Recently I sat through a presentation about sexual assault and it really opened my eyes; I hope to open yours, too. Society has become so familiar with rape that when we hear about the accusations in the headlines, many of us just skim over the article with little importance in mind, while others get very vivid memories of the time their lives changed forever.
In the United States, a woman is raped every two minutes. Just imagine how many people get raped around the world at that pace. In America, a woman's chances of getting raped are one to five. Think about all of the girls you see at school or walking around in public places — there is a huge chance that more than one of them have dealt with sexual assault. Throughout society you will see that many people use "rape joke" when in reality, nothing should ever be funny about it.
I have known a few people in my life that have been sexually assaulted, and it changes their lives forever. Some people believe that a person cannot remember being sexually assaulted from a young age, but I have had people tell me that they remember it happening at the age of four. It just proves that while many of the victims are unable to stop sexual assault for whatever reason, they are still able to remember every detail of it.
In America, it is two to one more likely for a woman to get raped than a woman to get breast cancer. 54 percent of people do not report being sexually assaulted, and of the 1.3 million people that get raped each year, 97 percent of the attackers do not face any jail time or charge for their crime. I am always so repulsed to hear how little jail time rapists have to face, all their excuses to why they did it or why they should be let off easy.
Take the Brock Turner case; he was sentenced to six months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. His father wrote a statement including how his son has trouble eating his favorite food and the sentence is "a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 years of life." This is the most upsetting statement I have ever read — Turner's father tries so hard to protect his son without being considerate at all to what that young girl is going through. She has become so "self-deprecating" and angry, her life has been on hold and I am sure that rape was a steep price to pay for going to that one party out of her 20 years of life. It should not be that hard to understand when you should and should not have sexual relations with another person.
