Sexual Assault

Sexual harassment results in the sexualization of the victim, who can feel objectified or humiliated. Work or school performance can suffer and it can affect the future career goals of the victim. Relationships between the victim and loved ones can suffer and those who accuse the perpetrator are sometimes the subject of attacks by others. There are widespread losses of trust on the part of the victim. Physical problems can result as a part of being repeatedly harassed. PTSD, social withdrawal, and suicidal ideation or behaviors can occur.

Surprisingly, the victim turned accuser faces problems almost as big as not reporting the crime. Women who work with the accuser are often hostile or simply back off from the victim, which adds to a feeling of isolation. Aspects of the victim’s life are put under scrutiny. They may lose friends as part of reporting the crime. Retaliation is always a possibility the victim can face. Sometimes, however, there will be others who will later come forward to report similar experiences.

Many countries have laws that say sexual harassment is a form of abuse and that it is illegal to do this in the workplace. The European Union and the United States have relatively clear laws in support of the victim and condemning workplace harassment. China and Egypt have also developed laws against it but it remains legal in other places in the Middle East. Most of these laws are relatively recent and there are variable interpretations of what constitutes harassment and what the punishments should be

SEXUAL ASSAULT

In this section and in the next sections, we will talk about sexual assault and the forms it comes in. It involves any act in which a person is sexually touched by another, often without the victim’s consent or because of coercion of the victim. Sexual assault can involve rape, groping, sexual torture, and child sexual abuse. In general, sexual assault involves some type of sexual contact. Sexual contact through a person’s clothing without their consent is considered sexual assault. The definition of consent assumes that the victim is not incapacitated by drugs or by intellectual deficits.

There are several types of sexual assault, some of which are discussed later in this chapter. Child sexual abuse is sexual assault perpetrated upon a child and can include

indecent exposure to a child, showing a child pornography, touching the child’s genitals, or taking pictures of an unclothed child for the purposes of child pornography.

Child sexual abuse leads to PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and an increased risk of victimization later in life. The child may be physically injured and male victims can later be sexual perpetrators. Incest is sexual assault by a family member and is the most common and most potentially serious type of assault on a child, especially if the perpetrator is a parent.

It is believed that 15 to 25 percent of adult women and between 5 and 15 percent of adult men have been sexually traumatized as a child. About 30 percent of perpetrators are related to the victim, while 60 percent are unrelated but close to the victim. Strangers make up 10 percent of child sex abuse cases. As mentioned, parental perpetrators cause the most severe psychological damage.

Child sex abuse is often not reported because the victim is too young to be verbal about what happened, the victim was threatened or bribed, the victim is confused, the victim does not feel like they will be believed, or the victim feels they themselves are to blame. Some feel guilty about the effect that saying something will have on the perpetrator.

Domestic violence can be of a sexual nature or part of a wider phenomenon between members of the same family. Elder sexual assault can be part of this and often involves victims who are weak and reliant on a caretaker. Only about 30 percent of victims will involve the police. Perpetrators can be adult children, spouses, caretakers, or people who live in a nursing facility with the victim. There can be psychological and physical damage to the victim as a result of their assault.

Rape usually involves sexual penetration against the victim’s consent. While rape and sexual assault are sometimes used interchangeably, sexual assault can involve other forms of non-consensual sexual behaviors. Male victims are more likely to be physically injured by rape. Interestingly, acquaintance rape of any kind is reported more frequently than stranger rape. Men are more likely to have had multiple assailants. Rape usually happens to young people, although it can happen to any age of victim. About 18 percent of women experienced attempted or completed rape at some time in their lives.

There are emotional and physical effects of rape and sexual assault, especially if the victim was a child. Learned helplessness, self-blame, anxiety, depression, PTSD, addiction, promiscuity, and social anxiety are part of what the victim experiences emotionally. Physical trauma can be the result of rape but does not have to be a requirement. Many types of sleep, eating, and health effects can come from being assaulted.

The treatment of sexual assault begins in the emergency department, with emergency contraception and STD prevention a part of the early treatment. Victims are sometimes given a tetanus shot if there has been physical trauma. Medications for anxiety are sometimes given and antidepressants are used if depression becomes a problem. Many are treated with psychological therapy, which can be short-term or long-term in nature.

Victims of sexual assault are sometimes victimized afterward by people who blame them or question their credibility. For this reason, some victims are protected by law from being exposed as the accuser. The negative effects of post-assault mistreatment can increase the risk of low self-esteem and PTSD.

Prevention programs exist to combat sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Some programs have been successful in reducing the chances that a victim will turn to sexual aggression themselves; others increase the likelihood that people who are bystanders will intervene if they see abuse happening. Other programs are directed at educating the potential perpetrator.

Data on sexual assault indicate that 80 percent of victims are under the age of 30, with the peak ages being 12 to 34 years of age. Teens are the most common victims. About 89 percent of victims are women, while the rest are men. About 3 percent of men have been victims of either attempted or completed rape at some point in their lives. The risk of rape in men increases with child and prison-related victims. About 68 percent of sexual assaults are not reported at all. Gay men have an increased risk of rape than heterosexual men.

The average age of a rapist is 31 years of age and slightly over half are white. About 22 percent of rapists are married men, although juveniles account for 16 percent of all rape