No Means No: The Fight Against Sexual Assault
By Breanna Heath
Having the courage to tell your story and empowering others to do the same
Carrie Spurlock was just 13 years old when she first experienced a sexual assault.
She started drinking with her aunt at a friend’s house in Kentucky. She had been drinking and decided she’d go to bed. Her aunt showed her a bedroom she could sleep in for the night.
Carrie asked if her aunt would be back up soon. She responded and said that she would. But when Carrie woke up, the person looking her in the face was far from her aunt. It was a man she had never seen before.
“He was on top of me with my shirt up and his hands in my pants touching me in all ways imaginable.”
It took her a moment to process what was going on before she attempted to yell for her aunt. She started to scream but couldn’t move. The man grabbed a knife at the side of his bed and held it up to her throat. He threated her and told her to keep her mouth shut.
It was then when the man’s roommate began to yell for him. He took his hands out of Carrie’s pants and said to her, “You better not say a word. My family owns a major company in Kentucky and no one would believe you.”
He got up to walk out. Carrie was shaking, terrified and crying. He looked back at her distraught face, smiled, and licked his fingers before walking out.
One in five women will be a victim of sexual assault at some point in their lives, according to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization.
Child Protective services found strong evidence indicating 63,000 children a year were victims of sexual abuse. A majority of child victims are between the ages of 12 and 17.
Melissa Holtzman, professor of sociology at Ball State, says sexual assault can be defined as any unwanted sexual contact. According to the United States Department of Justice, sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape
When asked if she reported the sexual assault after it took place, Carrie said that she did not come forward.
“I wanted to act like it didn’t happen, said Carrie. “I was embarrassed.”
According to RAINN, every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted, and every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison.
Rape is the most underreported crime, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, which estimates that 63 percent of sexual assaults are never reported to police.
Carrie was afraid to come forward because she thought she would be judged for something she had no control of. That is the last thing James Duckham, chief of police at Ball State ,wants victims to feel.
Duckham says he wishes more victims would come forward and report. He wants victims to feel comfortable about telling their story.
“Think about if you had this incident happen to you where someone took your power from you, now it’s a police officer, male, knocking on your door and saying ‘You’re gonna tell me.’”
Duckham says there are strategies used to approach sexual assault victims in order to make them feel comfortable and in control after an incident of sexual assault which has the potential to make them feel powerless. The detectives have been through engaged training in order to handle the situation in the best way possible.
So what is the solution? According to Katie Blankenship, victim advocate at A Better Way, a non-profit agency that provides shelter and services for victims of sexual assault, the solution starts with the youth.
“Here at A Better Way we do a lot of outreach into the community,” said Katie.
Katie is one of the victim advocates who goes out to the local schools and talks to students about healthy relationships and consent, described as “verbal, mutual and sober.”
“The reality is they can’t get that message too soon,” said Katie.
As for Carrie, she has moved on and left this traumatic experience in the past, but hopes more women come forward to tell their story and advocate a change.
ONLINE EXTRAS:
For my first online extra, I chose to do a Twitter poll asking people if they had ever been a victim of sexual assault. Twitter is a great place to create interaction and get people talking.
The next online extra I chose was a graphic of sexual assault that revealed the amount of women and men who are sexually assaulted. This would show the volume of the issue and get people interested.
The last online extra I chose was an interactive game. This online game would revolve around consent. The gamer would be given a scenario and have to decide whether or not the person gave consent verbally and if they were in the condition to legally do so. This would help to educate people on how to engage in safe sexual behavior.