Sexual assault exists across a spectrum, with nuance and variation that we necessarily must identify if we are to effectively attend to addressing it — we must come to know the pervasive nature of how power and personhood are stolen through force, and acknowledge our structural hesitancy in challenging rape culture.
This article is about sexual assault, and the perpetrators of sexual assault. This article is about how we can collectively take their power away — how we can recognize that power by force cannot last, and that personal power can be reclaimed. This article may be triggering, following grounding instructions (such as these) may be helpful in managing the content.
September 25th, 2018 marked the day that Bill Cosby received his sentencing, following the trial for his sexual assault on numerous women over decades. Witnesses to the sentencing observed that Cosby left the stand as an old man, in handcuffs, with almost no one there to support him. This is the final reality for people who seek and steal such transient power, they are nothing more than human beings, dictators of a crumbling empire, powerless when faced with the unified strength of survivors and advocates. Our primary cultural responsibility toward sexual assault is in providing space and legal support to victims so they can reclaim their power — this must be completed in tandem with challenging how we educate against sexual assault, but the latter is weakened when pitted against the structural inefficacy of challenging and combating rape culture.
The unfolding events relating to allegations against Supreme Court nominee Judge Kavanaugh illustrate how the value of a victim’s self and sexuality comes secondary to the protection of rape culture — not because Kavanaugh is innocent or guilty, but because the reactions that dismiss inquiry into the allegations are telling of how little credence is given to the concept of sexual assault as a major crime. It takes only a little imagining to consider how the nomination proceedings would be halted if a nominee was accused of murder, or manslaughter. Barring child abuse, and the villainous character of a stranger rapist, our culture views sexual assault as ‘something that happened to the victim’ rather than ‘something that defines the perpetrator’. Hearing or reading individuals minimizing the impact of sexual assault illustrates this point, and identifies the seat of rape culture within our psychology.
Sexual assault represents the dehumanization of the victim, by the perpetrator, through a lens of stolen or forced power. It is the weaponization of sex with a means to control sex, and by controlling sex (the act of it, the owning of it) the perpetrator establishes themselves as incarnate power– one can hardly be any more in their body than during the act of sexual assault. Even in the act of killing another human being the perpetrator is manifesting differently than during sexual assault — in killing the exchange is finite, power is used as force to sever the link between personage and the essence of life. In sexual assault the power-aim is in forcing the victim to exist, to be only their body. It is the stealing of a body for the purpose of sexual gratification. Sexual assault represents a pinnacle dehumanization of the victim, the ultimate in objectification. Its aim is to force a person so deeply into their body that they disappear, leaving a sexual object to remain.
This is why victims of sexual assault often report leaving their body; entering into a schism of the psyche to escape the reality of what is being done to them. This also speaks to perpetrators who use drugs or alcohol to subdue their victims — in removing the force of will from a victim the perpetrator is able to usurp personal power, to evict the spirit from personhood.
We are in the midst of a cultural shift, we are collectively uncovering the reality that we can combat the atrocious presence of sexual assault by highlighting it as the fault, responsibility, shame and guilt of the perpetrator. We are slowly witnessing a shift away from victim blaming, slut shaming, rape culture, and apologist misogyny. The #metoo movement is providing a platform and a genesis for this shift, it is directly addressing the process through which perpetrators of sexual assault have used power and force to maintain insipid control over their victims through shame, guilt and stigma. Yet a cultural backlash attempts to reframe sexual assault through a predominantly male lens — pulling the trajectory back toward the minimizing and misogynist etiology of rape culture.
We are in the midst of a transition from 4th wave feminism to the 5th wave — seeing sexual assault of women through a comparative and indistinguishable lens with sexual assault of men. We are witnessing the shift from advocating equality between men and women toward women holding their own power, regardless of how it equates to men.
Sexual assault remains a pervasive and known problem in our culture (1st world and Western), but by no means have we effectively addressed this in a way that serves to eradicate it, yet we are beginning to view it as a spectrum. We are acknowledging that sexual harassment is assault, and that it contributes to themes that underline rape culture and apologist behavior. We are enabling victims to reclaim power by reporting; 4th wave feminism has successfully made use of the internet and social media to move the dialogue into the mainstream.
We are beginning to acknowledge the prevalence of sexual assault and are attempting to distance ourselves from associating male sexuality with sexual predation. The ‘boys will be boys’ fallacy is cracking as accountability is given back to men; as it is demanded of men.
As with other civil rights and social justice movements, turning toward force-obtained power and collectively stating ‘NO, we do not accept this, we will not accept this’ is the antidote to tyranny. It is the undoing spell that turns the tide. The power of such movements is undeniable, but it is also fragile, as the counter-spell is also turning with sufficient force and attempting to re-tip the balance. We see this with counter-movements like All Lives Matter, we see it with the rise of Far-Right and White Supremacy, we see it in the lack of accountability for male perpetrators of sexual violence within government. We see it where those who hold stolen or forced power flail to retain the imbalance that serves them, and we see it within cultural responses that perpetuate and protect abusers.
If we can effectively shift our cultural perspective to acknowledge that sexual assault represents the dehumanization of the victim, then we can more effectively open ourselves to mourning the loss of personhood that is the consequence of sexual assault — rather than ostracizing victims of sexual assault as somehow complicit in the act or responsible for managing the integration of the assault into their identity. We are harmful toward victims of sexual assault when we perpetuate a myth that abusers are somehow other to our culture, that their aberrant behavior is not our responsibility to address. We leave victims with the responsibility of telling us that they are OK, that they have compartmentalized the assault, and are able to return to normal functioning. We revictimize when we fail to take shared responsibility for the lengths we go to in order to not address sexual assault.
If we can effectively shift our cultural perspective to acknowledging the genesis of a perpetrator within our culture asour responsibility then we can move toward humanizing the perpetrator — they are part of our society, representative of our culture and living among us. We create a shroud through which sexual assault occurs when we feign ignorance to the origins of misogyny and rape culture. We collectively lay the foundations for sexual assault in the things we ignore, the things we find uncomfortable to address, and in our failure to challenge the toxicity of power obtained through force.
If we collectively brave ourselves to acknowledge that rape culture is intertwined into our shared culture then we shift the narrative, we bring sexual assault into the open, we disarm the perpetrators. If we are able to hold them accountable then we identify the mechanisms of sexual assault, we make them human beings who have used their body as a weapon. We seat the responsibility within the personhood of the perpetrator, not as a consequence of their sexuality.
We hold them accountable, without apology, and in doing so we are forced to look at how we encouraged and enabled them to dehumanize the body of another person.