Women: Have you or have you not been assaulted?

[LucyParsons]

Poll question: Women: Have you or have you not been assaulted?

--Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

--Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey.

--Nearly 25 percent of American women report being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey, conducted from November 1995 to May 1996.

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

Have you been raped, sexually, or physically assaulted? I suspect the results will conform to the statistics, or surpass them.

[ensho]

1. you left off a very large grouping

psychological abuse


as we see, regularly, it kills

[lisa58]

4. who isn't psychologically abused?

I've never met anyone who wasn't, at some time, manipulated by someone else.

[angstlessk]

2. when I was 16 or thereabouts some stranger on a bus started feeling up my thigh

I jumped up...shouted out loud, "take your hands off me, get out of this seat, you are a creep" (or some such thing) the bus driver stopped the bus and made the man get off. That was the end of that! Nowdays, I recon they would hold the man for the police???

ps I did not post as I do not know if this is physical or sexual?? It WAS an assult and felt like an assult at the time.

[BlooInBloo]

8. Good job!

Sounds sexual to me, though it can get gray since the sexual-assault category is typically thought of as contained within the physical-assault category.

If I ever have daughters, I hope that her mom and I teach them to react similarly.

[laylah]

Hmmmmmm...

I was from age 3 to 13 (family member), twice when I was 27. Does that count? (sorry for the bitter aside)

[LucyParsons]

11. Yep, laylah

and I'm in the same boat

:(

[woo me with science]

3. Unfortunately, this poll is unlikely to give any meaningful results

because of a severe selection bias.

First, women who have been assaulted are more likely to show interest in a poll like this and respond, than women who have not.

The other group likely to be drawn to this type of poll is women involved in recovering "repressed" or "dissociated" memories of abuse that are highly unlikely to be accurate. The problem of recovered memories is still so pervasive that university researchers now routinely exclude from their samples women who have not always remembered their abuse, so as not to contaminate their results. The recovered memory contingent here at DU is strong, as evidenced by the furor that arises every time there is another thread about satanic ritual abuse and mind control.

Both groups will skew your results.

[CoffeeCat]

9. What ARE you talking about?

No one is asserting that this is some scientific poll.

It's just a DU poll. No one mentioned repressed memories. Obviously, you're salivating
to have this argument.

There is a great deal of research involving trauma and how it affects the brain. Children who
are abused, often have delayed recall of trauma. Research studies have shown that people
suffering other traumas--such as car accidents, natural disasters and war battle--sometimes
have delayed recall.

Many soldiers experience delayed recall of memories. I don't see you, or the other repressed-memory
naysayers, attacking soldiers who later remember traumatic murder scenes or war events. Yet, you'll
go after sexual-abuse survivors.

My guess is that you have a family member who has remembered abuse...so you attack everyone who has
repressed memories, because you don't want to deal with your own situation.

Please stop blanketing the entire world with your biases. The foremost researches studying trauma
completely disagree with you.

[woo me with science]

10. Nonsense.

University trained researchers take exactly the steps I have described, for exactly the reasons I mention. The problem is well-known and well-documented. We also have research showing that the more advanced training a psychologist receives, the LESS likely he or she is to believe in massive repression of abuse.

Your response illustrates the defensiveness of the repressed memory crowd about this issue.

Do you believe in massive repression of an entire childhood of trauma? Do you believe in satanic ritual abuse causing multiple personality disorder? I suspect you do. Most university trained researchers no longer do.

[CoffeeCat]

14. The fact remains...

...that people who experience trauma, sometimes have delayed recall of the trauma--sexual abuse
survivors, war veterans, victims of natural disasters.

You obviously have some defensive posture and a deep need to ensnare people into your own reactive,
extremely bizarre behavior toward this issue.

I'm not really interested in engaging with you. You ignore reality, and you'll just continue
spouting off your nonsense.

The fact is that abuse victims sometimes repress trauma--including sexual abuse.

I don't know what your agenda is. It's very misguided though. Obviously, you clutch
your misnomers for reasons that are very important to you, and I have no interest in
arguing with you.

I just didn't want the balderdash you spew with such haughty confidence to go unchallenged. Trauma
and abuse victims endure so much. They don't need some ill-informed distorter making them feel
like pariahs because their brains protected them from the horror of their abuse--by helping them
to forget until they were strong enough to handle it.

And to victims of abuse, and other traumas--if you had delayed recall of some or most of the abuse--do
not feel like a freak or that your process is not valid--as antfarm wants you to feel.

When I was 35, I remembered sexual abuse that I endured as a child. I had no memory of it before. I called
one of the people in one of my memories, and asked the person if my memories were accurate. This person verified
that what I repressed for 25 years, had indeed happened.

I was lucky enough to get corroboration. Many abuse survivors are not that fortunate, and they don't
need misinformed people on blogs making their recovery processes more painful and difficult--by disparaging
their own process.

I had some repressed memories that were later recalled--when I was strong and safe. I wasn't in therapy.
My repressed memories were validated and corroborated.

Spew your nonsense to a crowd that has absolutely no knowledge of the issue, antfarm. Maybe then you can
get away with your selective suppositions and ignorance of the facts.

You are harmful and you have an agenda, antfarm.

[yardwork]

17. How convenient for you to dismiss the poll results by suggesting that they are lies.

I'm nearly fifty years old, and I've met exactly one person who has ever been involved in recovering repressed or dissociated memories. She has plenty of abuse that she remembers, too! I read and post here constantly and I hardly ever see any threads about satanic ritual abuse. I think it's generally acknowledged that this is a problem among a few therapists, but it's far from a widespread problem.

The simple fact - that you don't seem to want to face - is that there is enormous, highly reliable data about women being raped and abused. Those women aren't claiming to have "recovered" their memories. They wish that they could forget.

[AutumnMist]

20. The Poll was NOT

about repressed or in your opinion imagined memories. Scientifically speaking no human can recall or remember all memories regardless of the level of trauma or experience. If you had done your homework you would have known that. But your argument in regards to the article that was posted and the poll is pointless. The question was not IF someone remembered being abused. It was about being abused. People who are raped have the right to speak about the experience and yes most do remember exactly what happened. Its a haunting experience that carries pain for a lifetime. As does all abuse. Sexual/physical/emotional..it doesnt matter. It all does damage that has shaped generations to live in silence. A silence that needs to stop.

A poll is one thing. The actual reality of it is another. Obviously its something you either choose to not understand or you have had the pleasure of not going through it. Either way your energy would be better spent changing the fact that it happens then judging the victims and applying blame. Go down to a womens shelter and explain to them what you just posted. I would almost guarantee that you would leave a very changed person.

The fact that you would simplify all of the people who answered as women who are drawn to abuse and "skew" the results is exactly why women choose to be quiet about the abuse they suffer. Think before you spew such ignorance.

[frogmarch]

5. Never.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. I am most fortunate ...

I have never been physically or sexually assaulted...

[lisa58]

7. I never have and have always been grateful...

...I don't know how I would deal with it if it ever happened to me or someone close to me.

[Silver Swan]

12. There was no category

That provided a choice of "more than one of the above."

[AnneD]

13. On your poll...

It is unclear if this is just with husbands and boyfriends only. You also left off multiple assaults, multiple assailants:( Sad but true. The world is not a safe place for females.

[LucyParsons]

18. I meant in general, not with partners, or single/multiple

nt

[Lady-Damai]

15. I was sexually assaulted at 13 by a classmate.

I always thought something like that could never happen to me. I was a tall strong girl. I played football, soccer, and basketball.

It was so weird because boy was a close friend. His mother and my mom were good friends. He sang in the choir and volunteered in the church daycare.

I will never forget that early afternoon going home from school on rainy day. It still boggles my mind on how could a boy smaller than me have so much strength to hold me down. Luckily, a noisy car passed by...it distracted him and I was able to escape.

I ran all the way home crying. He called me said "Please don't tell anyone." He was crying so hard. It made me stop crying. I promised him that I wouldn't say anything to anyone. *One of my biggest regrets in life.* The next day in school we acted like nothing ever happened.

My story pales in comparison to my friend who was gang raped by her cousin's friends.

[noonwitch]

16. Since this is differentiating between sexual assualt and rape....

I assume that the difference would be that rape involved penetration, either vaginally or anally. I've never been raped by that definition.

I was abused, by touching, twice as a child-one of those occasions was rape-like, but the perp was another kid, and was not capable physically of completing the act. It was really more of a physical assualt, because he hurt me when he shoved me up against the wall. At a party in college, two friends pulled a guy off me who was trying to either sexually assualt or rape me. I was drunk at the time-it probably wouldn't have happened, otherwise.

But I am no one's victim.

[LucyParsons]

19. I'll leave it up to respondents to define "rape" for themselves.

I would concur with your defintion, above. For instance, being molested by a relative, like many women are, does not, alone, constitute rape. Sexual assault could also even be so broad as to include uninvited touching by a stranger on the street. I'll leave it up to women to describe their experiences as they see fit.

Also, congrats on not feeling like a victim. It's tricky to navigate.