Let’s talk about sexual violence

Content warning: sexual assault, domestic violence

Once you’ve seen something through a different lens or in a unique light, there’s no turning back. That’s the power of education; everything you read, see, talk about, and say becomes colored by the knowledge you’ve gained, for better or for worse. For me, this experience meant feeling angry on multiple occasions this week about events and media portrayals that might have passed under the radar. It’s no secret to me that society often silences victims’ voices, blames them for the most heinous of crimes perpetrated against them, and discredits their experiences. But how we think about sexual assault and domestic violence (and thus, how we talk about them) is so normalized that I had lacked the terminology to discuss them properly without even realizing it.

knowledge

My first assignment as an intern for Legal Momentum’s National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) was to read its publication about the language used to describe sexual assault and domestic violence (found here). The text highlights 3 problems with our word choice that have serious implications for victims/survivors whose voices lack adequate representation in the media and judicial system because of how language perpetuates false myths and stereotypes about sexual violence.

1. Using the language of consensual sex to describe acts of sexual violence.
You might have read an article or viewed a trending post this week about a Houston middle school teacher who was arrested because she “had sex” with one of her students. This language doesn’t seem unusual because it isn’t. The media frequently employs eroticized language (“they hugged and kissed”) or language that otherwise implies consent (“she performed oral sex” or “they had vaginal intercourse”) because in minimizing the violence and coerciveness of assaultive acts, readers find ways to rationalize and even justify the violence without confronting it in its actuality.

2. Using language that blames the victim/survivor.
A billboard ad for the movie X-Men: Apocalypse has been criticized for trivializing violence against women through its depiction of the villain Apocalypse strangling Mystique. As if the image doesn’t say enough, sometimes it is joined with the tagline “Only the strong will survive.” In a society that lauds strength, power and control as virtues while questioning victims/survivors about what they wore, how much they had to drink, and who they were with when they were sexually assaulted, our language frequently blames the victim/survivor for acts committed by a perpetrator who seldom bears responsibility for them.

*Did nobody find this problematic?*

*Did nobody find this problematic?*

3. Using language that makes the perpetrator “invisible.”
The media coverage surrounding Brock Turner’s conviction for sexual assault brought on a tornado of emotions for me. I was incredibly moved by the letter that the victim/survivor read to him because she confronted Turner so directly, depicting his violence for exactly what it was and hiding none of the pain he caused her. But shortly after it went viral, so did a statement from Turner’s father that claims his son’s dream to become an Olympic swimmer was ruined by “20 minutes of action,” a phrase so distant from reality that I don’t quite know what more to say about it. To further erase Turner’s culpability, his father also refers to the sexual assault that Turner perpetrated as “the events.” When we say a rape “occurred” or employ passive voice to describe how a person “was raped,” we remove the perpetrator from the picture. When we make the perpetrator “invisible,” we make the victim/survivor invisible, too.

It’s much easier to sit with the idea that maybe “it was just a misunderstanding” than it is to believe not only that people perpetrate sexual violence constantly, but also that perpetrators can look like anyone. Dinner-table conversation can continue at its typical cadence without somebody feeling uncomfortable.

I challenge you to feel uncomfortable. What if we all stopped representing non-consensual sex acts as normal, expected, deserved, or natural? What if our dinner-table conversation reflected the prevalence of sexual violence instead of euphemizing it or avoiding its existence altogether? To live in a world where everyone’s voice is heard, we must first be willing to listen. Despite my recent anger, disillusionment, and sadness, I wouldn’t trade this newfound knowledge for anything.

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