After a sexual assault, victims are subjected to investigations and, in most cases, mistreatment. Victims undergo medical examinations and are interviewed by police. During the criminal trial, victims suffer a loss of privacy and their credibility may be challenged.
Sexual assault victims may also experience secondary victimization and victim blaming including,
slut-shaming and
cyberbullying. During criminal proceedings,
publication bans and
rape shield laws operate to protect victims from excessive public scrutiny.
Secondary victimization Rape is especially
stigmatizing in cultures with strong customs and
taboos regarding sex and sexuality. For example, a rape victim (especially one who was previously a
virgin) may be viewed by society as being "damaged." Victims in these cultures may suffer
isolation, be disowned by friends and family, be prohibited from marrying, be divorced if already married, or even killed. This phenomenon is known as secondary
victimization. While society targets secondary victimization mainly towards women, male victims can also feel shameful, or experience a loss of purity. Secondary victimization is the re-traumatization of the sexual assault, abuse, or rape victim through the responses of individuals and institutions. Types of secondary victimization include victim blaming and inappropriate post-assault behavior or language by medical personnel or other organizations with which the victim has contact. Secondary victimization is especially common in cases of
drug-facilitated,
acquaintance, and
statutory rape.
Victim blaming The term
victim blaming refers to holding the victim of a crime to be responsible for that crime, either in whole or in part. In the context of rape, it refers to the attitude that certain victim behaviors (such as
flirting or wearing sexually provocative clothing) may have encouraged the assault. This can cause the victim to believe the crime was indeed their fault. Rapists are known to use victim blaming as their primary psychological disconnect from their crime(s) and in some cases it has led to their conviction. Female rape victims receive more blame when they exhibit behavior which breaks the gender roles of society. Society uses this behavior as a justification for the rape. Similarly, blame placed on female rape victims often depends on the victim's attractiveness and respectability. While such behavior has no justified correlation to an attack, it can be used in victim blaming. A "rape supportive" society refers to when perpetrators are perceived as justified for raping. It has been proposed that one cause of victim blaming is the
just world fallacy. People who believe that the world is intrinsically fair may find it difficult or impossible to accept a situation in which a person is badly hurt for no reason. This leads to a sense that victims must have done something to deserve their fate. Another theory entails the psychological need to protect one's own sense of invulnerability, which can inspire people to believe that rape only happens to those who provoke the assault. Believers use this as a way to feel safer: If one avoids the behaviours of the past victims, one will be less vulnerable. A global survey of attitudes toward sexual violence by the
Global Forum for Health Research shows that victim-blaming concepts are at least partially accepted in many countries. An additional idea used to explain victim blaming is the
ideal victim theory. Conceptualized by
Nils Christie in 1986, the ideal victim theory explains that certain individuals have features that make them seem as more acceptable as a victim. This is not to be confused with the idea of what kind of people are more likely to be victims to criminals ''''. Ideal victim theory establishes that a person’s lifestyle deeply impacts the public’s perception on whether or not the individual ‘deserved’ what happened to them. For example, Christie’s theory states that an elderly woman who is attacked by a man seeking drugs while walking home from caring for her sick sister is an ideal victim as she has no lifestyle or individual factors that would’ve provoked that attack. However, on the alternative, a young man in a bar who is raped is not an ideal victim, as his choice to drink alcohol and put himself in the situation of possible abuse pushed the public to believe the rape was justified. Ultimately, the theory of an ideal victim is dependent on what type of person will generate the most sympathy from the public. Victim blame can also be a result of popular media's use of sexual objectification. Sexual objectification is reducing an individual's existence to that of a sexual object. This involves dehumanization. A study conducted in Britain found that women who are objectified based on the clothes that they wear and what the media says about them, the more likely they would be to experience victim-blame after a sexual assault. Another study that investigated a large group of college students to see medias contribution to sexual objectification and its effects on victim-blaming, found that the more a person is exposed to media content that sexualizes women's bodies the more likely they are to participate in rape blame. It has also been proposed by Roxane Agnew-Davies, a clinical psychologist and an expert on the effects of sexual violence, that victim-blaming correlates with fear. "It is not surprising when so many rape victims blame themselves. Female jurors can look at the woman in the witness stand and decide she has done something 'wrong' such as flirting or having a drink with the defendant. She can therefore reassure herself that rape won't happen to her as long as she does nothing similar." According to a multitude of studies, heterosexual men are the most likely to participate in victim-blaming. Men tend to blame other men for their own sexual assaults. They also tend to blame individuals who do not adhere to gender norms, such as crossdressers, transgender men, and
gay men. Many of the countries in which victim blaming is more common are those in which there is a
significant social divide between the freedoms and status afforded to men and women. ==Reporting a rape==