An American is sexually assaulted every 68 seconds [1]. That’s one serious sexual assault nearly every minute of every day [2]. One in five women in the US has survived an attempted or completed rape, as have one in thirteen men, and one in four gender non-conforming people [3]. 

At the beginning of the #metoo movement, we saw that rape was everywhere. That makes it a problem for all of us. It affects our loved ones, workplaces, social groups, communities, and maybe you personally. You might be thinking: but what can I do to stop rape? If you want to prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment in your community, workplace, or institution, we can help. It really is too much for one person alone to solve alone.

To get started thinking about preventing sexual assault, each of us should understand the dynamics of sexual assault, and use that information to work together to prevent individual incidents of assault. The long term, systemic answer for reducing sexual assault and sexual harassment would be to create a culture in which certain individuals are not so vulnerable, and power is distributed among diverse group. The short term actions we can take to prevent individual incidents are to (1) protecting vulnerable victims, and (2) stopping serial predators.

Predators will often target victims whom they perceive as vulnerable. It’s important to remember the predator ultimately is the person responsible [4]. The circumstances that cause vulnerability often are not in the victim’s control. The vulnerability might be fleeting: someone walking home alone at night, drunk at a party. Most women [5] (footnote 5 addresses use of pronouns and references to gender) have developed adaptive behavior to prevent rape: carrying keys and pepper spray if you’re alone at night, not leaving their drink unattended at a party or bar, and calling or texting friends or family when they’re safely at home. These actions may or may not protect against rape by a stranger. A stranger intent on rape can sneak up behind his victim, threaten her with a weapon, or pretend to be trustworthy with a non-sober potential victim. More importantly, most rape isn’t by committed by strangers: in 80-90% of sexual assaults [6], the victim knows the predator.

If you’re a bystander, you can learn to intercede if you see a potential predator trying to target a potential victim. How can you spot a predator early? Predators start by testing and pushing boundaries. In the cases I’ve helped on, the predators had histories of relatively minor violations: unwanted sexualized touching, forcible kissing and/or groping, and pushing alcohol or other drugs despite a no. While these behaviors alone don’t make someone a predator, the behavior can constitute sexual harassment or even assault.

A healthy community, institution, or workplace should establish rules around affirmative consent, and should not tolerate inappropriate behavior and disrespecting boundaries. These are behaviors you should not allow at conferences, parties, offsite work gatherings, or other social events. Predators will sometimes target an otherwise unwilling drunk/non-sober person at a gathering; so one step you can take is to keep an eye on a drunk/not sober friend. If you are a potential target, it is okay to be firm with your boundaries. If you’re a bystander and notice someone has already said no to alcohol or other drugs, or looks visibly uncomfortable with a pushy person – eg, eyes darting across a room, pulling away, reacting negatively to physical touch – step in to help. Your goals are to dissuade the boundary pusher, and to physically separate him from the potential victim, and give the potential victim support in asserting her boundaries. Say something such as, “Hey, leave her alone. She already said no”. You could offer to keep the vulnerable person company, offer them some water, or ask them if they’d like to go outside to get some fresh air. Offer to call a friend or a ride for the potential victim to minimize the risk that the potential perpetrator will successfully isolate her [7]. Don’t leave a vulnerable friend alone at the end of the night. If you don’t know the potential victim, pretend you do. This might feel difficult: you might think you’re misreading the situation, or feel socially awkward or uncomfortable intruding in a social interaction that you weren’t part of. Know that the risk of embarrassment, awkwardness, or inconvenience pales in comparison to the horror of knowing you could have prevented someone from being sexually assaulted.

The predator who goes after his victim over an extended period operates in a similar way, by targeting and pushing the boundaries of someone vulnerable. This type of vulnerability is longer term. For example, the majority of sexual assaults in college happen during the first few weeks of the victim’s freshman or sophomore years [8]. This is why there is a strong focus on consent on college campuses. Defining affirmative consent, and information about the dynamics of sexual assault for parents, high school students, new and incoming college freshman and sophomores are crucial in preventing sexual assault. Some other examples of circumstantial vulnerability from victims I’ve spoken with include women who were new to a city or community, had recently lost/quit their jobs, were transitioning careers, coming out of a romantic breakup, struggled with mental/emotional health, and/or had previous trauma from sexual assault or childhood sexual abuse. Within a community, workplace, or institution, this would include newcomers, an intern, someone with little power in the organization.

To continue assaulting and abusing people, a predator needs for his community, workplace, friends, and/or family to not believe the victim, to blame her, and/or to do nothing. Given that multiple studies show serial predators commit 90 percent of sexual assaults, and the average repeat predator self-reports an average of 5.8 rapes and ten violent crimes [9], stopping serial predators is the best way to preventing sexual assault. When a victim takes the brave step of making herself vulnerable and reliving a deep trauma by coming forward about an assault, her community or workplace should listen, and should have the tools and knowledge to accurately vet the accusation. This is the most kind action for all involved: to compel the perpetrator to take responsibility and stop engaging in self-destructive behavior, protect the community or workplace from reoccurring sexual assault by him, to send a message that the community or workplace is safe, equitable, and does not condone sexual violence. To learn more, read part two of this article: False Accusations and Rape Myths.

Footnotes

[1] “Scope of the Problem: Statistics.” RAINN, https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem. Accessed July 14, 2022.

[2] By serious sexual assault, I mean rape - defined as any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration, and other forms of severe sexual assault that do not involve penetration, such as non-consensual hand-to-sexual-organ contact. This definition applies to the entirity of this essay. While groping, sexualized touch over clothing, forcibly kissing, non-consensually exposing sexual organs of perpetrator or victim are all severe and potentially traumatizing, I have not included in them in the definition of sexual assault used in this essay.

[3] Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith, S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J., & Stevens, M.R. “The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report.” National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[4] Years ago, I read a commenter on the Stuebenville rape said that even if a woman is lying on the ground, black out drunk, naked, with legs apart, she does not deserve to be raped. Putting the onus on potential victims to prevent rape in any circumstance is to say that rape is evitable. This is misogynistic and misandry, in that this viewpoint makes horrific assumptions about male sexuality and behavior (eg, men can’t control themselves sexually, “boys will be boys”). Today, most women take precautions to avoid being assaulted. If we want equality between all genders, we should work toward in a society in which that is not the case.

[5] Pronouns: I use “he” to refer to predators and “she” to victims. According to the Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women Report (2002), 91% of rape and sexual assault victims are women, and according to the FBI UCR study and 97% of rapes are committed by men. In some instances in this essay, the use of he/she pronouns makes it easier to differentiate between the perpetrator and victims, rather than referring to both victim and predator/perpetrator in the gender-neutral. However, inclusivity is important, so where possible, I use gender-neutral pronouns. You can find the FBI UCR report here: FBI: UCR. “2015 Crime in the United States.” FBI. Accessed July 23, 2022. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/rape)

[6] This is an often quoted percentage, replicated in numerous studies including: FBI Crime in the US, 2004; California Dept. of Justice, 2005, Crime in California; Tjaden & Thoennes, Prevalence, Incident & Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, 1998, 2003; and local statistics from the North Coast Rape Crisis Team

[7] I have more than one friend who was sexually assaulted after accepting a ride home after a party/event.

[8] Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics,  Rape and Sexual Victimization Among College-Aged Females, 1995-2013 (2014) Also cited in Brodsky Alexandra. Sexual Justice. Metropolitan Books, 2021. mycallisto.org, and Rainn.org,

[9] Lisak & Miller, 2002 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11991158/ ; Abbey et al., 2012; Thompson et al., 2013 Researchers asked men surveyed if they had non-consensual sex without using the terms rape or sexual assault also see https://jimhopper.com/topics/sexual-assault-and-the-brain/repeat-rape-by-college-men/ Retrieved July 14, 2022.