Sexual Violence In America

“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 behind bars.” (Rainn) While these statistics are scary to look at, it is very difficult to measure the magnitude of this crime accurately due to the lack of reports. Rape is one of the most underreported crimes. “In 2002, only thirty-nine percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law officials.” (Sexual Violence: Fact Sheet.) Sexual violence in the United States is not an issue, but an epidemic in many ways, it is extremely hard for victims to come forward, perpetrators of sexual violence are rarely punished, and there is cultural and political ignorance of the problem.

The last reason which may be the biggest reason is victim shaming. Rape culture is an environment in which rape is frequent and which sexual violence is normalized due to media and other pop culture. This type of culture is maintained through inappropriate language, the obsession over women’s bodies, and the fact that sexual violence is glamorized. This has created a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. In an article published by Southern Connecticut State University, the author who is unknown gives these examples of rape culture: “blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”); trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”); sexually explicit jokes; tolerance of sexual harassment; inflating false rape report statistics; publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history; gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television; defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive; defining “womanhood” as

Brian Krassenstein said on his blog, “In America according to Trump, a black guy who shoplifts should be locked up in a Chinese prison for 10 years, a black guy who sits during the National Anthem should be fired and white guy who rapes a 14 year-old should be in the US Senate.” (Krassenstein) This seems to be the case in the United States as our own President Trump has admitted to sexual violence and even bragged about it. Rape culture is very present in the political system. According to Jessica Valenti on her blog she stated, “Tuesday evening at the final Indiana Senate debate, Republican Richard Mourdock explained why he opposes abortion with no exceptions by calling pregnancy from rape "something that God intended,” the latest in a long line of “gaffes” by male politicians about sexual assault.” We live in a country where politicians call rape a “gift from God” and suggest women regularly lie about being raped. It is time to realize that the rape epidemic is not about the crimes themselves, but our own ignorance of the problem. Jessica Valenti also states “Rape is as American as apple pie--until we own that, nothing will ever change.” If we do not try to help and stop the rape problem in our country, it will never be