Rape Avoidance: a somewhat different form of sexuality education
The research revealed that victims experience disbelief, stigmatisation and blame. This continues to exacerbate victims’ impacts on mental health and result in self-blame for having become a victim of sexual assault. In response, a number of prevention programs are offered, including for students enrolled at Curtin University in the sexology postgraduate program. The Unit “Introduction into Forensic Sexology” not only examines sexual violence from a victim and perpetrator perspective, but also focuses on increasing students’ knowledge, changing attitudes with challenging rape myths, and discusses rape-supportive community attitudes. In addition, along with empirical evidence, students are taught rape resistance strategies.
This presentation will discuss the benefits of rape resistance making reference to the empirical evidence. It will introduce different types of resistance and the probabilities of becoming a victim. Issues such as victim-offender relationship and alcohol/other drug use will be examined as they can affect targeted individuals’ willingness and ability to resist an attack. Effective strategies (i.e. forceful verbal and physical resistance) will be outlined and described for avoiding rape without increasing the risk of injury. In this regard, it will be shown that it is a misconception that if a potential victim is resisting the attack, resultant physical injury is inevitable due to the perpetrator’s use of violence. In addition, ineffective strategies (e.g. reasoning, pleading, crying), and non-resistance as a response will also be discussed. In this regard, research has found that such techniques actually increase the likelihood of sexual assault.
Research is clear, resisting -fighting back verbally and/or physically is an effective rape avoidance strategy, which results in less completed sexual assaults. It may further serve as an empowering experience. Consequently, university students studying forensic sexology at Curtin University are taught that potential victims should be encouraged to resist as this approach increases the odds of them avoiding rape victimisation.
