Facts & Quotes

Statistics:

In a study conducted by the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers interviewed 8,000 women and 8,000 men. Using a definition of rape that includes forced vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse, the survey found that 1 in 6 women had experienced an attempted rape or a completed rape.

At the time they were raped:

22% were under the age of twelve
54% were under the age of eighteen
83% were under the age of twenty-five

In the same study, 1 in 33 men had experienced a sexual assault.

Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice, 1998

In the Rape in America study, 60% of the women who reported being raped were under 18 years old:

29.3% were less than 11 years old
32.3% were between 11 and 17
22.2% were between 18 and 24
7.1% were between 25 and 29
6.1% were older than 29
3.0% age was not available

Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, National Victim Center, 1992

Youths 12-17 are two to three times more likely to be sexually assaulted than adults.

National Crime Victimization Survey, 2000

Acquaintance rape is much more prevalent than stranger rape. In a study published by the Department of Justice, 82% of the victims were raped by someone they knew (acquaintance/friend, intimate, relative) and 18% were raped by a stranger.

From a report on Violence Against Women based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995

In the Rape in America study, 80% of the girls and women who were raped were victimized by someone they knew.

Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, National Victim Center, 1992

In the United States, a rape is reported about once every five minutes.

FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2000

Rape is called “the most underreported violent crime in America.” In a large national survey of American women, only 16% of the rapes (approximately one out of every six) had ever been reported to the police.

Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, National Victim Center, 1992

Many surveys have been conducted to determine the prevalence and incidence of rape and sexual assault. The differences in findings across these various surveys are related to how rape and sexual assault are defined, characteristics of the sample selected for the study, screening questions, interviewer training and techniques, and other methodological and procedural issues. However, in virtually every victimization survey conducted, the number of unreported rapes and sexual assaults far exceeds those that are reported to authorities.

Quotes:

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness…. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word “unspeakable”…. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried…. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims…. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom….

Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 1992

“I prefer to characterize rape simply as a form of torture. Like the torturer, the rapist is motivated by the urge to dominate, humiliate, and destroy his victim. Like a torturer, he does so by using the most intimate acts available to humans — sexual ones.”

Helen Benedict, Virgin or Vamp, 1992

“I survived this torture which left me paralyzed for years. That’s what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violence through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and now I’m trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability.”

Tori Amos

In giving language to my experience, I hope I can make rape less ‘unspeakable.’ I hope to dispel at least some part of the fear and shame that has made victims mute.

Nancy Raine, After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back, 1998

“Words seemed to make it visible.
But, speaking, even when it embarrassed me,
also slowly freed me from the shame I felt.
The more I struggled to speak, the less power
the rape, and its aftermath, seemed to have over me.”

Nancy Raine, After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back, 1998

Traumatized people suffer damage to the basic structures of the self. They lose trust in themselves, in other people, in God…The identity they have formed prior to the trauma is irrevocably destroyed.

Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 1992

Most commonly, rape is a crime of opportunity; the victim is chosen not because of her looks or behavior, but because she is there.

Helen Benedict, Virgin or Vamp, 1992

African proverb: “The ax forgets, the tree remembers.”

Maya Angelou, Even the Stars Look Lonesome, 1997

Definitions:

Although the legal definition of rape varies from state to state, rape is generally defined as forced or nonconsensual sexual intercourse. Rape may be accomplished by fear, threats of harm, and/or actual physical force. Rape may also include situations in which penetration is accomplished when the victim is unable to give consent, or is prevented from resisting, due to being intoxicated, drugged, unconscious, or asleep.

Sexual assault is a broader term than rape. It includes various types of unwanted sexual touching or penetration without consent, such as forced sodomy (anal intercourse), forced oral copulation (oral-genital contact), rape by a foreign object (including a finger), and sexual battery (the unwanted touching of an intimate part of another person for the purpose of sexual arousal).

The term “drug-facilitated sexual assault” is generally used to define situations in which victims are subjected to nonconsensual sexual acts while they are incapacitated or unconscious due to the effects of alcohol and/or other drugs and are therefore, prevented from resisting and/or are unable to give consent.