People wouldn’t blame the victim when they’ve been robbed, so why do people blame the victims when they experience sexual assault.

Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.

It’s a disgusting and serious crime that reports show usually happens to women but that doesn’t mean that men can’t be victims too.

According to RAINN.org (Rape, Abuse and National Network), the majority of sexual assault victims are under the age of 30 and that one of out every six women has been a victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

As for men, RAINN reports that one in every 33 have been victims of attempted or completed rape and one out of every ten rape victims are male.

RAINN also had statistics pertaining specifically to sexual assaults on college campuses.

11.2% of all students experience sexual assault and that among college women there are two assaults for every single robbery that occurs.

However, the statistics could be even higher than we know but sexual assault is a crime that often goes unreported.

Victims often don’t report the crime because they’re ashamed or because of the serious trauma something like this can cause a person.

There’s also the fact that since sexual assault is a crime of power, it’s never about the sex itself, the abuser is someone in position that allows them to impact the victim’s life in a serious way.

A good example of this would be the alleged victims of movie producer and executive Harvey Weinstein.

One of his victims was an Italian film actress and director named Asia Argento, she told a reporter for The New Yorker that she did not speak out against Weinstein sooner because she was afraid he would “crush” her.

Many of his other victims share similar stories of being afraid to report him because he had the power and reputation to endanger their careers and futures in Hollywood.

Even famous actor Terry Crews stepped forward to share his own experience with sexual harassment in a series of tweets.

Crews was inappropriately groped by another Hollywood executive but he was too afraid to fight back or report it because he wasn’t prepared to be ostracized or to risk losing the career he loved so much.

Another factor that plays into whether victims are able to speak up is victim blaming.

Society still has a tendency to protect the abuser and blame the victim whenever it has to do with sexual assault.

People will often ask what the victim was wearing or they were doing at the time. They’ll even bring up the victim’s sexual history to try and shift the blame from the abuser to them.

Or they’ll say stupid things like the abuser is too attractive, too famous or too rich to have to resort to sexual assault.

Sexual assault is about power not sex and so someone feeling entitled because they’re attractive, famous or rich could be reasons why they commit such an awful crime.

None of these things are okay, abuser should not be protected and victims should not feel afraid to come out and report what happened to them.

Yes, the saying goes innocent until proven guilty and that the accused must have a fair trial but nowhere does it say to shame the victim or to dismiss their claims.

Learn to be listen and analyze all the circumstances before defending a rapist and attacking their victim.