Silent No More: (cont.)
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Because sexual violence--being forced or coerced to perform sexual acts--is fueled by the abuser's need for power and control, those who have less power, such as children, are often more vulnerable. Indeed, children under 12 make up about half of all victims of sexual assault. And not surprisingly, the rates of rape and other forms of sexual assault are higher in poor and urban areas, where so many feel powerless. As a result, experts say, Black women have a disproportionately higher risk of assault.
In recent years, even as overall crime rates have fallen, the incidence of rape and sexual abuse has risen. At least one in four women, and one in six men, will experience some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime. And according to some estimates, as many as one in four young women on college campuses will become a victim of rape or attempted rape, although half of those violated won't think of it as such. That's partly because almost 70 percent of rape and sexual-assault victims know their offender as an acquaintance, friend, relative or intimate partner, and we're loath to see people close to us as rapists. Think about it: If a mugger beats a woman as he steals her purse, she'd report that to the police. But if an associate rapes a woman after she has invited him up for a drink, she thinks about the line of questioning ("You did invite him up, didn't you?") and decides to keep it to herself. The bottom line: Fear often keeps us quiet and can even keep us from admitting to ourselves that we have been criminally violated.
There's the fear of what people will think and what they'll say. There's the fear of retaliation. The fear that you won't be believed. Fear that you'll jeopardize existing relationships. Fear that somebody will go to jail. Fear that you'll be alone. And fear that you actually invited it. The fear can be so overwhelming that many victims of abuse actually repress the memory as a way of coping.
So why are we so reluctant to talk about sexual violence? Well, first we'd have to be willing to talk about sex, which many of us find uncomfortable. "We're certainly not the only group that's silent regarding abuse," says Gail E. Wyatt, Ph.D., author of Stolen Women: Reclaiming Our Sexuality, Taking Back Our Lives (John Wiley & Sons). "But we're the only group whose experience is compounded by our history of slavery and stereotypes about Black sexuality, and that makes discussion more difficult."
Because so few of us tell, nobody knows how big the problem of sexual violence really is. All statistics are based only on reported assaults, and, according to the 1999 National Crime Victimization Survey from the U.S. Department of Justice, sexual assault is reported only about 28 percent of the time, making it the least reported violent crime in the United States. Untold numbers continue to suffer in silence, sleepwalking through their days, alive but not truly living, compressing their feelings so they won't feel pain.
For survivors of sexual abuse, there is no one formula for recovery, but every path to healing ultimately requires that we speak out about the ways in which we have been violated. On the following pages, three women (names and identifying details have