The Terrible Reason This 'Westworld' Actor Thought No One Would Believe She Was Raped
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"Westworld" actor Evan Rachel Wood made a big public revelation to Rolling Stone, and it exposes the truth about who can commit sexual assault.
During an interview with the magazine's Alex Morris, Wood referenced sexual abuse in her past, but she did not give details. On Nov. 9, the day after the presidential election, Wood emailed Morris a long letter and admitted to being raped. Morris included part of that confession in the article published on Nov. 17.
"I don't believe we can live in a time where people can stay silent any longer," Wood wrote.
On Monday, Wood decided to release the full letter she sent to Rolling Stone on Twitter, and it reveals a misconception about rape.
Wood wrote that she was sexually assaulted twice, and one of the alleged assaults was committed by a partner. Because she was dating this person, Wood wasn't sure at first if it was rape.
"The first time, I was unsure that if it was done by a partner, it was still in fact rape, until too late," she wrote in the email. "Also who would believe me."
You can be sexually assaulted by an intimate partner or a spouse.
The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network says that a rapist can have any relationship to the victim, including being a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife. Getting a person's consent before sexual activity is necessary no matter the relationship with the person.
"There are many different terms to refer to sexual assault committed by a person in a relationship with the victim, including: intimate partner sexual violence, domestic violence, intimate partner rape, marital rape, and spousal rape," RAINN wrote on it's website. "No matter what term is used or how the relationship is defined, it is never okay to engage in sexual activity without someone’s consent."
The Centers for Disease Control and prevention conducted a survey about intimate partner violence with thousands of women and men back in 2011. The center published the results in 2014. In their lifetimes, 8.8 percent of the women in the survey had been raped by an intimate partner and .5 percent of men said they were raped by an intimate partner. Also the CDC survey found that 15.8 percent of women and 9.5 percent of men experienced other types of sexual violence from intimate partners, including being forced to penetrate their partner, being sexually coerced, and other types of unwanted sexual contact.
