Why is the trauma of a sexual assault different from a physical assault?

Question

What makes the victim of a sexual assault, such as a rape, suffer different emotional trauma than the victom of a physical assault, such as a kidnapping and beating?

This is a serious question with no disrespect intended to victims of any crime.

Answer 1

A beating is a violation of your body.

A rape is a violation of your soul

Answer 2

It is an EXCELLENT question - and one that will no doubt
generate all kinds of hate mail.

The difference is entirely societal. If society didn't make such
a big thing about a woman's virginity or modesty, it wouldn't
be an issue.

However, rape as a power trip wouldn't be an issue either.
(Rape has two components: Sexual release and asserting
power. If there was no social aspect to sexual assault,
the "asserting power" would be far less powerful)

A non forcible rape that produces no progeny or disease
is still considered worse than if somebody lops off somebody
else's finger.

Clearly the damage done to the body by the rape is much
less than the finger assault, but because society has all of
these associations which the woman (and those around
her) have been indoctrinated to, it is not the lesser crime.

That being said: We live in society. It may be that we
both think that society shouldn't do this to people, but it
does never-the-less, and that is why we deal with
rape victims as compassionately as we do - because
it IS a worse crime in our society.

Answer 3

Sexual assault is so much more personal, and it leaves the person feeling disgusting. Fluids were exchanged (possibly) and that is only supposed to be an intimate thing done with permission. Now, I don't know anybody that has actually asked a person if they could beat thir a$$, I have had my a$$ beat, but I didn't feel the creepy crawlies that rape victims feel afterward. A person that loses a fight learns a lesson (if they needed one or didn't), a rape victim suffered more emotional trauma because it is so personal as I said before. I would rather have my a$$ beat.

Answer 4

That's a good question, and one I've often wondered about.

I guess the obvious answer would be that sex is unique, but this could be interpreted in two different ways.

1. Sex is tied with love and intimacy, so assaults that involve a sexual component are even more hurtful. Sexual assaults take something that is supposed to bring people together and twists it into something to make them feel even more pain.

2. In many societies (including Western ones) sex is still seen as something dirty or shameful. The harm from a sexual assault is intensified by a feeling of dirtiness or shame.

There's also a gender component to sex in many cultures that can make sex assaults even more painful. Women are expected to be sexually pure, and sexual assaults could be seen as diluting the purity of a woman. In fact, in some cultures the female victim of a sex crime is held just as guilty as the perpetrators, if not more so. For male victims, their abuse is seen as an assault on their masculinity, since men are supposed to be the sexual aggressors, not the sexual recipients.

Answer 5

Sexual assualt is more personal and intrusive physically. But both victims should have counseling after such a trauma. It's a case of mans inhumanity to man. There really is no excuse for the actions of some people. I hope you're just curious and not a victim of either. Good Luck

Answer 6

I don't believe one type of trauma is more "severe" than any other type of trauma. Pain is only relative to the person experiencing it. With that said, I believe the primary difference for the victim may be in how society treats the two different crimes.
automatic

For example,
Assault victims don't have to prove they were assaulted.
Assault victims don't have to explain why they were in a particular area or wearing a certain article of clothing.
Assault victims don't have to subject themselves to invasive questions and physical examinations to collect "evidence."
Assault victims can talk about their experience without being judged, ridiculed, blamed or shunned.

Rape victims have to endure the burden of proof, the shame of being silenced and the added worries about long-term health effects (e.g. pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, etc.). It is much different to have someone invade one's space versus one's body. While assault victims may have some anxiety and stress with being out in public again, it is possible to avoid situations where a repeat crime is likely. Whereas, women have to co-exist with men and face other men almost immediately (e.g. police officers, doctors, lawyers, judges, bosses, co-workers, etc.). There is no way to stay within the world and process sexual assault without being constantly retraumatized just by having to co-exist.

All in all, when someone is physically assaulted, almost everyone on the planet can relate or has the potential to be able to understand. When a woman is raped, fifty percent of the population usually doesn't "get" it and sometimes other women are very judgmental and cruel to rape victims. This causes the victim to internalize the pain and shame much more deeply. Again, though, pain is pain and nobody can gauge how another person feels or should feel about a particular situation. Only the person living through something can determine how "bad" it is for them.

Answer 7

From experience here...
When physically assaulted, the victim nearly always knows with some part of them that they are the victim. There is anger toward the assailant. Someone beat me and I was thinking, "Why do I deserve this? I DON'T! This is wrong and cowardly of this person to try to kill my spirit by physically hurting me!" and though I at times pretended to be subdued to limit being further beaten, I always knew I was the victim.
Recovering from that trauma involved doing things to make me feel physically empowered. Like learning some karate moves and self defense strategies. Once I found the ability to physically hurt back and defend myself I was able to overcome the fear instilled in me. There was really no emotional trauma from the actual beating. The emotional trauma is from the WAY the abuser makes you feel about yourself.

Which brings me to rape and sexual assault. Any time a person is sexually assaulted they are being nonverbally told by the attacker that they are a THING to be USED. That they asked for it, deserve it, and have no right to complain. Society instills a guilt in the victims of rape before any rape ever occurs, so when it does happen to a person, she (or he) is already conditioned to accept the message that the attacker is sending that she is worthless and deserved it. No matter how logically a sexually abused woman tells herself that it wasn't her fault, and no matter the circumstances, rape always makes the victim feel guilt.
So in the case of sexual assault, the victim not only has to deal with the physical pain and recovery, and the feeling of helplessness, but she (or he) has to deal with reprogramming herself to accept that it's not her fault.

Answer 8

Because rape takes a person's self-worth and dignity and respect and throws those qualities down the drain. A victim of rape no longer feels useful for any purpose. If they tell someone, they are usually not believed, especially if they are of consenting age, or if the rapist was known to them. Because of that, they feel like they deserved it or did something to provoke it. Physical attacks, on the other hand, unless accompanied with racist remarks, usually just leave physical marks, and therefore arent as horrific as a sexual assault.

Also, I think a victim of kidnapping can feel just as traumatized as a rape victim, depending on what the kidnapper does to the victim. Rape, beatings, all sorts of horrendous things can be or have been done to kidnapping victims.

No matter what the circumstances, put yourself in the victim's shoes. Until you've experienced it firsthand, you can never know what it's like.

Answer 9

One reason involves the cultural attitudes toward any kind of intercourse, consensual or otherwise, but especially in the area of when or where consent is allowed. Women who are raped are in effect forced to give consent in situations where it is otherwise seldom permitted. They are often overcome with guilt for appearing to consent at all. The feeling that they may have done something to invite the rape, and thus gave some sort of prior consent, contributes to that guilt. The fear that others who may learn of the rape will now find them somehow responsible, and in some societies, now unclean, contributes to that guilt. The felling of vulnerability to this type of attack is one that they never had before and is also extremely disturbing.

Trauma is defined as an event or situation that causes great distress and disruption. The various feelings of guilt and vulnerability triggered by sexual assault can clearly add up to trauma.

Answer 10

Sexual assault is such a personal crime, I mean think about it, having someone inside you is much more personal than smacking the outside of you. And generally it is a very sexist crime, I mean MOST of the time a man is the attacker and the woman the attackee. Therefore the woman may develop a strong sense of fear against the male sex.

Answer 11

a sexual assault is humiliating because it makes the victim feal exposed, dirty and ashamed and the stigma that comes along with rape that she asked for it because she was alone at night, wearing a skirt too short, etc... A physical beating can leave emotional scars, but the attack is of anger. A beating or kidnapping is less "personal" than a rape.