Effects and aftermath of sexual assault
The effects and aftermath of rape can include both physical trauma and psychological trauma.
In this post however, I will focus mainly on the psychological trauma that derives from rape.
Gynecological consequences:
- Vaginal and/or anal bleeding
- Hypoactive sexual desire disorder(a sexual dysfunction characterized by lack or absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity)
- Vaginitis
- Vaginismus
- Chronic pelvic pain
- Urinary infection
- Pregnancy
In addition to that, women who suffer sexual abuse(especially if in their early teenage years) are far more likely to contract an STD.
Forced vaginal penetration tendentially leads to cuts and abrasions, which of course facilitate the entry of the virus through the vaginal mucosa.
Psychological response to rape:The most common psychological response to rape is self-blame.
Self-blame can be divided into two categories:
- Behavioural self-blame
- Characterological self-blame
Behavioural self blame occurs when a victim believes he/she should or could have done something differently in order to avoid the assault.
Characterological self blame is characterized by a feeling of being at fault and deserving of what happened to you as a victim because of there being something inherently wrong with your personality and with you as a person which caused you to be attacked.Another psychological response to rape is shame.
Shame as a response to trauma can be much more detrimental to the victim and to society than one would expect. It is strongly linked to anger, violence and self damaging behaviour. Shame has often been found as a strong motivator for revenge.
It can also be found as a psychological mechanism in various disorders, such as depression, eating disorders and substance abuse.Sexual assault can lead to many mental health problems. The following list should account for more or less all the possible outcomes in terms of mental illness.
- PTSD(Post-traumatic stress disorder)
- Substance abuse(use of substances such as drugs and alcohol in order to relieve stress and emotional pain)
- Self Harm
- Stockholm Syndrome(victim’s emotional bonding with the abuser—happens subconsciously and on an involuntary basis)
- Depression
- BPD(Borderline Personality Disorder)—more commonly found in victims of childhood abuse(sexual, physical and emotional abuse)
- Sleep disorders
- Eating disorders
- Body memories
- DID(Dissociative Identity Disorder)—previously referred to as MPD(Multiple Personality Disorder)
A very common outcome of most of these conditions is suicide.
Victims of rape are in fact more likely to commit suicide as a result of an inability to cope with feelings of stress, guilt, shame and mental health problems caused by the sexual assault.
In Ethiopia, 6% of raped schoolgirls reported having attempted suicide.———————————————————————————————————-
Sources:
What confuses me here is all the things that are being said in the text. I’m not an expert but I cannot remain silent when Saartjie is brought up.
Sara Baartman, Saartjie, was toured in freak shows and circuses by both britain and france for white amusement, like a caged animal. She was dissected after her death to further scientific racism. People begged France to return her remains Africa for like 200 years.
What the fresh hell is all this “celebrated”, “white lovers” (does an African woman, not even known by her real name, actually call a white man her “lover” when she’s not, you know, FREE???), “sensation”? Why is she being made out to sound like a fashion statement? What realm is this book from?
What she went through was horrible, and the fact that there was specific inspection of her labia, enough for it to be a “sensation”, is fucking horrifying. This turns my stomach.
Just white folk writing history, like always. They kidnapped her, put her naked and on display, talked about and treated her like less than human, and sexually assaulted her, and these motherfuckers want to call it a goddamn celebration.
“White lovers” = Rapists
(Source: howtobeterrell)
Pain, Purpleness, and Why Strippers are Tough Bitches
I’ve noticed that a lot of the girls around my club seem to have many of the same injuries, physical problems, and illnesses. Note: I’m not a doctor, nor do I have formal training in medicine, and these are only my observations.
Bruised knees: Impact from hitting them on the stage repeatedly throughout the night. Very commonplace among all of the girls.
Shortened calf muscles: Standing in 7” heels for many hours a week, the calf muscles are intentionally contracted (making the legs look more toned).
Poor posture: The misconception is that strippers have great posture. It appears so, when in heels, but the abdominal muscles are overstretched and the back muscles contracted (think chest out, butt out). It leads to an exaggerated curve of the spine and, often, chiropractic issues. Think of this as the opposite of a slouching problem.
Foot swelling: This one’s obvious. 7” stilletos direct the pounds-per-square-inch to be approximately that of an elephant (so I’ve been told, or read, somewhere—I’d have to look that up later).
Bone movement/restructuring in the feet: This is why new dancers’ fourth and fifth toes on each foot, and some tendons, hurt pretty badly at first. The shoes force the fourth and fifth toes inward and body weight puts pressure on them to stay there. The tendons and ligaments connect to the bones in the feet, and have to adjust to the new position of the foot and toes. According to x-rays of dancers’ feet, the stilletos cause microfracturing
Brittle fingernails: Many of the girls wear fake nails, or have acrylic nails done. For whatever reason, this causes their nails to become brittle when the fake nails are removed or the acrylics allowed to grow out/fall off.
Brittle hair: Straighteners, curling irons, three-barrel rollers, hair dye, bleach, hair spray, hair gel, smoothing drops, extensions, …and on and on. These things aren’t so bad for hair, until they’re done so often that some girls never seem to get their hair to grow at all. Hence why so many girls have extensions (“tracks”).
Frequent viral and bacterial sicknesses: The girls get so close to customers’ faces and hands, that it’s almost inevitable that we get sick so often. So far in the past year? I’ve had the H1N1 flu, strep three times, an ear infection, and a handful of sniffly-nosed colds that took me out for a day. Add to this a lack of health, dental, or vision insurance by most dancers, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Seasonal cough: “Smokers’ Cough” affects many smokers…and since most dancers are smokers in my club, most have the seasonal, hacking cough.
Alcoholism: It’s absolutely rampant. We’re allowed and encouraged to drink at work with the customers, and so many of the girls rely on it to do their job at first that they don’t stop drinking. Another co-worker today announced her ascent into rehab in the near future.
Substance abuse and dependence: Not as common, but still more frequent than the general population. Drugs generally don’t faze the girls whatsoever. It’s very discouraged by the club (termination if any illegal substances are found—and everything, everyone, and everyplace is recorded on camera). Substance use, abuse, or dependence doesn’t necessarily render a girl a social outcast and isn’t really a main factor in social heirarchy.
Eating disorders/Body dysmorphic disorder: Much more frequent than in the general population.
Sexual abuse or assault history: Pretty much the norm. It isn’t discussed, but simply understood, that we’re all pretty fucked up about sex for some reason.
Defiance disorders; inappropriate behavior in regards to authority figures, mores, and rules: Much, much, much, much higher than in the general population. You might call these girls “sassy” or “bitchy” or “tough”—but some, honestly, will probably never be able to “play by the rules”. In a dancer’s world, rules and social standards are created and enforced carefully by the top dancers—usually the one’s that display a lot of hostility towards traditional social constructs! The more defiant and aggressive a girl appears to be, the higher on the social ladder she climbs. Odd, hm? I have yet to figure out why the other, less defiant, girls seem to follow them.
Unhealthy sex lives, attitudes, or practices: This could be related to the job, to a prior history of sexual abuse or assault, attitude towards her body, or any number of things. I’m not saying “why”; I’m saying, it exists. Dancers seem to float one of two ways: either into a realm of not wanting to be sexual on a personal level often (sometimes floating into complete sexual aversion), or being hypersexual in her personal life (sometimes including risky sex partners and practices).
Concussions, broken bones, sprained/twisted ankles, pulled shoulders, pulled hamstrings, etc.: Not as commonplace as you’d expect! Surprisingly, bad falls aren’t common, but they do happen occasionally.
…more as I think of them, I’m sure…
MITT ROMNEY’S DEEP CONNECTIONS TO THE TROUBLED TEEN INDUSTRY
or, Mitt Romney funds and directly owns centers for child abuse
Mitt Romney’s biography describes him as a well-educated businessman, skilled economic adviser, and typical family man. He is quoted as stating, “I refuse to believe that America is just another place on the map with a flag. We stand for freedom and opportunity and hope.” [1]
His biography references his involvement in the formation and operation of Bain Capital in 1984, an investment company that purchases and rebuilds otherwise failing enterprises. What the biography fails to include is that some of these enterprises – including CRC Health Group and Aspen Education Group – have directly profited off of the abuse and imprisonment of American youth.
The connection does not stop there.
Mitt Romney is linked to the troubled teen industry in more ways than perhaps any other candidate running for office. Outside of directly owning some of the most notoriously abusive programs he has also employed a litany of financiers who have made their living off of what can only be described as the antithesis of Mitt’s political slogan; enslavement, restriction, and hopelessness.
BAIN CAPITAL, CRC HEALTH GROUP, AND ASPEN EDUCATION
In 2006, Bain Capital acquired CRC Health Group. The $720 billion dollar deal was the most expensive acquisition of its kind and helped to position Bain Capital at the forefront of the addiction treatment playing field. (2)
Bain Capital spent an additional $290 million in 2006 to acquire Aspen Education Group, a network of private, for-profit adolescent treatment facilities. [3] Aspen Education Group is largely considered one of the top players in the adolescent behavioral health field. Their network of programs include behavior modification facilities, residential treatment centers, wilderness therapy programs, therapeutic boarding schools, and long-term residential weight loss centers for children and young adults. Their target clients are middle to upper class American families who are looking for substantial changes from their children and are willing to spend anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands monthly to achieve the desired results.
As Bain Capital gained entry into the adolescent behavior modification field, private therapeutic schools and wilderness therapy programs had become a booming industry with estimated profits exceeding $2 billion in 2007. [3] More and more private companies were seeking to gain access to the profitable field and Bain Capital, armed with its newest acquisition CRC Health Group, was one of them. Upon acquiring Aspen Education Group, Bain quickly merged the two companies together and Aspen became the adolescent division of CRC. The powerhouse created would persist until this day.
Aspen Education Group describes itself as being, “recognized nationwide as the leading provider of education programs for struggling or underachieving young people.” [4] While Aspen programs may be recognized as “leading” in their industry, their network of facilities has also been one of the most notorious in regards to allegations of abuse, neglect, and negligent homicide.
Family Light, an IECA certified group of educational consultants responsible for referring children to private facilities posted an open letter to Aspen Education Group stating that they now only recommend referring to or enrolling in any Aspen or CRC program with “great caution.” Their list of complaints include Bain Capital’s overarching interest in profits over patients, deceptive marketing practices by Aspen Education Group, one-size-fits-all treatment methods and the use of counterproductive, harsh, and punitive therapeutic methods across the facilities overall. [5]
Mount Bachelor Academy in Rural Oregon where DHS alleges Students Suffered Abuse Mt. Bachelor Academy, Aspen Education’s flagship program, was closed following substantiated claims of abuse by the Oregon Department of Human Services on November 3rd, 2009. At least 17 former students have filed a lawsuit seeking $25.5 million in compensatory damages. [6] Students suing for sexual and emotional abuse have asserted that as part of the program’s Lifestep seminars children – some of whom were victims of prior rape or incest – were forced to dress in provocative clothing including fishnet stockings, high heels and miniskirts in order to provide lap-dances for fellow male students. [27] The experiential therapy was designed to help them to overcome their pasts and take ownership for the actions that had led them to being abused.
Mt. Bachelor Academy offered behavior modification therapy based on a method developed within the Synanon model, a self-help group that was largely considered to be a cult by the late 1970′s. The teenage version of Synanon’s controversial “game” – an attack-based therapy – was developed at Mel Wasserman’s CEDU school in Southern California. Practices developed in both Synanon and CEDU were at one time considered to be ground-breaking and effective in behavior modification however their harsh methods and unconventional tactics had become highly criticized in later years. Both programs are no longer in operation however methods developed within the facilities continue to be utilized in behavior modification centers across the United States and abroad. [7] Synanon Members Had Shaved Heads, Lived Communally The Oregon Department of Human Services complaint against Aspen’s Mount Bachelor Academy, which eventually led to its closure, found that the school used methods that were “punitive, humiliating, degrading, and traumatizing.”
Children housed at the facility – ranging in age from 13 to 17.5 – were found to have been forced to re-enact past physical and sexual abuse in front of peers, to refer to themselves with derogatory phrases, to allow staff and peers to name-call and ridicule in humiliating manners, and were deprived of sleep. [7] The pending lawsuit against Mt. Bachelor Academy substantiates these claims, asserting that students who attended the school were regularly subjected to psychological abuse and shaming, endured severe isolation and deprivation of basic necessities including food, water, shelter, and medical care, were subjected to harsh labor punishments and were only offered brief, monitored contact with parents and guardians. Before being allowed contact with their families, family members were warned not to believe any claims of abuse by the children, insinuating that all troubled children are inherently liars and all claims of mistreatment were simply “manipulation.” [8] Youth Care of Utah, another Aspen Education facility, was placed on a brief probation following the death of 14-year old Brendan Blum in 2007.
Brendan died of an untreated bowel obstruction. His bowel had twisted leading to a cut-off of blood to his small intestine. The death was extremely painful and violent.
Despite persistent vomiting, diarrhea and loss of bowel control the counselors on duty at the time of Brendan’s illness – Deborah Cole and Jorge Ramirez – gave him over-the-counter medication and placed him in a separate room away from the other students. The on-call nurse was never contacted.
The special-needs child who suffered from Asperger’s syndrome was found dead on his mattress the following morning.
The two staff members were fired and charged with felony child abuse, though neither was convicted. While Aspen Education Group took no public responsibility for Brendan’s death, autopsy reports determined that if proper medical attention had been given he would have survived. [9]
Also in 2007, an unnamed 16-year old male died after hanging himself with a shoelace at Aspen Achievement Academy after asking to use the latrine. The wilderness facility which treated children ages 13 to 17 suffering from moderate to severe emotional and behavioral problems [10] did not find the youth until after he was already unconscious. Though briefly revived the child died during a helicopter transport to the hospital. [9] The young man’s death was not the first controversy to affect the Academy. In the late 1990′s several youth staged an elaborate and violent runaway prompting the Utah Bureau of Land Management to reconsider the use of State lands for the wilderness facility. [11]
Some Facts on Sexual Abuse
- 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually assaulted by age 18
- One of every seven victims of sexual assault reported to law enforcement were under age 6.
- More than 47% of admitted child molesters had been sexually abused as children.
- Adult molesters who have been sexually abused more than 50 times have up to triple the number of child victims compared to those who have not experienced sexual abuse
- 83% of women with disabilities experience sexual assault in their lifetime
- Almost half of perpetrators of abuse against persons with disabilities contacted their victims through services related to the survivor’s disability.
- Between 1 in 3 to 1 in 6 men experience sexual abuse in their lifetime
- Most men are abused by “straight” men
- Men are more likely than women to report that their assault had little to no effect on them (30% of men compared to 6% of women)
- Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.
- 84% of women who are raped know their assailant.
- In preliminary data, the Gender, Violence and Resource Access survey found
that 50% of people who identify as either transgender or intersex have been
sexually assaulted by a romantic partner- Victims of sexual assault are 26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
- Every 2 minutes someone somewhere in America is sexually violated
(Source: holisticsexualhealth)
(Trigger warning for rape) For Native American Women, Scourge of Rape, Rare Justice
EMMONAK, Alaska — She was 19, a young Alaska Native woman in this icebound fishing village of 800 in the Yukon River delta, when an intruder broke into her home and raped her. The man left. Shaking, the woman called the tribal police, a force of three. It was late at night. No one answered. She left a message on the department’s voice mail system. Her call was never returned. She was left to recover on her own.
Multimedia
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
A sign at Emmonak’s shelter. One in three American Indian women have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape, according to the Justice Department. Their rate of sexual assault is more than twice the national average. More Photos »
Steve Remich for The New York Times
Lisa Marie Iyotte said her rape had never been prosecuted. More Photos »
The Emmonak Women’s Shelter needs money to stay open. More Photos »
“I drank a lot,” she said this spring, three years later. “You get to a certain point, it hits a wall.”
One in three American Indian women have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape, according to the Justice Department. Their rate of sexual assault is more than twice the national average. And no place, women’s advocates say, is more dangerous than Alaska’s isolated villages, where there are no roads in or out, and where people are further cut off by undependable telephone, electrical and Internet service.
The issue of sexual assaults on American Indian women has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
A Senate version, passed with broad bipartisan support, would grant new powers to tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians suspected of sexually assaulting their Indian spouses or domestic partners. But House Republicans, and some Senate Republicans, oppose the provision as a dangerous expansion of the tribal courts’ authority, and it was excluded from the version that the House passed last Wednesday. The House and Senate are seeking to negotiate a compromise.
Here in Emmonak, the overmatched police have failed to keep statistics related to rape. A national study mandated by Congress in 2004 to examine the extent of sexual violence on tribal lands remains unfinished because, the Justice Department says, the $2 million allocation is insufficient.
But according a survey by the Alaska Federation of Natives, the rate of sexual violence in rural villages like Emmonak is as much as 12 times the national rate. And interviews with Native American women here and across the nation’s tribal reservations suggest an even grimmer reality: They say few, if any, female relatives or close friends have escaped sexual violence.
“We should never have a woman come into the office saying, ‘I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,’ ” said Charon Asetoyer, a women’s health advocate on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, referring to the morning-after pill. “That’s what’s so frightening — that it’s more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women.”
The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.
Women say the tribal police often discourage them from reporting sexual assaults, and Indian Health Service hospitals complain they lack cameras to document injuries.
Police and prosecutors, overwhelmed by the crime that buffets most reservations, acknowledge that they are often able to offer only tepid responses to what tribal leaders say has become a crisis.
Reasons for the high rate of sexual assaults among American Indians are poorly understood, but explanations include a breakdown in the family structure, a lack of discussion about sexual violence and alcohol abuse.
Rape, according to Indian women, has been distressingly common for generations, and they say tribal officials and the federal and state authorities have done little to help halt it, leading to its being significantly underreported.
In the Navajo Nation, which encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, 329 rape cases were reported in 2007 among a population of about 180,000. Five years later, there have been only 17 arrests. Women’s advocates on the reservation say only about 10 percent of sexual assaults are reported.
The young woman who was raped in Emmonak, now 22, asked that her name not be used because she fears retaliation from her attacker, whom she still sees in the village. She said she knew of five other women he had raped, though she is the only one who reported the crime.
Nationwide, an arrest is made in just 13 percent of the sexual assaults reported by American Indian women, according to the Justice Department, compared with 35 percent for black women and 32 percent for whites.
In South Dakota, Indians make up 10 percent of the population, but account for 40 percent of the victims of sexual assault. Alaska Natives are 15 percent of that state’s population, but constitute 61 percent of its victims of sexual assault.
The Justice Department did not prosecute 65 percent of the rape cases on Indian reservations in 2011. And though the department said it had mandated extra training for prosecutors and directed each field office to develop its own plan to help reduce violence against women, some advocates for Native American women said they no longer pressed victims to report rapes.
“I feel bad saying that,” said Sarah Deer, a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota and an authority on violent crime on reservations. “But it compounds the trauma if you are willing to stand up and testify and they can’t help you.”
Despite the low rates of arrests and prosecutions, convicted sexual offenders are abundant on tribal lands. The Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, with about 25,000 people, is home to 99 Class 3 sex offenders, those deemed most likely to commit sex crimes after their release from prison. The Tohono O’odham tribe’s reservation in Arizona, where about 15,000 people live, has 184, according to the Justice Department.
By comparison, Boston, with a population of 618,000, has 252 Class 3 offenders. Minneapolis, with a population of 383,000, has 101, according to the local police.
The agencies responsible for aiding the victims of sexual assault among American Indians are often ill prepared.
The Indian Health Service, for instance, provides exams for rape victims at only 27 of the 45 hospitals it finances and, according to a federal report in 2011, did not keep adequate track of the number of sexual assault victims its facilities treat and lacked an overall policy for treating rape victims. Additionally, the health service has just 73 trained sexual assault examiners.
The Justice Department, which has increased the number of F.B.I. agents and United States attorneys on Indian reservations and is seeking to help the Indian Health Service train more nurses, said combating sexual violence was a priority.
“There’s no quick fix. There’s no one thing that will fix the system,” said Virginia Davis, deputy director for policy development in the department’s Office on Violence Against Women. “We’re taking a systematic approach to this — thinking about different ways to solve the problem.”
In the meantime, the problem persists. Lisa Marie Iyotte, 43, who was raped on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, said prosecutors had never told her why they did not charge the man arrested in that crime. He was later convicted of another rape, and when he was released from prison in 2008 and moved back to the reservation, no one told her, she said. She has not seen him yet.
“When I think about it, I say, ‘What am I going to do?’ ” she said. “I don’t know.”
Nine hundred miles away, in the Navajo Nation, Caroline Antone, 50, an advocate for the reservation’s victims of sexual violence who has herself been raped, said sexual assault was virtually routine in her community.
“I know only a couple of people who have not been raped,” she said. “Out of hundreds.”
any vote for the GOP, is a vote for rape
![feministrobot:
[Trigger Warning: linked article has descriptions of sexual assault.]
pushinghoopswithsticks:
“We both realized they had been trying to set us up. So they didn’t have anything on us. They came for her early in the morning, too. They didn’t detain her parents, they just detained her. Tashnuba and I were then trying to figure out what was going on, what they were going to do, if they were going to release us.That’s when a lady walked in. She said, “What are you guys in for? We said, “We don’t know.” “I hear you guys did something.” “What did we do?” We were asking her for information. She said, “We’re going to take you to Pennsylvania.Tashnuba and I looked at each other, like, Pennsylvania? I said, “What are we goingto do in Pennsylvania? She answered, “They didn’t tell you? There’s a detention center there.”
Click the photo to read the rest of one 16 year old’s harrowing account of being, in effect kidnapped, and detained for months by FBI agents with no cause, no explanation and no legal recourse. Excerpted from Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post 9/11 Justice](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls185vZWEt1qcp9ulo1_500.png)
[Trigger Warning: linked article has descriptions of sexual assault.]
“We both realized they had been trying to set us up. So they didn’t have anything on us. They came for her early in the morning, too. They didn’t detain her parents, they just detained her. Tashnuba and I were then trying to figure out what was going on, what they were going to do, if they were going to release us.That’s when a lady walked in. She said, “What are you guys in for? We said, “We don’t know.” “I hear you guys did something.” “What did we do?” We were asking her for information. She said, “We’re going to take you to Pennsylvania.Tashnuba and I looked at each other, like, Pennsylvania? I said, “What are we goingto do in Pennsylvania? She answered, “They didn’t tell you? There’s a detention center there.”
Click the photo to read the rest of one 16 year old’s harrowing account of being, in effect kidnapped, and detained for months by FBI agents with no cause, no explanation and no legal recourse. Excerpted from Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post 9/11 Justice
