Sexual Violence

As someone who was sexually abused by both men and women and who has very close relationships with male survivors of sexual violence, I am both fascinated and troubled by the themes about gender and sexual violence in traditional media, blogs, and general conversation. All too often, sexual violence is viewed as something that takes place between men and women not something that impacts men and women alike. First and foremost, we’re stuck on the term rape, which is still a very gendered term. Until last year, thefederal definition of rape only covered the forcible penetration of a man’s penis in a woman’s vagina. So when we talk about rape – the Steubenville rape, the gang rape in India, or even the rape problem in general – it evokes male perpetrators and female victims.  Rape leaves out other forms of sexual violence that are equally troubling, like child sexual abuse, fondling, or being forced to engage in sexual behavior against one’s will. The overuse of the word rape and the gendered associations that go along with it leads us to conclude one of two things: Rape is a women’s issue because women get raped. This comes in many forms: Don’t get drunk. Don’t sleep around. Take Back the Night. Cover your drink.  Women are under attack, so learn how to fight back. Travel in packs. Don’t be alone at night. Wear rape prevention underwear. Rape is a men’s issue because men are the rapists. We need to stop raising our sons to be rapists. Men get away with rape. Men should stop raping women. Men rape women because they are men. There was even a recent meme that turned rape prevention tips on its head, but it was still all about men raping women. Some of these perspectives are [...]

As a survivor of sexual violence, I always found it challenging to “come out” to a potential love interest about my history.  It never seemed to come up naturally in conversation on a date. There is no right or wrong approach to telling a date that you are a survivor of sexual violence. It’s a completely personal decision, and you have to figure out what works for you. In college, one of my big motivations for sharing my story publicly at Take Back the Night was to share it with the entire universe of potential love interests all at once, so I didn’t have to tell it again and again every time I met someone new. As the years went on, I experimented with many different tactics. Sometimes, I told people on the first date. Sometimes I told them BEFORE the first date. Sometimes I told them over coffee. Sometimes I told them after a second round of drinks. Sometimes, the relationship fizzled out before I had a chance to share my story at all. On the one hand, I never felt like I wanted to hide my history of sexual violence from dates, just like I wouldn’t hide the death of a parent or a bad car accident. Being a survivor—and the resilience that goes along with it—is such a deep part of who I am. I knew I needed a partner with an appropriate level of spiritual depth, emotional intelligence, and empathy to join me on my lifelong journey of being a survivor. On the other hand, it was a personal story and one that I didn’t necessarily want to share in detail with someone unless I saw a future together. Ultimately, I [...]

Data Breakdown:  The Truth About Men and Sexual Violence (You can view the graphic here.) This convo-graphic is designed to spark conversations and dialogue about men and sexual violence. As with the Truth About False Accusation graphic, this graphic reflects data from multiple sources and required us to make some choices about how to present it to you.  The Enliven Project encourages dialogue and debate, and hope that you will use this graphic to discuss the many challenges we face as families, communities, and society when grappling with the issue of sexual violence. Victims: 22% of men are victims of sexual violence The most recent and most comprehensive study about the prevalence of sexual violence is the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.  According to this study, 22% of men have been victims of sexual violence in their lifetimes.  This includes multiple types of sexual violence including being made to penetrate someone else, unwanted sexual contact, and non-contact unwanted sexual experiences. Perpetrators: 6.5% of men are perpetrators of sexual violence The most recent and comprehensive study of men as perpetrators of sexual violence is one by David Lisak in 2002 called Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists.   This study found that 6.5% of men interviewed admitted to acts that meet the legal definition of rape.  This means that most – not all – rapists are serial rapists, committing multiple acts of rape and sexual violence. There is a lot we still don’t know about perpetrators of sexual violence, but this is the best assessment we have of male perpetration to date.  As Lisak discusses, there are limitations of self-report and the definitions of sexual violence used in 2002 do not reflect our [...]

Consider this: Can you kill someone without being a murderer?  Of course you can. You can kill someone by accident or by being careless. You can kill someone on purpose, either in the heat of the moment, under the influence, or with premeditation. The law allows for these differences, and the crimes are treated differently by the justice system, the media, and the public. Why doesn’t this same logic apply to the issue of rape and sexual violence? First, with murder, no one argues whether or not the victim is dead – regardless of whether the killer planned the murder for months, stabbed the victim in a bar fight, or ran them off the road while drunk.  With sexual violence, this is not the case.  Instead, we decide whether the victim is a victim based on whether the perpetrator used a weapon, was “confused” about consent, or had a prior relationship with the victim. The end result of a sexual assault is always the same:  someone was sexually assaulted.  It doesn’t matter whether it was a first offense or a tenth offense, whether the perpetrator is a nice guy or an evil rapist or whether he or she was drunk or sober at the time.  Someone was sexually assaulted.  And for that person, the impact on their emotional and psychological health is the same.  That doesn’t mean that the “how it happened” isn’t relevant to the perspective of the offender.  It just doesn’t matter to the victim. Second, because the victims of manslaughter or murder are dead, we don’t talk much about how the victim feels or felt about the perpetrator.  We just assume the victim must hate the person because the person killed him/her.  [...]

As a wife, mom, survivor, and regular person until Monday morning, I am overwhelmed and astounded by the reaction and response to the “Truth About False Accusation” infographic, and encouraged by the dialogue that has emerged as a result of it.  Thank you to each and every person who shared it, debated it, loved it, and hated it. We accept and encourage debate on this and any future infographics released by The Enliven Project.  Given the massive amount of media coverage and online discussion about it, I wanted to provide some additional – and more well-thought out – context to the purpose of the graphic and The Enliven Project, as well as to address a bit of criticism about the data we used. The purpose of this graphic is to compare (primarily men’s) fear of being falsely accused of being a rapist to the many challenges around reporting, prosecuting, and punishing rapists. Two key figures drive that point home: A reporting rate of 10% A false reporting rate of 2% The other decision we made was to present data that fell within documented ranges, rather than reflect the findings of a particular report, because of the inherent challenge in collecting data on this issue.  Said another way: at the moment, an argument could be made that every source is flawed in some way.  The reason we pursued a composite approach instead of relying on one study was exactly to spark discussion about the underlying data and definitions, and – perhaps most importantly – the current challenges in data collection. For example – here are a handful of challenges that we encountered while putting together the infographic and, as a result, some limitations of the infographic [...]

One of the key challenges about sexual assault statistics is that it’s nearly impossible to gather accurate and consistent data about incidence and prevalence.  This infographic doesn’t do a perfect job, but it combines data from several sources, both domestic and international. Particularly with sexual violence, the shame and stigma associated with the issue is so significant that it’s hard to count what isn’t being reported.  Think about erectile dysfunction.  Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to know how many people were suffering from erectile dysfunction.  Now that there is a cure, a successful pathway to recovery, people are comfortable talking about it to their doctors and we have much more accurate figures. The purpose of the illustration – and of The Enliven Project – is to provoke new kinds of conversations about sexual violence.  We hope that you have been inspired to have deeper conversations about sexual violence because of what you have seen and read here. For those of you who have asked, here is the background on the stats we used: Some reports suggest that only 5-25% of rapes are reported to authorities.  Other suggest that close to half are reported.  We assumed 10%, which is dramatic, but possible. Of the rapes that are reported, approximately 9 are prosecuted.   Of the prosecuted, 5 result in felony convictions.  This is across the board for all felony prosecutions, not just rape. Assuming that 2% of reported rapes are false and a 10% reporting rate, the graphic assumes that 2 of 1000 rapes are falsely reported (assuming a rape can’t be falsely reported unless it’s reported in the first place) If you have other stats you would like to share, please leave them in comments.  Thank you!

The fear of getting falsely accused of rape just doesn’t compare to the fear of an actual rapist getting away with his or her crime.  Statistics from Justice Department, National Crime Victimization Survey: 2006-2010 and FBI reports.  NOTE (2/6/13):  As so many people continue to visit this site and share this convo-graphic, we’ve updated this post to include the context from this post.   As a wife, mom, survivor, and regular person until Monday morning, I am overwhelmed and astounded by the reaction and response to the “Truth About False Accusation” infographic, and encouraged by the dialogue that has emerged as a result of it.  Thank you to each and every person who shared it, debated it, loved it, and hated it. We accept and encourage debate on this and any future infographics released by The Enliven Project.  Given the massive amount of media coverage and online discussion about it, I wanted to provide some additional – and more well-thought out – context to the purpose of the graphic and The Enliven Project, as well as to address a bit of criticism about the data we used. The purpose of this graphic is to compare (primarily men’s) fear of being falsely accused of being a rapist to the many challenges around reporting, prosecuting, and punishing rapists. Two key figures drive that point home: A reporting rate of 10% A false reporting rate of 2% The other decision we made was to present data that fell within documented ranges, rather than reflect the findings of a particular report, because of the inherent challenge in collecting data on this issue.  Said another way: at the moment, an argument could be made that every source is flawed in some way.  The [...]