Sexual Assault Is Rape Essay

I understand that "rape ' ' is uncomfortable word to say, however we need to continue saying it . So STOP being uncomfortable with talking about and understanding rape. When you sit there and just act like it doesn’t exist just to make yourself feel better, your just as bad as the perpetrator. Knowledge is the key to everything in my opinion and if we can learn about the problem maybe we can solve it. Sexual assault has become a major issue on college campuses and many people will never know, because they pretend it doesn’t happen. Sexual assaults are very underreported mostly because of shame, fear and victim blaming. If students even speak about sexual assaults I 'm very sure that their thoughts automatically goes to a woman, however little …show more content…
Some people seem to have different definitions for sexual assault, for instance some feminist believes that all coerced sex is rape. While others think that sexual assault just doesn’t exist at all. There are many myths in the world about sexual assault that many people believe. Two major myths that people believe are "men cannot be raped" or "sexual assault is not as severe for a man as it is for a woman" (Groth and Burgess 1980). However, what they don’t know is that most men become the sexual assault victims of other men and women in the same ways. (Struckman-Johnson 1991). These myths are even more believable for people when the perpetrator is …show more content…
Male victims of sexual assault by male perpetrators feel as much shame and fear as female victims. After looking at all of my sources I decided to create a survey of my own, this survey included ten girls and ten boys aging 18-20. In my survey I asked three major questions, my first question was "what does sexual assault mean?, 3 out of the 20 students I surveyed said it meant being sexually penetrated while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. While the other 17 students said that being sexually assaulted meant being sexually penetrated without giving consent in any capacity. My next question was, who are the victims of sexual assault?, 13 students said that only girls are victims and 7 students said that both girls and guys can be victims. I then asked the 13 students that said only girls were victims of sexual assault, why they thought that way? They all said that they only hear about the man a the perpetrator and not the victim. This survey shows me that there needs not only be more talk about sexual assault, but also more talk about the male victims of sexual