According to Research…

Sexual Assault is never going away

So let me just start off by saying boy did this make for some dark reading and some real soul searching. In an effort to be topical and current, I’ve picked an incredibly heavy subject for this week’s article; one which I knew I would find plenty of research on and would hopefully resonate with my readers as it has with me. However it is distressing, so let this be your trigger warning because today we’re going to be talking about sexual assault, a far cry from my usual effort to be humorous, but something which I feel needs to be discussed.

Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year. Nearly half a million adults are sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year. 1 in 5 women aged 16–59 has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.*

Let’s break these down a little shall we? 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales every year- that’s roughly 11 rapes (of adults alone) every hour. 1 in 5 women aged 16–59 has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16- sixteen. That’s barely the age of legal consent in England, and they’re still technically minors. And bear in mind these numbers are only made up from people who actually reported their assault, there’s still countless others who have yet to speak out.

I was twelve years old the first time I was sexually assaulted. Twelve years old. I barely knew what a sexual thought was and I barely looked twelve. Anyone who knows me knows that I still have a baby face; now imagine me at twelve, and imagine thinking that that’s who you wanted to touch- someone who only two years previously had been galloping around the school field pretending she was a horse. I was walking home after school with friends when two older boys behind us suddenly sped up and before I knew what was happening, one had pinched my bum and then walked past laughing. I was so embarrassed I pretended nothing had happened and kept talking but inside I was upset, confused and humiliated. In comparison to what a lot of other people suffer and have suffered, it seems very small and insignificant and I’m sitting here even now wondering if I should even include this, moaning about how some boy grabbed my bum when Harvey Weinstein singlehandedly managed to rape half of Hollywood’s female acting force and harass and assault the other half. But I can still feel that white hot flash of shame, like I had done something wrong and being embarrassed at feeling so upset. Should I have been flattered? Was it his intention to let me know he liked me? As little girls we used to get told that when a boy hits you or bullies you or makes you feel small it means he likes you and is just too shy to say anything. Well he wasn’t too shy to grab me was he?

What follows is a long list of crimes committed by everyday people, a list which I’m sure most women (and I write to women and about women because it’s the only narrative I’m 100% confident in) have encountered throughout their lives. My karate Sensei was just that little bit too handsy with the young girls, since my boobs developed at the age of fourteen I’ve not been able to leave the house in a low cut top without being whistled and called at from men in vans, every time I go on a night out it’s inevitable that someone is going to grab my bum or somewhere else as I squeeze past them. It’s become something of a norm and thinking about that now and about the recent outrage in the papers makes me unbelievably angry. This is not something we should be okay with. This is not something we should have to live with.

A young woman’s passion project recently went viral where she took selfies with the men who cat called or wolf whistled at her.* They’re all smiling and I saw myself in her expression, fed up and unamused at people thinking that they can take what they want and say what they want and do whatever they want because everyone does it and no one is going to say anything.

How’s that working out for you Harvey Weinstein? Kevin Spacey? Has it hit home yet that people everywhere are deciding that they will no longer suffer in silence, that they will no longer be made into victims and that they will no longer let you get away with it?

Well it should.

• All statistics are from the Rape Crisis England and Wales website which you can find here:
• You can find out more about Noa Jansma’s project “Dear Cat Callers” here: