, is on my website.
Gay men’s porn
Ygerne: I just wanted to say thank you so much, Suzzan, for such a powerful and moving talk. And now if it’s OK with you, I’d like to ask about gay men’s porn. Did you research that and what did you find?
Suzzan: Every time you speak out on social media there are people who love to derail you and that’s one of the many things that was said to me. Gay porn! And I realised that I hadn’t actually watched any gay porn. So it was clear I was going to have to. Believe me, I didn’t want to do it, I really didn’t want to, but it was the only way to get answers.
So, one night I sat down with a big glass of wine and I went to Pornhub’s gay porn channels and typed in the same search words that I had for the women – such as rough sex, unwilling sex, torture, strangulation, everything. And I prepared myself…
At first I was confused because when I started watching the videos, they were lovely, absolutely lovely. The men were kissing. I had never seen any kissing on the straight porn channels.
They were also hugging and caressing each other. They were talking to each other; they were wearing condoms; they were respectful.
I thought I’d probably get to the other stuff later. So, I kept watching. I kept typing in the same search terms. There was one that came up under “rough sex”, and it was this huge hairy guy in leather. He was with another guy, a young guy, who was strapped to a cross and I thought, here we go. So, he gets a whip – but it’s a cat-o’-nine tails that has thick, wide pieces of soft leather – and he flogs him very gently so he doesn’t hardly even turn pink. And then he kisses him.
And I’m like, what? So, I type in torture and most of what I see is being tortured with feathers and tickling. Tickling torture! And it was like that in so many videos.
And I realised that this is the polar opposite of how the women are treated in pornography. There was no hate. There was no degradation; no humiliation; no cruelty; no sadism; no pain; nothing.
So then I did the same thing with trans porn. And again, I watched hundreds of videos and took screenshots and it was like the gay porn: caressing, kissing, and respect.
I looked at casting couch porn. You’ve probably heard of that. In the straight porn, it’s nasty: right from the beginning they start calling her names, humiliating and degrading her, and then some guy comes in and literally throws her about the room and pummels her. In the gay men’s porn, he’s asked some questions and then they start kissing and have normal sex.
The difference was astounding, really astounding and I thought that just proves the misogyny on that platform. It is virulent, it is horrific, and I’m glad I’ve documented it because now a lot of it has been taken down, as you know.
Pornhub has a lot of lawsuits against it as we speak and it took down millions of videos. Eighty percent of its unverified videos were taken down. So, that is some good news. We’ll see what happens next.
Wider implications
Ygerne: I saw that the house of Pornhub’s owner was attacked by an arsonist and burned down.
Suzzan: Yes, I saw that too. In the research I did years ago, I found him. I found that MindGeek owns Pornhub and so many other sites. I found a photo of him and put it on Twitter. Of course, nobody took much notice at the time. It wasn’t until, and I’m glad to say this, a male reporter at The New York Times took this story up, that anything actually happened and then Visa and Mastercard and other companies stopped dealing with Pornhub. So, I’m glad of it.
Ygerne: That’s why the work you are doing documenting it is so important.
Suzzan: I think it is important. Without seeing the images, it’s hard to believe. Images are really important to me – as you can see in my paintings. It’s not that people don’t believe exactly, it’s just that if you’re reading text, you’re detached from the reality. But, when you see images… It’s like, no one believed that the holocaust could happen – no one – until they saw the images and videos of what was going on over there.
It’s the same with everything. That’s the reason I took screenshots because I didn’t believe it. I’d read about it, but I didn’t understand the extent of it and how it’s worse than awful. The misogyny is truly horrifying.
As I said, it’s not about adults having consensual sex – as many people claim. They say that it’s consensual and if a woman likes a bit of rough, it’s her choice. But that’s not what it’s actually like.
And of course, a lot of the videos out there are not professionally made. There are millions of mobile phone videos – taken by men – boyfriends, husbands. I documented that too. It is domestic abuse – but it’s not only that because you’ve got men who are abusers, who are not just filming their wives and girlfriends and putting it on Pornhub, they’re also doing live cams and making money from it.
They’re actually making money out of their wives and girlfriends who are not consenting. And that says a lot about consent in pornography. No one can really tell if the person in pornography is consenting or not. Because you can’t tell if they’re a trafficking victim; you can’t tell if they’re a domestic abuse victim; whether it’s secret filming; whether it’s a minor. Simply no one can tell.
Facebook and YouTube have something like 20,000 to 30,000 moderators working on their sites to get rid of illegal content. Do you know how many Pornhub have? And we’re talking millions and millions of videos, I can’t remember the exact number, but millions. They had 20 or 30 moderators!
That’s a joke, isn’t it? I think they said a moderator can look through about 150 videos an hour. They literally fast forward through them. But they aren’t all in English. There’re a lot of foreign videos there, from all over the world. So, often they wouldn’t even know what the title said or what anybody said.
But, 150 videos an hour, how can anyone moderate that? It’s impossible. But, you know, it’s coming to a head now and people are finally understanding what Pornhub’s about and it’s about time.
Ygerne: The comparison you made with YouTube… It’s like when it comes to porn, the attitude is it’s just a bit of fun, and any criticism of it is deemed to be prudish.
Suzzan: Well, it’s free speech, isn’t it? [Laughs.] It’s free speech, but not for the women who are performing in these videos, or not performing, or don’t even know they’re in the videos.
And as I said, there is so much violence on there. It’s not sex! I’ve been called all sorts of names as you can imagine.
You know, we all like sex. But most pornography is not about sex anymore. It’s now about the humiliation, degradation and suffering of women. They love to punish women and there are millions of these videos, with millions of views, and men who are enjoying them.
What is that doing? What is that doing to young boys? What is that doing to their minds when they see that and they’re looking at it everywhere, including in school?
It’s awful and I think they should ban mobile phones in schools because even my own daughter, years ago when she was a teenager, was traumatised. She didn’t tell me at the time, but she was traumatised by boys showing her violent pornography. And it’s still going on and they’re getting younger and younger; we’re talking 10, 11, 12.
We must put the onus on the perpetrators
Ygerne: I remember getting shown porn when I was in primary school.
So now a question from the audience. What would you advise us to use in terms of language in the sense of putting the onus on the perpetrators? Would you use the word prostitutor to define this person?
Suzzan: Yeah, the problem has always been seen in terms of the victim and the perpetrators are hardly mentioned and that needs to change. The onus really needs to be on the perpetrators. We need to ask why they are doing this and make them accountable. Definitely more needs to be done about that.
Even with victims of murder, women who were murdered, the emphasis is always on her: she was drunk, what she was doing? Why was she out on her own? Why was she wearing headphones, why this, why that? But, not the perpetrator. And why is that?
It has to do with misogyny and, and victim blaming. Because it is women too who are doing this. Women can also be misogynistic. I’ve known that first-hand. Yes, it needs to be changed and we all need to collectively keep fighting for these things.
Ygerne: Misogyny is so engrained in all of us, isn’t it.
Suzzan: Yes. And with domestic abusers, it’s always been why doesn’t she do this, why doesn’t she do that. I’ve experienced it. My sister and my mother have experienced it.
Even though you’re married to that person or live with them, they can still terrorise you and no one understands that, unless they’ve been in that situation. Just because you live with that man, it doesn’t mean it will calm down and be okay.
I have been in that situation and my sister has too. The worst time is when you leave them. That’s when he would threaten. He’s broken her bones. He’s kicked her when she was pregnant.
When I was young and this was going on, she was only 17, 18, I was so used to violence it didn’t affect me, it was normal. In the end, when she would threaten to leave, he would say he was going to kill her and the children. When finally she did leave, he followed her and beat her up in a spa shop, and kicked the hell out of her. Nobody, not one person, said anything. Nobody did anything. They just watched or walked out.
When she fled to a women’s refuge, he came and found her and was swearing and throwing stones at the windows. Then they put her in a caravan with her four children. The terror that she went through hasn’t left her. She’s still not right from it now.
This is what people don’t understand. This is why we must concentrate and focus on these perpetrators.
Impact of watching porn
Ygerne: Thank you so much. We’ve got loads of positive comments coming in from the audience. Gratitude to you for your honesty and resilience.
Suzzan: Thank you. You’re so kind. I appreciate that. It’s worth the hard work.
It has been traumatising work, especially the pornography. For a year I’ve had to take a break because just watching it traumatised me and I was having other effects. For example, I would go to the shops or the post office and I would see different women, I would look at different women, young women, elderly women, all kinds of women and think about what genre they would be in. Every time.
If it’s done that to me, and, believe me I’m not masturbating to this material, I’m analysing crime scenes, because that’s what they are, what is it doing to young men in particular, who are masturbating to this kind of material? And then they’re out in the real world looking at women in the real world, what is it doing to them?
Ygerne: It’s terrifying.
Suzzan: It is and there’s so much to talk about.
I’ve researched serial killers and sexually motivated murders because most serial killers kill women. You can see the rise in serial killers, especially in America, since the early 70s, 80s, and 90s which coincided with the increase in violent pornography. You can see, it’s almost like an exact match.
And their prime motivation is fantasy. Sex offenders say that it’s all about the fantasy. Whatever they do, whether they look through a woman’s bedroom window or expose themselves or want to kidnap and rape and murder a woman, it’s all about the fantasy and this escalation.
What happens is, they start watching what they like to call vanilla porn, although there’s not much of that around anymore, I can tell you, except in gay porn. If you don’t want to see violence then watch gay porn.
They start with the vanilla and go on to harder and harder stuff, and then bestiality. And once they’ve covered everything, they can no longer become aroused and that is when they cross the line into real offending. And might actually film it and import it onto Pornhub.
I can’t tell you how dangerous it is and how many rapes there are a year and sexual assaults – but I bet you money they are rising and have been rising since pornography became so available on the internet.
Ygerne: We’ve run out of time now – so I just want to say, if anyone wants to find out more about Suzzan’s research, you can find it on her website, The Violence Pornography. If there are any parents that have been affected by topics we’ve talked about, we provide some links to some good resources below. Thank you for participating and all your questions.
And thank you, Suzzan, for passing on your wisdom. Good night, everyone, and thank you.
Recovering from sexual assault takes time, and the healing process can be painful. But you can regain your sense of control, rebuild your self-worth, and learn to heal.
The aftermath of rape and sexual trauma
Sexual violence is shockingly common in our society. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 1 in 5 women in the U.S. are raped or sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, often by someone they know and trust. In some Asian, African, and Middle Eastern countries, that figure is even higher. And sexual assault isn’t limited to women; many men and boys suffer rape and sexual trauma each year.
Regardless of age or gender, the impact of sexual violence goes far beyond any physical injuries. The trauma of being raped or sexually assaulted can be shattering, leaving you feeling scared, ashamed, and alone or plagued by nightmares, flashbacks, and other unpleasant memories. The world doesn’t feel like a safe place anymore. You no longer trust others. You don’t even trust yourself. You may question your judgment, your self-worth, and even your sanity. You may blame yourself for what happened or believe that you’re “dirty” or “damaged goods.” Relationships feel dangerous, intimacy impossible. And on top of that, like many rape survivors, you may struggle with PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
It’s important to remember that what you’re experiencing is a normal reaction to trauma. Your feelings of helplessness, shame, defectiveness, and self-blame are symptoms, not reality. No matter how difficult it may seem, with these tips and techniques, you can come to terms with what happened, regain your sense of safety and trust, and learn to heal and move on with your life.
Myths and facts about rape and sexual assault
Dispelling the toxic, victim-blaming myths about sexual violence can help you start the healing process.
Myths and facts about rape and sexual assault
Myth: You can spot a rapist by the way he looks or acts.
Fact: There’s no surefire way to identify a rapist. Many appear completely normal, friendly, charming, and non-threatening.
Myth: If you didn’t fight back, you must not have thought it was that bad.
Fact: During a sexual assault, it’s extremely common to freeze. Your brain and body shuts down in shock, making it difficult to move, speak, or think.
Myth: People who are raped “ask for it” by the way they dress or act.
Fact: Rape is a crime of opportunity. Studies show that rapists choose victims based on their vulnerability, not on how sexy they appear or how flirtatious they are.
Myth: Date rape is often a misunderstanding.
Fact: Date rapists often defend themselves by claiming the assault was a drunken mistake or miscommunication. But research shows that the vast majority of date rapists are repeat offenders. These men target vulnerable people and often ply them with alcohol in order to rape them.
Myth: It’s not rape if you’ve had sex with the person before.
Fact: Just because you’ve previously consented to sex with someone doesn’t give them perpetual rights to your body. If your spouse, boyfriend, or lover forces sex against your will, it’s rape.
Recovering from rape or sexual trauma step 1: Open up about what happened to you
It can be extraordinarily difficult to admit that you were raped or sexually assaulted. There’s a stigma attached. It can make you feel dirty and weak. You may also be afraid of how others will react. Will they judge you? Look at you differently? It seems easier to downplay what happened or keep it a secret. But when you stay silent, you deny yourself help and reinforce your victimhood.
Reach out to someone you trust. It’s common to think that if you don’t talk about your rape, it didn’t really happen. But you can’t heal when you’re avoiding the truth. And hiding only adds to feelings of shame. As scary as it is to open up, it will set you free. However, it’s important to be selective about who you tell, especially at first. Your best bet is someone who will be supportive, empathetic, and calm. If you don’t have someone you trust, talk to a therapist or call a rape crisis hotline.
Challenge your sense of helplessness and isolation. Trauma leaves you feeling powerless and vulnerable. It’s important to remind yourself that you have strengths and coping skills that can get you through tough times. One of the best ways to reclaim your sense of power is by helping others: volunteer your time, give blood, reach out to a friend in need, or donate to your favorite charity.
Consider joining a support group for other rape or sexual abuse survivors. Support groups can help you feel less isolated and alone. They also provide invaluable information on how to cope with symptoms and work towards recovery. If you can’t find a support group in your area, look for an online group.
Step 2: Cope with feelings of guilt and shame
Even if you intellectually understand that you’re not to blame for the rape or sexual attack, you may still struggle with a sense of guilt or shame. These feelings can surface immediately following the assault or arise years after the attack. But as you acknowledge the truth of what happened, it will be easier to fully accept that you are not responsible. You did not bring the assault on yourself and you have nothing to be ashamed about.
Feelings of guilt and shame often stem from misconceptions such as:
You didn’t stop the assault from happening. After the fact, it’s easy to second guess what you did or didn’t do. But when you’re in the midst of an assault, your brain and body are in shock. You can’t think clearly. Many people say they feel “frozen.” Don’t judge yourself for this natural reaction to trauma. You did the best you could under extreme circumstances. If you could have stopped the assault, you would have.
You trusted someone you “shouldn’t” have. One of the most difficult things to deal with following an assault by someone you know is the violation of trust. It’s natural to start questioning yourself and wondering if you missed warning signs. Just remember that your attacker is the only one to blame. Don’t beat yourself up for assuming that your attacker was a decent human being. Your attacker is the one who should feel guilty and ashamed, not you.
You were drunk or not cautious enough. Regardless of the circumstances, the only one who is responsible for the assault is the perpetrator. You did not ask for it or deserve what happened to you. Assign responsibility where it belongs: on the rapist.
Step 3: Prepare for flashbacks and upsetting memories
When you go through something stressful, your body temporarily goes into “fight-or-flight” mode. When the threat has passed, your body calms down. But traumatic experiences such as rape can cause your nervous system to become stuck in a state of high alert. You’re hypersensitive to the smallest of stimuli. This is the case for many rape survivors.
Flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive memories are extremely common, especially in the first few months following the assault. If your nervous system remains “stuck” in the long-term and you develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they can last much longer.
To reduce the stress of flashbacks and upsetting memories:
Try to anticipate and prepare for triggers. Common triggers include anniversary dates; people or places associated with the rape; and certain sights, sounds, or smells. If you are aware of what triggers may cause an upsetting reaction, you’ll be in a better position to understand what’s happening and take steps to calm down.
Pay attention to your body’s danger signals. Your body and emotions give you clues when you’re starting to feel stressed and unsafe. These clues include feeling tense, holding your breath, racing thoughts, shortness of breath, hot flashes, dizziness, and nausea.
Take immediate steps to self-soothe. When you notice any of the above symptoms, it’s important to quickly act to calm yourself down before they spiral out of control. One of the quickest and most effective ways to calm anxiety and panic is to slow down your breathing.
Soothe panic with this simple breathing exercise
Sit or stand comfortably with your back straight. Put one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach.
Take a slow breath in through your nose, counting to four. The hand on your stomach should rise. The hand on your chest should move very little.
Hold your breath for a count of seven.
Exhale through your mouth to a count of eight, pushing out as much air as you can while contracting your abdominal muscles. The hand on your stomach should move in as you exhale, but your other hand should move very little.
Inhale again, repeating the cycle until you feel relaxed and centered.
Tips for dealing with flashbacks
It’s not always possible to prevent flashbacks. But if you find yourself losing touch with the present and feeling like the sexual assault is happening all over again, there are actions you can take.
Accept and reassure yourself that this is a flashback, not reality. The traumatic event is over and you survived. Here’s a simple script that can help: “I am feeling [panicked, frightened, overwhelmed, etc.] because I am remembering the rape/sexual assault, but as I look around I can see that the assault isn’t happening right now and I’m not actually in danger.”
Ground yourself in the present. Grounding techniques can help you direct your attention away from the flashback and back to your present environment. For example, try tapping or touching your arms or describing your actual environment and what you see when you look around—name the place where you are, the current date, and three things you see when you look around.
Step 4: Reconnect to your body and feelings
Since your nervous system is in a hypersensitive state following a rape or assault, you may start trying to numb yourself or avoid any associations with the trauma. But you can’t selectively numb your feelings. When you shut down the unpleasant sensations, you also shut down your self-awareness and capacity for joy. You end up disconnected both emotionally and physically—existing, but not fully living.
Signs that you’re avoiding and numbing in unhelpful ways:
Feeling physically shut down. You don’t feel bodily sensations like you used to (you might even have trouble differentiating between pleasure and pain).
Feeling separate from your body or surroundings (you may feel like you’re watching yourself or the situation you’re in, rather than participating in it).
Having trouble concentrating and remembering things.
Using stimulants, risky activities, or physical pain to feel alive and counteract the empty feeling inside of you.
Compulsively using drugs or alcohol.
Escaping through fantasies, daydreams, or excessive TV, video games, etc.
Feeling detached from the world, the people in your life, and the activities you used to enjoy.
To recover after rape, you need to reconnect to your body and feelings
It’s frightening to get back in touch with your body and feelings following a sexual trauma. In many ways, rape makes your body the enemy, something that’s been violated and contaminated—something you may hate or want to ignore. It’s also scary to face the intense feelings associated with the assault. But while the process of reconnecting may feel threatening, it’s not actually dangerous. Feelings, while powerful, are not reality. They won’t hurt you or drive you insane. The true danger to your physical and mental health comes from avoiding them.
Once you’re back in touch with your body and feelings, you will feel more safe, confident, and powerful. You can achieve this through the following techniques:
Rhythmic movement. Rhythm can be very healing. It helps us relax and regain a sense of control over our bodies. Anything that combines rhythm and movement will work: dancing, drumming, marching. You can even incorporate it into your walking or running routine by concentrating on the back and forth movements of your arms and legs.
Mindfulness meditation. You can practice mindfulness meditation anywhere, even while you are walking or eating. Simply focus on what you’re feeling in the present movement—including any bodily sensations and emotions. The goal is to observe without judgement.
Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong.These activities combine body awareness with relaxing, focused movement and can help relieve symptoms of PTSD and trauma.
Massage. After rape, you may feel uncomfortable with human touch. But touching and being touched is an important way we give and receive affection and comfort. You can begin to reopen yourself to human contact through massage therapy.
A powerful program for reconnecting to your feelings and physical sensations
HelpGuide’s free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit can help you recover after rape by reconnecting you to uncomfortable or frightening emotions without becoming overwhelmed. You can use the toolkit in conjunction with therapy, or on its own. Over time, it can make a huge difference in your ability to manage stress, balance your moods and emotions, and take back control of your life.
Step 5: Stay connected
It’s common to feel isolated and disconnected from others following a sexual assault. You may feel tempted to withdraw from social activities and your loved ones. But it’s important to stay connected to life and the people who care about you. Support from other people is vital to your recovery. But remember that support doesn’t mean that you always have to talk about or dwell on what happened. Having fun and laughing with people who care about you can be equally healing.
Participate in social activities, even if you don’t feel like it. Do “normal” things with other people, things that have nothing to do with the sexual trauma.
Reconnect with old friends. If you’ve retreated from relationships that were once important to you, make the effort to reconnect.
Make new friends. If you live alone or far from family and friends, try to reach out and make new friends. Take a class or join a club to meet people with similar interests, connect to an alumni association, or reach out to neighbors or work colleagues.
Step 6: Nurture yourself
Healing from sexual trauma is a gradual, ongoing process. It doesn’t happen overnight, nor do the memories of the trauma ever disappear completely. This can make life seem difficult at times. But there are many steps you can take to cope with the residual symptoms and reduce your anxiety and fear.
Take time to rest and restore your body’s balance. That means taking a break when you’re tired and avoiding the temptation to lose yourself by throwing yourself into activities. Avoid doing anything compulsively, including working. If you’re having trouble relaxing and letting down your guard, you may benefit from relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga.
Be smart about media consumption. Avoid watching any program that could trigger bad memories or flashbacks. This includes obvious things such as news reports about sexual violence and sexually explicit TV shows and movies. But you may also want to temporarily avoid anything that’s over-stimulating, including social media.
Take care of yourself physically. It’s always important to eat right, exercise regularly, and get plenty of sleep—but even more so when you’re healing from trauma. Exercise in particular can soothe your traumatized nervous system, relieve stress, and help you feel more powerful and in control of your body.
Avoid alcohol and drugs. Avoid the temptation to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. Substance use worsens many symptoms of trauma, including emotional numbing, social isolation, anger, and depression. It also interferes with treatment and can contribute to problems at home and in your relationships.
How to help someone recover from rape or sexual trauma
When a spouse, partner, sibling, or other loved one has been raped or sexually assaulted, it can generate painful emotions and take a heavy toll on your relationship. You may feel angry and frustrated, be desperate for your relationship to return to how it was before the assault, or even want to retaliate against your loved one’s attacker. But it’s your patience, understanding, and support that your loved one needs now, not more displays of aggression or violence.
Let your loved one know that you still love them and reassure them that the assault was not their fault. Nothing they did or didn’t do could make them culpable in any way.
Allow your loved one to open up at their own pace. Some victims of sexual assault find it very difficult to talk about what happened, others may need to talk about the assault over and over again. This can make you feel alternately frustrated or uncomfortable. But don’t try to force your loved one to open up or urge them to stop rehashing the past. Instead, let them know that you’re there to listen whenever they want to talk. If hearing about your loved one’s assault brings you discomfort, talking to another person can help put things in perspective.
Encourage your loved one to seek help, but don’t pressurize. Following the trauma of a rape or sexual assault, many people feel totally disempowered. You can help your loved one to regain a sense of control by not pushing or cajoling. Encourage them to reach out for help, but let them make the final decision. Take cues from your loved one as to how you can best provide support.
Show empathy and caution about physical intimacy. It’s common for someone who’s been sexually assaulted to shy away from physical touch, but at the same time it’s important they don’t feel those closest to them are emotionally withdrawing or that they’ve somehow been “tarnished” by the attack. As well as expressing affection verbally, seek permission to hold or touch your loved one. In the case of a spouse or sexual partner, understand that your loved one will likely need time to regain a sense of control over their life and body before desiring sexual intimacy.
Take care of yourself. The more calm, relaxed, and focused you are, the better you’ll be able to help your loved one. Manage your own stress and reach out to others for support.
Be patient. Healing from the trauma of rape or sexual assault takes time. Flashbacks, nightmares, debilitating fear, and other symptom of PTSD can persist long after any physical injuries have healed. To learn more, read Helping Someone with PTSD.
Authors: Melinda Smith, M.A. and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D.
Complex PTSD (CPTSD) in Teen Girls after Sexual Assault: Diagnosis and Treatment
Sexual Assault Can Affect Victims for Decades: What Type of Treatment Can Help?
Sexual assault is a crime that affects millions of people in the U.S.
The emotional and psychological consequences of sexual assault can cause severe, lifelong impairment. We’ll discuss these consequences and the details of the impairments below, but it’s important, first, for all members of the general public to understand that sexual assault can affect typical physical, psychological, and emotional development, degrade relationships, reduce cognitive function, and have a negative impact on academic performance, employment, decision-making, self-esteem, social functioning, and overall wellbeing.
We identify the event that leads to this broad host of impairments in the title of this article: sexual assault. The mental health disorder that develops as a result of sexual assault is called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In cases of sexual assault, many victims develop a variation of PTSD called complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), which was defined and added to the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11), by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019, and came into effect for use by clinicians in January, 2022.
There’s another thing all members of the general public should understand about sexual assault before we offer clinical definitions, prevalence statistics, and additional data:
Adolescent girls have a higher risk of sexual assault than any other demographic group.
That’s why we write articles like this one. We work with adolescents every day of the year, and we see the consequences of sexual assault in adolescent girls with alarming frequency. We accept girls into our programs for depression, anxiety, behavioral issues, alcohol and drug addiction, and other mental health disorders. While every girl we meet does not have a history of sexual assault, the correlation between girls with mental health issues with severe impairment and girls who are victims of sexual assault is shocking: our goal is to inform anyone reading this article about how we – and they – can help girls who experience this crime recover and rebuild their lives in the face of extreme, painful, and recurring emotional consequences.
[NOTE: We understand sexual assault happens to boys and men, too. However, due to the overwhelmingly disproportionate prevalence of sexual assault among women, and teen girls in particular, we’ll use this time to focus on them.]
First, we’ll define sexual assault, share prevalence statistics, outline the devastating effects these conditions have on adolescent girls, then address PTSD and CPTSD in detail. We’ll talk about evidence-based treatments for PTSD and CPTSD in the last section of this article.
What is Sexual Assault?
The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) defines sexual assault as “sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim.” They identify several types of sexual assault:
Rape, i.e. forcible penetration of the victim’s body
Unwanted fondling or sexual touching
Forcing a victim to engage in sexual acts
Forced sexual acts include:
Being forced to give or receive oral sex
Being forced to penetrate the perpetrator’s body
Now let’s look at the latest statistics on the prevalence of sexual assault in the U.S. We’ll preface this with a figure from a study from 1998, which indicated that at that time, an estimated 17.7 million women had been victims of rape or attempted rape.
Women and Sexual Assault in the U.S.
1 out of every 6 women report sexual assault in their lifetime
66% of victims of sexual assault or rape are 12-17 years old
34% of victims of sexual assault or rape are under age 12
82% of victims of sexual assault under the age of 18 are female
Teen girls age 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to experience rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault
We’ll add another general fact to this series of statistics:
In the U.S., on average, a sexual assault occurs every 68 seconds.
Now let’s look at where sexual assault happens and what victims were doing at the time of the assault.
Sexual Assault: Where Were the Victims and What Were They Doing?
Where they were:
55% were at home or near home
15% were in the open in a public place
12% were at or near a relative’s home
10% were in an enclosed space such as a parking garage
8% were on school property
What they were doing:
48% were sleeping or doing something else at home
29% were out doing errands or going to work or school
12% were working
7% were at school
5% were engaged in unidentified activities
We include these last two bullet lists to drive home a critical point and further dispel an old trope that persist to this day: in almost every case of rape or assault, female victims are not at a nightclub dressed in a miniskirt and tight top. In almost every case of rape or sexual assault, the victim is going about their life, minding their own business, and they become the victim of a crime. In other words, the perpetrator is responsible for the crime, not the victim.
Next, we’ll discuss the consequences of sexual assault.
The Long-Term Emotional Effects of Sexual Assault
As we discuss the long-term consequences of sexual assault and the impact it has on teen girls, let’s not forget the horror of the initial act: while every woman or girl has to deal with the fallout of the experience, it’s important to remember that the incident itself is most often terrifying, violent, and often sends victims into a state of emotional and physical shock.
With that said, let’s consider this next set of facts from tj Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN).
Sexual Assault, Women, and Teen Girls: Long-Term Effects
PTSD, Suicide, and Emotional Distress
94% of female rape victims experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within two weeks of the rape
30% of female rape victims report symptoms of PTSD persist for at least 9 months after the assault
33% of female rape victims report thinking about suicide.
13% of female rape victims attempt suicide.
70% of rape/sexual assault victims experience moderate to severe distress
Work, School, and Relationships
38% of rape victims report school problems
37% report problems with family and friends
84% of victims of rape by an intimate partner report:
Professional issues
Moderate to severe emotional distress
Increased problem at school
Increased problems at work
79% of victims of rape by a family member, friend, or acquaintance report:
Professional issues
Moderate to severe emotional distress
Increased problem at school
Increased problems at work
67% of victims of rape by a stranger report:
Professional issues
Moderate to severe emotional distress
Increased problem at school
Increased problems at work
Drugs and Alcohol
Victims of rape/sexual assault are more likely to use drugs than people who are not victims of rape/sexual assault. Compared to non-victims, they are:
10 times more likely to use any type of drug
6 times more likely to use cocaine
4 times more likely to use marijuana
When we list the long-term consequences of sexual assault, what we really describe are the symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD. As you’ll see in the next section, the psychological, emotional, and social impairments/consequences associated with rape/sexual assault are virtually synonymous with PTSD/CPTSD symptoms.
“This study aims to determine the frequency and structure of CPTSD, and the relationship of emotion dysregulation with impairment and additional trauma exposure among adolescents who have been sexually assaulted.”
The first thing the study authors do is recognize that sexual assault and rape are severely traumatic events that can disrupt self-organizational capacity and result in the appearance and experience of the core symptoms of PTSD, which include:
Re-experiencing traumatic memories
Cognitive avoidance of traumatic reminders
Behavioral avoidance of traumatic reminders
Persistent sense of threat, in the absence of actual threat
The second thing the study authors do is define the new diagnosis from the ICD-11 – which we discuss above – known as complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). When the following three sets of symptoms appear in an individual when no trauma-related cues are present, they meet clinical criteria for CPTSD.
CPTSD: Symptom Profile
Emotion dysregulation:
Heightened emotional reactivity
Under controlled anger
Irritability
Temper outbursts
Negative self-concept
Beliefs about oneself as diminished
Defeated
Worthless
Interpersonal problems
Persistent preoccupation or avoidance of social engagement
Difficulties in sustaining and managing relationships
As we mention above, those symptoms match the post-assault experience of a vast majority of victims or rape or sexual assault. Researchers concluded that CPTSD is a disorder that predominantly applies to victims of rape, but may also appear in victims of torture, prisoners of war, victims of childhood abuse, and/or victims of kidnapping, slavery, or forced prostitution.
It’s clear: CPTSD occurs in response to the most extreme forms of trauma we know about. Now let’s take a look at the results of the study.
Study Results: Prevalence of CPTSD in Teen Female Rape Victims
To measure the prevalence of CPTSD among teen female victims of sexual assault and/or rape, researchers recruited a total of 134 participants. Here’s the make-up of the study group:
All female rape/assault victims
Average age of 15.6 years old
51% had received some type of psychiatric help before the study
32% reported more than on rape/sexual assault
92% of victims reported forced penetration
63% were raped by a person they knew
At two time points – one immediately after the assault and one four months after the assault – researchers gathered data on the following three metrics:
Presence of CPTSD
Further exposure to trauma
Level of impairment
Here’s what they found:
Complex PTSD diagnosis:
59% met criteria for PTSD
40% met criteria for CPTSD
Further exposure to trauma:
After four months:
29% reported additional trauma
9% reported additional sexual trauma
Impairment
60% reported at least one symptom of self-organization in each of the three domains:
87% emotion dysregulation
75% negative self-concept
75% interpersonal problems
With this data, the study authors confirm their hypothesis: the set of symptoms reported by teen female victims of sexual assault corresponds with both PTSD and CPTSD. In addition, the study authors indicate that:
“Emotion dysregulation was significantly associated with further exposure to general and to sexual trauma above and beyond core PTSD symptoms, negative self-concept and interpersonal problems.”
What that means is that the trauma of rape, particularly when compounded by additional sexual or general trauma, can exacerbate the symptoms of PTSD and meet the threshold for CPTSD. That information is important both for the families of the victims and the therapists who treat them: it can help families find the appropriate treatment team, and enable that treatment team to use therapeutic techniques proven to help people with PTSD and CPTSD.
That brings us to our final topic: what treatments are effective for PTSD and CPTSD?
Evidence-Based Support for Teen Female Rape Victims
In total, they found ten studies that analyzed the effectiveness of a wide range of therapeutic interventions. We’ll pull no punches here: the study authors were neither impressed with the strength of the evidence nor the design of the studies they reviewed. Despite spending significant time discussing the relative weaknesses of the studies, they did identify the following treatment interventions that improved symptoms in female rape victims:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)
Prolonged exposure therapy (PE)
Systematic Desensitization (SD)
Brief psychoeducation (PEI)
Psychological support (PS)
It’s important to note that in the context of this study, all of these interventions occurred in conjunction with CBT. Therefore, the study authors consider them all to CBT-based interventions, and determined they were effective in reducing the following symptoms:
General PTSD symptoms, including:
Avoiding memories
Avoiding triggers for memories
Constant sense of threat
Depression
Fear of subsequent rape/sexual assault
Sexual function
We’ll address that last bullet point, since it’s something we haven’t mentioned. In many cases, victims of rape or sexual assault experience impaired sexual function, which can manifest in various ways. This study indicates that all of the CBT-based interventions listed above can help reduce symptoms related to this phenomenon.
The Bottom Line: Treatment for Complex PTSD Can Help Reduce Symptoms
Adolescent girls who experience rape or sexual assault can develop PTSD or CPTSD, two mental health disorders that can cause severe, lifelong impairment. As we mention above, the symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD can disrupt almost all areas of life, including family, peer, and romantic relationships, academic achievement, work performance, psychological and emotional health, and overall wellbeing. The disruption can be moderate to severe, with severe impairment limiting function in all practical domains. In addition, anxiety, depression, and alcohol/drug use may also accompany the symptoms of rape-related PTSD or CPTSD.
Evidence in the second study we cite above shows that CBT-based interventions are effective in reducing symptom severity. The most effective approaches included:
B-CPT: Brief cognitive processing therapy
Prolonged exposure therapy (PE)
Brief psychoeducation (PEI)
Researchers indicate that multi-session treatments in these modalities that take place over time show the most success in symptom reduction. For families with teenage girls who have experienced rape or sexual assault, that’s valuable information. These girls are at risk of lifelong disruption, but with appropriate treatment and support, they can learn to manage the symptoms related to their experience, and live in the manner of their choosing, rather than a life dictated by the result of one – or several – traumatic experiences during adolescence.
