Sexual Assault

Which groups of people are most impacted?

Gender: [1]

  • Women and girls are more than 4 times as likely to experience an attempted or completed sexual assault as men.
  • More than 80% of sexual assault survivors are women.

Individuals with disabilities: [2]

  • Who is disabled? National Criminal Justice Reference Service defines disabled individuals as having “limited interaction between their bodies and their physical, emotional, and mental health, and the physical and social environment in which they live.”
  • What does that mean? Individuals with disabilities are victims of violent activities (including sexual assault) three times as often as individuals without disabilities.
  • Type of disability matters. Individuals with cognitive disabilities are more than twice as likely to be assaulted as individuals with disabilities related to movement, vision or hearing.

What kinds of symptoms are unique to surviving sexual assault?

Freezing:

  • People often freeze during sexual assault and other forms of trauma.
  • Freezing occurs due to the impact of extreme stress on the brain.
  • Read more about this brain-based reaction that scientists have found here.
  • See more about how the brain responds to traumatic threat and other neurobiological impacts here.

Why don’t many sexual victims fight or yell?

  • In the midst of sexual assault, the brain’s fear circuitry dominates.
  • The prefrontal cortex can be severely impaired, and all that’s left may be reflexes and habits.
  • Read more from Jim Hopper, Ph.D. here.

How reliable are the memories of sexual assault victims?

  • Incomplete memories of sexual assault, including those with huge gaps, are understandable–if we learn the basics of how memory works and we genuinely listen to survivors.
  • Peripheral and less central details can get distorted more easily than many people realize. But decades of research have shown that the most central details are not easy to distort, which typically requires repeated leading questions from people in authority or a very strong internal motivation for doing so.
  • Read more from Jim Hopper, Ph.D. here.

The Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault (at the University of Texas at Austin) released five evidence-based videos as victim-centered resources to enhance coordinated community sexual assault response efforts:

  • See the full news release here.

Sexual assault trauma resources:

Helplines:

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE

Safe Helpline.org (for military-related trauma)

Books:

Recovering from Rape [3] by Linda Ledray

  • Covers both adult rape and childhood sexual assault.
  • Each chapter addresses both the survivor and significant support.

Speak [4] by Laurie Halse Anderson

  • Novel about a teenage survivor of acquaintance rape.

Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery [5] by Patricia Weaver Francisco

  • Stories told by men and women who have survived rape.

Websites:

Sexual Assault and the Brain: Informative blog about sexual assault and traumatic memory (includes videos explaining the impact of trauma on the brain).

RAINN.org: Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network

MaleSurvivor.org: Website for male survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault.

LoveisRespect.org: Website about teen dating violence, including sexual abuse.


[1] Rand, M., & Robinson, J. E. (2011). Criminal victimization in the United States. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

[2] Harrell, E. (2014). Crime against persons with disabilities, 2009-2012. U.S. Department of Justice.

[3] Ledray, L. E. (1994). Recovering from rape. Macmillan.

[4] Anderson, L. H. (2011). Speak. Macmillan.

[5] Francisco, P. W. (1999). Telling: A memoir of rape and recovery. Cliff Street Books.