The Pros And Cons Of Sexual Assault

Victims, through news reports and social media, often become celebrities overnight. Victims of crime are instantly thrown into the public eye and are fair game when reporters are rushing the scene for a top news story. The media frenzy creates a chaos that magnifies the victims pain and suffering to acquire viewer’s attention, and the reports are usually more gruesome, violent and more sexually charged than the truth. Sexually violent crimes are often a top news focus, re-victimizing the survivor of the sex crime. Research shows that “84% of prime-time television shows contain at least one episode of sexual harassment, which perhaps accurately reflects the commonplace nature of this violent crime”(Beirne, 2011, pg. 11). When a crime has been committed, victims are at a vulnerable time in their lives, which is when the media takes the opportunity to move in and overwhelm them even further while distorting the facts, asking questions, and snapping pictures looking for a news story. Victims are often even re-victimized as the media picks through their past, nothing is private, all information received, whether through a dependable source or just another citizen, is displayed for all of society to make their judgment. This can lead to society thinking the victim deserved it, it was their fault, or they weren’t a good person. This type of treatment has a greater devastating emotional

A Times article “Here Are All the Public Figures Who’ve Been Accused of Sexual Misconduct After Harvey Weinstein” list of 121 people who have been accused of sexual misconduct, all which were released with in a few months, this is still an enormous social issue. Harvey Weinstein’s victims stepped out of the shadows starting a movement; the “Me Too” movement has affected everything from Hollywood to Politics to everyday women. This is an important subject because even to this day it is seen as taboo to talk about rape or even sexual assault. Even when Harvey Weinstein’s news broke people were questioning the women on whether it was their fault. Although once all the women came out most believed it because of the shear number and then the number of actors who confirmed the stories.

An American is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds, and every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Only 310 out of 1,000 assaults are reported, but only 6 out of 1,000 perpetrators end up in prison (RAINN). Although sexual assault is egregious, these perpetrators are less likely to end up in prison than other criminals. The reason that is seems to be that victims do not report their cases. So why are sexual assault victims afraid to share their stories? Victims often do not report their assault because of many reasons, including the fear of reprisal, the belief that the police could not and would not do anything about the case, or because they simply did not know how to approach an official.

There are various theories when it comes to a perpetrator who commits a sexual assault and/or rape. These theories explain why the person decides to conduct in such behavior and the reason why it cannot be so easy for them to stop.

Sexual assault always has and always will be a serious problem in society. Despite the fact that, according to sources like the RAINN organization, the amount of reported sexual assault cases in the United States has dropped by more than half since 1993, sexual assault itself remains a problem in the United States. Just very recently, eight women have now come forward and accused longtime news anchor Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct in the workplace. This latest incident is one of many that have been reported within the recent months against those of a high socioeconomic standing in society, entertainers and politicians who abused their positions of power in order to harass and harm their female colleagues. These victims waited until now to report these incidents due to the fear that they will not be believed and that justice will not be delivered against those in such powerful positions. They only now come forward due to the unity they have found in each other against these abusers. To understand the uncertainty these women faced in their decision, this issue must be looked upon sociologically, using each of the three sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism to overview the various factors like race, gender, and social class that played a part in delaying their decision and explain why and how the justice system has failed in this way.

Laws, policies, rules, and standards have been put in place to regulate the behaviors of all individuals and keep everyone safe. When those laws or policies are not followed, people’s safety become jeopardized, peoples’ rights get violated, and individuals become victims and criminals. Every state has its own laws concerning different types of crimes. Each state has a different sentencing system in place for people who break the laws. Aside from state laws, there are also federal laws that can deal with criminals that break the laws on a federal level. There are many resources available to victims that can help them with physical, emotional, and psychological issues that may arise after being victimized.

Start blaming the system, not the victim. Sexual assault is a crime that is very common, yet the punishment perpetrators receive is not as harsh as it needs to be to reduce the occurrence of these crimes. Laws concerning sexual crimes have been edited over decades to be stricter however, sex offenders typically receive little or no punishment. Sexual Assault is defined as any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient (“Sexual Assault”). Victims of sexual assault are often blamed as the reason for the crime being committed while the blame is taken away from the offender. Harsher punishment must be enacted on sex offenders because the victims suffer conflict from the crime throughout their

University of Tennessee Knoxville was recently involved in a lawsuit for enabling athletes to sexually assault women by silencing the victims and failing to provide disciplinary actions or even investigation onto the accused. While this is a recent case, this is not the first time this sort of behavior involving a school has been brought into light. One in four women will be sexually assaulted by the end of their undergraduate career (Posluszny). Sexual assault happens throughout society no matter what the gender or age, seeming to be in increasing epidemic over the last few years. While the idea of sexual assault is largely met with public hostility in theory, actions often contradict this. This contradiction lies heavily in a culture that is unwelcoming to the victims and often leads to the perpetrators being tolerated. The existence of rape culture in western society occurs due to the preservation of violent media, patriarchal standards, and the state of the criminal justice system. This culture cannot be improved until we confront each of these problems to their roots.

Getting past the initial embarrassment of being sexually assaulted (i.e. rape) can be extremely challenging and is one of the major reasons women choose not to come forward. Coming to terms with what happened and reaching out for help feels next to impossible and shows the strength that a survivor is possesses. However, when an individual is aware of the obstacles that arise when reporting an incident they become extremely discouraged and sometimes choose not to do so. For instance, Lise Gauther a woman who served in the Canadian military for over twenty years says:

78 year old comedian, actor, producer and director, Bill Cosby, has recently been accused of molesting and drugging over 50 women. Media has been hearing many stories from potential victims about how Cosby has been sexually assaulting them behind closed doors for the past few decades. People have been hearing the facts and stories from the victims, Cosby and prosecution from each side, how Cosby’s prosecution is trying everything in their will to drop the cases and how they have been treating the potentially victims throughout this whole process. Bill Cosby has been charged of sexual assault over the past two years. At least 50 women have come out to speak of the harmful things Cosby has been doing behind closed doors.

This article addresses a controversial issue that has remained secret for years. Twenty-nine courageous women have come together to tell their stories about how Bill Cosby sexually abused them. They claim that they were drugged and raped by him, sometimes for weeks and months. Some of them were even underage at the time it happened and they were afraid at that time to come public with this issue. Almost all the women say that they know even more victims, but they are afraid to step into the public eye. However, Cosby denies any sexual harassment and hasn’t faced any punishment as there is no tangible proof that those statements are true.

"Introduction to Sexual Assault on Campus: Opposing Viewpoints." Sexual Assault on Campus. Ed. Jack Lasky. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2016. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

This literature review provides a brief overview of six scholarly articles and other facts about sexual assault .This review will first define sexual assault as it is defined in these articles. It will analyze the strengths and limitations of the definition used and will discuss the occurrence of sexual assault in the general population.This review will also illustrate the protective factors, barriers to recovery , impact of development and the specific sexual assault population that are absent in these articles. Sexual assault is a societal issue that impacts men and women at every age in their life, it’s much more highly reported among college aged women. The majority of women who are victims of rape are

“I got raped…. The one-year anniversary is on Monday. It’s kind of bittersweet because on one hand I survived the year, and I'm really proud of myself, but on the other hand it was the longest year. I feel like a grandma, I've aged so much. When I tell my story, people think I'm trying to get attention, but it's really just a way to speak out about something that’s taboo because I know girls who've been through the same thing, but they don't speak about it because nobody else does. I tell my story as a way to make it more normal for people to tell their story. It’s not for attention or for people to feel bad about me. I'm okay now, it has been a year, and I’m good. I just do it to inspire other girls that have also been raped. You can speak

Many victims refuse to report or seek help after a rape because they are scared of what their family, friends, or society will think of them. Often