Trigger warning: this article discusses sexual assault and violence which may be triggering to survivors.

Sexual assault is formally defined as any sort of involuntary sexual act that a person is threatened, coerced or otherwise forced into. This definition however, does not convey what exactly it is like for a person to actually experience rape or sexual assault.

What I’ve realized through the many debates I have observed in regards to rape and sexual assault is that it’s hard for people engaging or observing these arguments to realize that there are people close to us — coworkers, friends, family members, mentors — that have experienced such heart-wrenching things. They are people who are silent about the struggles they have faced. They may be sitting next to you as you read this article and you would have no idea. As such, I set out to find students on the University of Saskatchewan campus that have dealt with rape in some capacity and sought to find out how it has affected their lives.

To respect the privacy of the individuals interviewed, their names have been changed.

Sexual assault can happen to anyone, at any time. My interview with Annie shows this: that despite taking precautions and surrounding herself with people she trusts, she still became a victim of rape — being cautious doesn’t mean that she was immune.

“I don’t remember my assault,” said Annie. “It happened during my first year here [at the U of S], and I still don’t know what happened to me. I didn’t even realize I was sexually assaulted until I went to the doctor. I felt soreness [in my genitals] and something about my body just didn’t feel right. I was shocked.”

Annie’s assault happened while at a party that one of her freshman classmates threw at the start of the school year. From what she remembers of the night, Annie accompanied her dorm mates to a house a few blocks away from the U of S campus — an activity many of us would do without second thought.

“I had just moved to the city and was about to start college. All of my family had gone [to the U of S] — my mother, uncles, aunt, my parents had met here — I was looking towards my future, my new friends and my dorm mates were going to be my friends for at least the next year. We were all strangers to each other for the most part; if everyone else felt secure going, why wouldn’t I?”

Despite being in a non-threatening situation, Annie’s assault occurred that night — at least what she can figure out from the timeline given by her doctor, second-hand accounts from people at the party that night and coming to her own logical conclusions. The doctor visit revealed that Annie had vaginal fissures and tears in her vulva that can result from sexual violence.

“My doctor had asked me if I had had rough sex recently. I hadn’t. My partner was living nowhere near me at the time, and even if I didn’t have a partner, I didn’t believe in casual sex.”

Her doctor — feeling uneasy about that answer — administered Annie a urine test, the results of which showed that she had trace amounts of flunitrazepam, commonly known as Rohypnol, in her system. Suddenly, the blank space in her memory from two nights ago made Annie feel uneasy.

“I just thought that I somehow drank too much and couldn’t remember anything from two nights ago, but the test results showed something different — something much scarier to me than binge drinking. I asked my dorm mates what happened, but didn’t get any clear answers from them. I had apparently been with them for most of the night, then walked off, according to them. They had assumed I’d gone home.”

Annie doesn’t remember walking off, having anything to drink or going home. She woke up the next morning in her bed with no idea of how she had gotten there. It seemed that nobody else knew, or was willing to tell her what had happened to her. There were people who genuinely did not know what had happened to her that night, but were willing to help her figure out what had happened. But there were also people that seemed to Annie like they were deliberately keeping things from her.

“It fucked with me — it still fucks with my mind to this day. There were mumblings of people having sex with me, that apparently I was a huge slut in bed, I didn’t know where, how or why it started. All I knew was that I felt violated.”

Annie says whatever happened that night still impacts her to this day; she has a hard time trusting people, she is emotionally closed off to a lot of people in her life and she makes sure she doesn’t drink or eat anything that isn’t made by her or given to her by someone she knows well — and even then they have to tell her where they got it from.

“I know I sound paranoid, but that’s what I’ve become. Therapy and support from my friends and family is finally helping me overcome some of these issues, but it’s going to be a long time before I can fully trust the world around me like most people usually do.

“The worst part of it is, for me at least, is that I did everything I was told would prevent this from happening to me. I dressed modestly, I went out in a group of people, I didn’t take any strange drugs like a lot of people around me at the time and I didn’t take any drinks from strangers. I thought I was being safe, but it didn’t matter in the end. It still happened.”

Beth followed a similar thought process after her assault. For her, it was about internalizing the blame of her attack instead of putting it on the assailant — mainly the common thought that if a victim dresses a certain way, they will be less likely to be attacked.

“I thought I was assaulted because I was wearing a skirt. How stupid is that? In my head all I could think afterwards was, ‘If I was wearing pants, none of this would have happened! He couldn’t have gotten in me, it would be fine!’”

What was the most surprising thing to me was to hear Beth say she acknowledges how flawed her initial idea was. As you step back from the situation, you realize that it would have made absolutely no difference if Beth had worn pants, her assailant would still have overpowered her and continued his actions.

Beth was assaulted near her home in Saskatoon on her way back from a bar. She was walking back to her house when she was overpowered and raped by someone she was at the bar with not even an hour ago.

“I was hanging out with my friends, having a few drinks and just chatting. Things people usually do on a weekend night. One of the people with us kept making moves on me that I wasn’t really comfortable with, so I shut him down. I guess the word ‘no’ isn’t a deterrent to some people.”

Beth was violently attacked and raped by her assailant, who was, in her words, a good friend before the incident. He followed her from the bar, dragged her into an alley and forced himself on her. She is part of the alarming statistic that says that 90 per cent of victims of sexual assault — men or women — personally know their attacker in some capacity, whether it be friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. Contrary to popular belief, most victims of sexual assault aren’t randomly chosen on the street because of certain characteristics; they are victims of power play.

“I could smell the alcohol on his breath. I remember every part of it vividly, but that’s the only thing I can actually recall and talk about, the fact that I could smell he was drunk. I’m 115 pounds, what chance did I have against this huge guy towering over me?”

Beth, however, gets to be one of the three per cent of rape victims of either gender that actually has their rape successfully prosecuted. Her assailant received jail time because of the dearth of DNA evidence from her rape kit, as well as an eyewitness in the form of two of her friends. Beth’s friends had felt uneasy that her attacker had followed her out of the bar so quickly after she had left, and felt suspicions about his intentions towards her in the context of how he was behaving throughout the night.

“They came the way they knew I would walk home, and found me with him. I didn’t even realize — I don’t remember them pulling him off of me, or calling the police. But it was such a relief to have someone else there to do those things for me, because I’m not sure I could, or would have at the time.

“I’m not going to lie, I am one of the lucky ones. I got justice under the law. I got to see him get punished, and that definitely helped with closure. I function just as I used to for the most part; I do the same things I always have. I don’t think a lot of people are as lucky as me.”

Cate’s story echoes the sentiments of Beth’s, where she knew her assailant. In Cate’s case, having an intimate relationship with her assailant — who was also her partner — blurs the lines of what actual assault is. Many victims are not willing to believe or label physical and sexual harm done to them as “assault” or “rape” because it ultimately dissolves many elements of the relationship.

“My experience with sexual assault was three years ago,” Cate said in an email to the Sheaf. “I was assaulted by someone I was dating at the time. It was only after I had been in pain and bleeding from that evening on for almost a month that I realized that there had been terrible force used in a situation where I did not ever (a) consent to the act itself nor (b) consent to the violent way in which the act was committed.”

Many victims of sexual abuse can relate to Cate’s experience. It is hard for people assaulted by their partners, male or female, to realize that they are being assaulted. As you feel affection, love and closeness to your partner, it is hard to comprehend that someone you are so close to is able to do something so extreme to you.

“I became incredibly depressed. I had always thought of myself as a strong and resilient person, but I had let this happen to me. I felt that I was not strong, but weak — and more than that, I had let my feelings for another person overshadow the importance of my own immediate physical and emotional safety/health.”

It made Cate who was an outgoing, active member of her community, into a recluse. She felt as if she had let this person violate her body and as such, shifted the blame onto herself rather than her attacker. It certainly didn’t help that the people she turned to for help questioned the veracity of her assault.

“It was certainly difficult for me when my therapist called into question whether my experience constituted sexual assault, because it is difficult to ascertain what kind and the degree of force and lack of consent is required to make an experience ‘sexual assault.’ I was conflicted for a long time about labeling what had been done to me as ‘sexual assault’ or more precisely, accepting that something, anything, had even been done to me.”

“In the end, I think I am just changed, not for the better and not for the worse, by my sexual assault. I wish it didn’t happen and I never wish it to happen to anyone else, ever. I am not sure what kind of person I would be if it hadn’t happened to me, and it’s best for me not to think too deeply on these kinds of questions. I think in some ways I’m worse — I’m less happy and sure of myself, and in anything having to do at all with sex makes me immensely uncomfortable.”

Despite the negative effects the assault has had on Cate, she said that in some ways she has changed for the better by becoming more in touch with her body and being faster to stand up for herself and others in uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situations. Although, she notes that she could have gotten to this point without experiencing the assault.

As these three women give their accounts, it is easy to see the similarities underlying their individual experiences. The loss of intimate connections, the self-doubt and very strong, long-lasting emotional damage for such a physical crime.

Doubtless, this is not restricted to just female victims of sexual assault. According to RAINN — the Rape, Abuse, and Incent National Network — around 10 per cent of victims of sexual assault are male, but less than two per cent even consider reporting it. Most do not even discuss it with anyone, yet suffer from the same debilitating emotional damage such as depression, shame and loss of self-worth as the women I talked to.

Unfortunately, I could not find a male who had experienced sexual assault to talk to me for this article. Possibly because there is so much stigma surrounding the topic and opening up about it. I tried to get the next best thing instead: A male’s perspective on rape culture from the outside.

I interviewed Dave in regards to his experience with sexual assault. Though not a victim himself, he was a witness in regards to someone else’s case. It made him realize that no amount of reading on the topic, knowing statistics or thinking he would know what to do in a situation where sexual assault presented itself, would prepare him for actually encountering it.

“You can’t help but have the feeling, ‘I should have done something’ — whether or not you could have,” Dave said.

It’s a common statement from partners and friends of sexual assault victims — especially males — to internalize the fact that the victim’s assault is evidence of a failure on their part to act as the socially designated role of protectors. Males in our society are taught that because they hold that position, it is their responsibility to protect female victims from assailants. Because of this, many males often do not believe that they can be raped, or it is embarrassing or insignificant if they were.

“I think for a male there’s sort of that masculine mentality,” Dave said. “If a man says that he was raped or sexually assaulted a lot of people would say, ‘Why would you say that? Didn’t you enjoy it?’ ‘Wasn’t it awesome?’ It’s looked at differently, it’s treated less severely than it would be if it was a female experiencing sexual assault.

“I don’t believe that a girl cannot sexually abuse a male. Suppose for example that you [as a male] were in a committed monogamous relationship and then assaulted by someone who is not your partner explicitly against your wishes or intentions. Would it be considered sexual assault? Absolutely. Assault is assault.”

One thing that became certain as Dave described his involvement with the aftermath of his friend’s assault — dealing with police reports, finding himself as part of a support network and having to deal with his own emotions about the incident — is that not once did he ever blame the victim for bringing this upon herself. He firmly placed the fault of the attack on the assailant.

“There’s always, ‘She shouldn’t have dressed that slutty,’ or ‘She shouldn’t have gone to that area,’ or ‘Oh, she totally was asking for it.’ A mindset that the man couldn’t restrain himself. In this instance, our circle of friends was definitely against him. We didn’t blame her… In the greater sense, the greater scheme of things you should never blame the victim.”

It’s important to see that the responses Dave gives show a broader mentality that we, as a society, should also have. Sexual assault is not the gender war that so many people make it out to be. It is not men against women. It is not victims against society and its norms. It should never be a black and white battle. Rather, it should be society against assailants. The aftermath of a sexual assault does not have to be more traumatizing than the assault itself. People who victimize men and women, violate their physical space and cause lasting emotional damage should be brought to justice, and victims given the reconcilliation they deserve.

If you have any concerns regarding sexual assault or sexual health, Student Health and Counselling services, located on the 3rd and 4th floors of Place Riel, has many resources to help you. As well, the Pride Centre and Women’s Centre, located on the first floor of the Memorial Union Building, offer a safe space, support and information for any questions.