By Ida Cece
Young People's Press
Let's get this straight.
Every individual has the right to control his or her own body. The body is a sacred treasure that no one should touch, especially in a sexual manner, without consent. It is sexual assault if a person touches someone inappropriately or forces someone else to engage in sexual intimacy against his or her will.
Sexual assault is a traumatizing and degrading experience. It is an act of violence.
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Photo by Richelle Forsey |
Victims have often been made to feel guilty and unworthy of acceptance which causes them to become segregated from the community. Prevailing attitudes towards rape victims are very insensitive and biased, ranging from trivializing the seriousness of the act to the belief that no man would rape a woman without a justified reason. There is no 'justified reason' for violating someone. But there are many reasons why men rape and why society allows this assault to continue.
Most men who rape are sexually and psychologically normal. They are not crazy people who live in alleys and act upon uncontrollable sexual impulses. Contrary to popular belief, the attacker is most often a person the victim knows. He may be a relative, a neighbour, a friend, an acquaintance or a co-worker.
We often question why these men rape women. Men rape for two reasons: control and personal gratification.
Men use rape as a means of expressing their masculinity and the need to feel in control. Many men have the desire to show how strong, aggressive and rational they are. They need to prove these traits to themselves as well as to others. This desire can manifest itself in a man trying to sexually overcome a woman despite her unwillingness.
Personal gratification is an ambiguous and confusing term. A man who rapes a woman in order to satisfy his sexual needs does not necessarily believe that what he has done is wrong. Many men have learned to accept the idea that 'the most successful man, is the man who makes the best bargain, who pays the least for sex.'
When these men rape a woman, they believe they are simply taking sex without paying for it. In their minds they are not degrading the woman or humiliating her, but simply getting the best of her. Men who rape for personal gratification do not necessarily hate the victim, or even lust for her. Almost any vaguely attractive women would suit their purpose.
The primary cause of the prevalence of sexual assault lies within our fundamentally sexist social system. In the past, women belonged in the home and they were the property of either their husbands or fathers. Women grew to believe that if they were good and did just as they were told, everything would be all right. If a woman neglected to obey her husband or father, then she deserved the consequences-even something as traumatizing as rape.
Today, women may not be forced to stay in the home and they are not property, but sexist stereotypes continue to play a part in the rearing of children. The development of separate and rigid gender roles beginning from birth through adulthood is still stressed.
We expect boys to be independent, aggressive, competitive and brave. Girls, on the other hand, are conditioned to be passive, dependent, accepting and polite. Females are groomed for their roles as wives, mothers and housekeepers, encouraged, among other things, to play house in order to prepare themselves for these future roles.
Due to their upbringing, some women find it difficult to take control of their bodies in dangerous situations and fight back. To yell, scream and get physical goes completely against what they were taught as little girls.
Regardless of a man's motives or a woman's upbringing, sexual assault is a frightening phenomenon in our society. It is time for women to take control of their bodies and for men to respect that control.
The time is now.
Ida Cece is 17 years old.
