This Actress' Post About Being Raped Reveals Why Many Women Don't Report Sexual Assault
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Yesterday, actor Abigail Breslin opened up about her own rape on Instagram, standing up a comment on her previous post that asserted that "reported rapes are the only rapes that count."
On Sunday, the "Scream Queens" star decided to fight back and posted a picture of her personal story with the words "Trigger Warning."
Breslin gave three main reasons why she didn't report her rape:
- She was in shock.
- She was in a relationship with the person who raped her.
- She didn't want to hurt her family and friends.
Sadly, Breslin isn't alone. Most victims of sexual assault don't report the attack.
As Breslin pointed out in another Instagram post, it's more common for survivors to not report a sexual assault than to report it.
The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network says that out of 1,000 rapes, only 310 are reported to the police. The actor posted that she was "in complete shock and total denial" after her rape and she didn't want to view herself as a "victim." Like Breslin, some women don't report sexual assault because they feel shocked and ashamed, and they're worried about the impact the news would have on their loved ones.
Another common reason that sexual assaults remain unrevealed has to do with the attacker.
Breslin said that she didn't report her rape because she was in a relationship with the person who raped her and she feared retaliation, and that no one would believe her. "Second of all I was in a relationship with my rapist and feared not being believed,'" she wrote in the post. "Westworld" actor Evan Rachel Wood revealed in November 2016 that she was raped by a "significant other" and she also didn't report it.
A survey published in 2014 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 8.8 percent of women and 0.5 percent of men said they had been raped by an intimate partner at one point in their life. The survey also found that 15.8 percent of women and 9.5 percent of men had experienced other kinds of sexual violence from an intimate partner like coercion and unwanted sexual contact. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center says that nearly one in 10 women have been raped by an intimate partner in her lifetime "including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration or alcohol/drug-facilitated completed penetration."
