Understanding Traumatic Responses to Sexual Violence: A Response to “The FBI Tried To Use The #metoo Moment…”

Tuck Swords
Sep 6, 2018 · 7 min read

While reading The Intercept’s “The FBI Tried To Use The #metoo Moment To Pressure An Environmental Activist Into Becoming An Informant,” I found myself wondering why the authors neglected to include information about traumatic reactions after sexual violence. After taking the time to interview Mariam Rauf at Sakhi and offering information about common tactics used by abusers, I was frustrated by the lack of attention given to how survivors commonly respond to trauma and navigate the aftermath of sexual violence. I have worked supporting survivors of sexual violence in numerous capacities, most recently as an advocate in a community-based non-profit, providing in-person support to people immediately after sexual assault and in the days, months, and years following. In this same organization, it was also my responsibility to train volunteers and new advocates and a significant part of my training consisted of understanding trauma and trauma reactions in order to provide effective survivor-centered support.

When a survivor discloses sexual violence within an enclosed community, such as an activist working group, the community is then tasked with how to respond to this disclosure. Very often, community members examine various recollections of relevant events and relationships in order to determine the validity of the disclosure and then decide upon the most appropriate course of action. As sexual assault typically takes place with no or few witnesses, a survivor’s behavior before and after sexual assault is often treated as part of the evidence of whether or not sexual violence really occurred. For example, if a survivor continues a relationship with a perpetrator after an incident of sexual assault, this may be presented as evidence that the assault did not really occur or was not as severe as was later disclosed. This kind of examination is visible in this article as Henry shares the details of her relationship with Coronado and her reactions the morning after the sexual assault perpetrated by Coronado in the motel. The various people that she interacted with and Coronado himself also share their recollections of those events. This information is presented to us, as readers, as part of the overall picture of the events culminating in the FBI’s targeted pressure of Henry. However, to present this picture without also providing information about common reactions to the trauma of sexual violence does a disservice to survivors and does not provide us with the tools we need to understand sexual violence as a community. Without this information, we are ill-prepared to support survivors and navigate sexual violence ethically as it arises in our communities.

Dr. Rebecca Campbell, a professor of psychology and community-based researcher on sexual violence, has conducted extensive research on survivors’ responses to sexual assault. She uses this research to help train first-responders, such as law enforcement, in how to interview survivors. This specialized training is often very different than the training that first-responders typically receive in assessing emergency and criminal situations. Without this training, first-responders often misperceive common survivor reactions to trauma as proof that the survivor is lying. Campbell’s work gives us a useful lens to understand behavior and reactions after sexual violence that may otherwise be confusing.

Research into how the brain reacts to trauma indicates that a mix of hormones is released in great quantity during a traumatic event, chiefly catecholamines, cortisol, oxytocin, and opiates. Each of these hormones affects the brain in different ways and, by extension, an individual’s behavior. Catecholamines, for example, can induce a fight-flight-or-freeze response, creating an autonomic physiological response that is outside of voluntary control. Research indicates that 12–50 percent, with most studies leaning towards 50 percent, of sexual assault survivors experience tonic immobility during sexual assault, meaning that a person is unable to move. This reaction may be more common for people who have been sexually assaulted prior to the current event. Catecholamines, even at low levels, can also interfere with the part of the brain that assists in rational decision-making. This means that a non-traumatized person — and even the survivor themself at a later point — might look at a situation and wonder why the survivor said, did, or didn’t do certain things. As people who did not experience that specific traumatic event, we might find it difficult to understand and empathize with a survivor’s course of action during and following sexual violence. However, it is important to understand that part of what was happening for a survivor was a neurobiological response to trauma.

Another part of the brain affected by the hormones released during sexual assault is that which is responsible for the encoding and consolidation of memory. As a result of this hormonal interference, traumatic memories are often stored and consolidated in the brain in a fragmented and disorganized way. The accuracy of these memories is not affected, but it can make it difficult for survivors to recall the events linearly. Some details may only become available to the survivor over time, sometimes arising much later. This can appear to outsiders as suspicious, as we assume that the details of an event as significant as sexual violence would be highly memorable and therefore immediately accessible. Campbell’s training focuses on this aspect because law enforcement are trained to catch people in lies and this kind of recall may seem to be evidence of lying. But this too is another part of how the brain is affected by trauma.

One of the persistent myths that affects our ability to understand the dynamics of sexual violence and support survivors is the idea that sexual assault will be more traumatizing the more brutal and life-threatening the events are perceived to be by us, as outsiders. As a culture, we give a lot of leeway to the “grey areas” of sexual interaction and assume that some violations of consent are worse than others. However, we know from survivors’ own reports and from research into the brain’s reaction to sexual violence that sexual assault is experienced by the body as such a profound act of violence and transgression that it is traumatizing even in absence of other life-threatening, violent, or brutal elements. Simultaneously, the high levels of opiates released during a sexual assault can affect how someone expresses emotions during and after an assault which can cause an emotional reaction that is very flat and emotionless. We should not take this as evidence that the survivor is not deeply emotionally affected by what has taken place because this is another common, physiologically-based reaction to trauma. All of this means that we cannot determine how traumatizing a particular event was based on our own assessment of how dangerous or horrifying we think it would have been or how appropriately we perceive the survivor to be reacting — we have to trust and believe survivors’ own reports of what happened and how it affected them. It is much more likely that someone was sexually assaulted than that they would fabricate that information.

Culturally, we continue to be plagued by this myth that people commonly lie about sexual violence for personal gain. Even when the concerns driving our investigation into an incident or incidents of sexual abuse are based around ethics and community safety, this myth still informs our thinking, just as we are affected by other oppressive logics even as we work to dismantle them. However, we know that the rate of false reporting of sexual violence is no different from that of other violent crimes and we know that sexual violence actually occurs in the US at epidemic levels. We also know that survivors usually have little to gain from disclosing sexual violence and a lot to lose, as Henry’s experience illustrates. It’s important that we have access to evidence-based information about sexual violence, so that we don’t just rely on societal myth as we work to figure out how to support survivors and address sexual violence ethically on a community level

An additional piece of evidence-based information that we need to respond to sexual violence on a community level is an understanding of the power dynamics at work in sexual assault. While anyone can be targeted for sexual violence, we know that abusers are more likely to assault people they perceive to be vulnerable, who lack credibility, and who are accessible to the abuser — or someone that can be facilitated into these positions. This is because abusers typically target people they suspect won’t disclose sexual assault, or if they do disclose, will not be believed. When people in positions of leadership sexually abuse people, they usually have more credibility than those they abuse. This means that while we may feel shocked when a trusted leader perpetrates sexual assault, it should not surprise us. Most abusers rely on trust to facilitate sexual violence, as discussed by Rauf in the Intercept article. Part of what public disclosures do, as Henry’s experience also illustrates, is make information which is usually hidden publicly visible. While this may raise concerns of vulnerability to potential FBI exploitation, public disclosures can also function as important prevention work. When an abuser is known in a community, it can very well take away a key strategy of their abuse — their trustworthiness and ability to groom potential victims.

As we reckon with these complicated dynamics, we must always have an eye to supporting survivors and preventing future cases of sexual violence. Ignoring the prevalence of sexual violence in activist communities not only perpetuates oppressive dynamics, but also undermines the strength of our movements. Making movements that protect and enable sexual assault perpetrators fosters sexual violence and squanders the potential energy, labor, and insight of all those who no longer feel safe participating in those movements.

Relevant References:

Brown, A. and Knefel, J. “ The FBI Tried To Use The #metoo Moment To Pressure An Environmental Activist Into Becoming An Informant” The Intercept. 1 Sept 2018. Retrieved 9/3/18: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/01/metoo-fbi-informant-environmental-activism-rod-coronado/

Shapiro, J. “Myths That Make It Hard To Stop Campus Rape.” NPR. 4 Mar 2010. Retrieved 9/3/18: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124272157

Campbell, R. “Transcript: The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault.” NIJ Research for the Real World Seminar. 3 Dec 2012. Retrieved 9/3/18: https://nij.gov/multimedia/presenter/presenter-campbell/pages/presenter-campbell-transcript.aspx

Wilson, C. et al. “Understanding the Neurobiology of Trauma and Implications for Interviewing Victims.” End Violence Against Women International. Nov 2016. Retrieved 9/3/18: https://www.evawintl.org/Library/DocumentLibraryHandler.ashx?id=842