As if experiencing sexual assault wasn’t traumatizing enough, victims also have to deal with backlash from their friends, family members and social media.
I would love to paint a picture for those of you who immediately protect the celebrities or public figures who are accused of sexual assault and not the victims who are brave enough to step forward.
Imagine someone punches you in the face and you are severely bruised. Your eye is swelling up, you’re bleeding and your pain level is through the roof.
Remember that feeling and imagine telling your best friend what happened.
You have known your best friend for years, a decade even. You confide in them with anything that happens in your life. Now, imagine the audacity they have to ask you, “But did you deserve it?”
The point I’m trying to make is that no one deserves it.
However, there are people who actually believe victims of sexual assault can prevent it from happening to them, including by wearing looser clothing. This is called victim blaming.
According to the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, victim blaming is defined as someone implying a person who experienced assault is a result of something they did as a way to shift blame.
Bianca Hernandez, a lecturer in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Department at SJSU and a sexual assault counselor at a local rape crisis center, said we should all be survivor centered.
“Victim blaming negatively affects the sexual justice movement because statistically, we know things like sexual and domestic violence are prevalent in all areas and ages of life,” Hernandez said. “It reinforces the issue of sexual violence and causes more harm to survivors.”
This can also discourage sexual assault victims to step forward for a long time and when they finally do, they are labeled as attention seekers or liars.
For example, the stars of 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet,” directed by Franco Zeffirelli, filed a lawsuit in January against Paramount Studios for releasing scenes showing them nude, according to a Jan. 4 CNN article.
Lead actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting alleged that Zeffirelli promised they would be able to wear nude undergarments during the bedroom scene and that no nudity would be shown in the final production.
But when the cameras started rolling, Zeffirelli told the stars - who were 15 and 16 at the time - they had to shoot the scene naked.
Hussey and Whiting are now in their 70s and seek $500 million for the job opportunities they lost out on and the distress they endured following the release of the film.
This makes perfect sense, right?
They were just naive kids then and trusted their director to keep his word and protect them. But now that they are older, they realized they were exploited.
However, some say the co-stars are just trying to defame their director who passed away in 2019 since he cannot confirm or deny these allegations.
With a survivor centered mindset, as Hernandez mentioned, we should consider that they finally feel safe to vocalize their exploitation. It’s been decades since the film was produced and to this, I say so what?
Their experience on set is still valid. Just because it was 1968 doesn’t mean Hussey and Whiting deserved to be filmed in nudity without their permission for the rest of the world’s entertainment. Sexual exploitation, especially regarding children, is never okay no matter what decade it is.
Hernandez said she has seen hurtful messages sent to victims like, “You shouldn’t have been out alone that late” or even re-distributing images of a victim without their permission, which can be revenge porn or child sexual abuse material.
“We should respect survivors' choices and decisions even if they might not align with our decisions. Victims [or survivors] should be treated with compassion and supported at all stages of a difficult situation,” Hernandez said.
It doesn’t matter when a victim goes forward with their story – now, years later or never. We should believe them and help them in whatever way they need.
It is never the fault of victims of sexual assault no matter the circumstances. As a society, we need to shift away from victim blaming and place blame on the person who chose to inflict harm instead.
