Last week Dr. John Foubert came to Wheaton College to speak to the campus about sexual assault and rape. He gave an incredible presentation with a lot of powerful and unfortunately little-known information. I realize this is a problem a lot of us don't want to think about because it's painful to discuss and think about, but a lack of education does nothing but help more rape cases go unnoticed. If we're going to fight something, we need to be informed about it. To that end, I'm outlining the significant points of Dr. Foubert's presentation to get this information out to more people. (In this article 'm using pronouns corresponding to a male perpetrator and a female victim, but pronouns are variable in all these scenarios.)
What if she didn't fight back?
It's not uncommon to hear about rape cases in which the survivor seemingly didn't do anything to stop it. She didn't scream for help, didn't try to fight him off, didn't use a weapon even if one was in reach. To all appearances, the survivor just "let it happen." Does that mean it wasn't rape? Does it mean the man wasn't threatening to her? Does it mean she made up the whole thing?
No, no, and no. I'm sure you're familiar with the fight or flight response, but you're probably not aware of the third response: freeze. It's a phenomenon called tonic immobility, and it's a biological response to imminent trauma that roughly half or rape victims experience. In a physically threatening and psychologically traumatic situation like rape, the body floods with stress hormones like opioids and cathecholamines (which can interfere with rational thought and the order in which memories are encoded, which is why most rape survivors don't react in a way that "makes sense" at first), and in some cases corticosteroids drop so low that the victim is physically unable to move. Sadly this often leads to survivors' accusations being dismissed or declared unfounded. In some cases police officers have refused to investigate the perpetrator if the survivor "didn't fight back hard enough". More often than not those officers aren't malicious; they're ignorant and trying to make sense of an awful situation. If they knew tonic immobility existed they might respond differently. If you want to learn more about the science behind tonic immobility, you can do so here and here, but it's also important to remember that even in cases where the survivor didn't experience tonic immobility, she still might not react the way she's "supposed" to because rapes in real life don't happen the way they do in movies. The bottom line is if the survivor didn't fight back or yell for help, is doesn't make it her fault and it doesn't mean the rape didn't occur.
What if she behaves erratically or changes her story afterward?
In the overwhelming majority of cases, it's not because she's lying, it's because she's experiencing PTSD. Think about it, if you were going to falsely accuse someone of a crime, you'd make sure you had your story straight before you started telling it. As counter-intuitive as this may sound, if a survivor seems confused about her own story immediately after it happens, it's a sign that she's telling the truth. For most survivors, the months following the rape go something like this:
Emergency - This stage usually lasts roughly three months after the rape, and will often involve changes in eating and sleeping habits, anti-sociability, mood fluctuations, and emotionally erratic behavior while the survivor tries to cope with the trauma of what's happened to her.
Denial - Roughly the next three months are typically taken up by denial, which gives the person a break from dealing with the pain of what happened. If the survivor has told other people, she may tell them she made it up, or tell herself that she imagined it, blew it out of proportion, that it actually was consensual, or that it was her fault that this happened to her.
Repetitive/Reorganization - A person can only deny the trauma of rape for so long, and even if denial lasts for a few months, eventually the survivor will enter this stage, in which she reiterates that what happened to her was rape and begins to talk about the details, though they will likely still be scrambled (As mentioned above, the brain encodes the memories of a traumatic event, but they are usually out of order due to high stress hormone levels at the time). This is the point at which survivors most often don't get the help they need. If they pursue legal action against the rapist, a defense attorney will use her changing story or previous denial to impugn her credibility, and even if she's only told friends, many won't understand she denied it and is now saying it happened again, and will give up on trying to help her recover. But this is the stage at which survivors most need the support of loving friends, because if they don't have it they might not reach the last stage.
Integration/Recovery - If given the proper counseling and support, survivors usually reach this stage a year or two after the rape occurred. This is the point at which the person can acknowledge that what happened to her was rape, it was wrong, but it was not her fault, and though she would never want this to happen to anyone, the fact that it happened to her does not make her weak, damaged goods, or unable to have a happy and fulfilling life moving forward.
As Dr. Foubert said, if you hear someone talking about a rape case or serve on the jury of one, and you heard someone say she's lying because she changed her story, "Cut them off before they get the words out of their mouth," and say no, she's not lying, that's PTSD.
How should you react if a friend comes to you with this?
The number one rule: Shut up and Listen. Don't ask her what she was wearing, why she was there, or how she got into that situation; that will only make her feel like you don't believe her and she's being interrogated. Encourage her to seek medical attention and to have a rape kit done if she wants to press charges, but if for whatever reason she doesn't want an investigation, don't guilt her into it. Unless there's a compelling reason to believe that the same person will rape others if not investigated, survivors on college campuses usually have the right to refuse an investigation. And while it's incredibly tempting to take justice into your own hands, so to speak, when someone you love has been violated like this, more violence isn't going to help her, so barring a legal investigation, don't engage her attacker. Encourage her to see a counselor, but don't drag her to one if she doesn't want to go, especially at first when she's still processing the initial trauma. Above all, listen to her, believe her, and be there for her to lean on while she recovers. And she will. As horrifying and repugnant rape is, survivors can and do go on to live happy, healthy, fulfilled lives and have normal, healthy relationships.
I know this is a difficult thing to think about and a disturbing possibility to consider. If you're anything like me, you feel pretty unnerved after learning all this. But part of the reason rape is so prevalent is because people are so uneducated about it. As uncomfortable as it is, please pass this information along to as many people as you can. If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Foubert's work, I recommend it highly. He spoke on several other compelling topics I didn't have space to go into here, like some of the cultural phenomena that contribute strongly to the prevalence of rape, just how often it occurs, and what the legal response usually is, or isn't. You can find out more about him, and pre-order his upcoming book on the relationship between pornography and sexual violence here, We can't change something we don't understand, so if we want to make rape less of a problem, we need to be informed about it. Do all you can to make sure you are, and know that hope for a better future starts with understanding the present.
