An Inconvenient Truth: 1 in 5 are forced survivors

Everyone has a body, how they choose to take care of it is their choice. Everyone has the ability to feel love, whether or not they choose to accept love is their choice. Everyone has a voice, whether or not they use it is their choice. People are blessed to be in control of so many things, things that we often take for granted.

For victims of rape/sexual assault, these basic human choices are taken away. They are no longer in control of their body, because someone physically, emotionally and mentally took that right choice away from them. Victims have difficulty accepting love, because someone shown them and their body the purest forms of hate. Their voice? It's been sucked out of them by a monster, a monster often close to them in their life, and well liked by the community. Why speak up about something you can't help but doubt yourself?

While rape is and will always be one of the most shameful truths of society, there is another side. Say you're at a party one night, and you're not thinking as clearly as you should be, you see a cute new person and well. . .things happen. The next day, this person won't talk to you, and you have absolutely no idea why they're acting so strange. You just wrecked their life last night, and you didn't even know it! But how could this be? New research has shown that the majority of rapists do not know that what they did constituted as rape.


It's scary to think that alcohol abolishes all wrong doing in the eyes of teens and adults alike. As if liquid poison denotes any crime. It's an excuse easy to make--how could you do something wrong if you can't remember anything at all?

But guess what? I remember.

Turn Away from the Truth

          Liam. Not the name itself, but the way it was spoken. As if a four letter pronoun could pronounce what no one had been willing to. Spoken from lips who dare not think of the meaning behind it. . . . spoken from lips still reeling from the nightmare, just one back break away from falling further within.

          I know what it meant, and I knew how it was heard by those who knew. A painfully dark creature that suddenly saw broad daylight, yet only glittered to those who knew his inner depths. Funny how an animal glistening in the sun has the same effect as a monster pinpointed and spotlighted by the moon.

          It’s as if it’s contagious to those who know, spreading silence wherever it goes. Because clearly this is something not worthy of being talked about. Something that needs to be kept under wraps. . .something like you.

          And it needs to be kept quiet, so as not to frighten those around. So as not to spook the children and inject fear into the adults. There’s a reason no one talks about it, and I have a chilling feeling that that reason might be me. They think I’m frail, that I can’t handle talking about it, but honestly, talking about it isn't what got me into this mess. I was told that his name wasn’t worthy of mentioning, yet I hear it every night. I was told that such a disgrace didn’t deserve thought, yet thinking isn’t what got me into this mess. I was told to forget about it, because remembering is painful, but my attempts at forgetting are what got me into this mess.

It’s hard not to be frustrated beyond belief that no one will speak of what happens—if a crime is happening in broad daylight, wouldn’t you stop it? Well what if the ones who saw were the ones who turned away? And what if a frightened girl—what if I—was the one to turn first?