In case you missed all the posters and the T-shirts and the auto-replies, April is Sexual Abuse Awareness Month; an entire month devoted to raising awareness about sexual abuse in all its scope and ugliness. You may or may not believe all the statistics you see. You may or may not believe all the words written on the T-shirts. You may or may not believe testimonies from survivors. And it's true -- it's possible that some of what you hear or see this month might not be completely correct. But even so, the mission of this month will have been accomplished because it will have focused attention on a grave problem that transcends any college campus or social setting.
Sexual abuse is an insidious problem that affects countless people -- of all ages, gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity -- throughout the world. The only thing that amazes me more than the fact that it is such a pervasive problem is that so many people don't even consider it to be a problem. Why do we need to have a month devoted to raising awareness about sexual abuse? Shouldn't it be something about which we're all aware, and are concerned about? After all, it is not a theoretical concept or a philosophical debate -- it is an issue that touches real lives, the lives of friends and family and loved ones, the lives of sisters and mothers and brothers and sons. So why aren't more people aware of the problem and outraged that it continues to be a problem?
I suspect a lot of it has to do with silence. Silence on the part of the victim, the victimizer and everyone else with intimate knowledge of the situation. Sexual abuse is such a painful experience for the victim that it is quite understandable how he or she would choose silence. With sexual abuse comes pain and shame and anger and disillusionment along with intense feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing. There is also a concerted effort not to relive the horrors of sexual abuse, which is why a great majority of sexual abuse cases go unreported. The friends and family of the victim remain silent out of respect for the wishes of the victim. And of course, it's quite obvious why the victimizer would remain silent.
All in all, we end up with a situation where a horrible act not only goes unpunished but also unacknowledged. And that is what I consider the greatest tragedy of all. Not acknowledging that there is a problem is equivalent to making it seem inconsequential, non-existent, unworthy of any attention. So when we as a society choose to sweep this issue under the rug, we are sending the message that we don't consider sexual abuse to be a gross violation of basic human decency. And unwittingly, we send a signal to all potential victimizers that their actions will go unpunished. And so the cycle continues -- the cycle of violence and tragedy and silence.
To break the cycle, we need awareness and this is why we have a Sexual Abuse Awareness Month. So that each and every person on this campus at least acknowledges that sexual abuse is a problem. You might not agree with the statistic that one in four college women is raped, but, hopefully, you will agree that even if one in 4000 college women is raped, it's not acceptable. We can argue about statistics all we want, but let's face it, sexual abuse is a problem that isn't going to disappear anytime soon, so the sooner we acknowledge that, the closer we are to finding a solution.
Sexual Abuse Awareness Month is not just a month to empathize with the victims and highlight the crux of this problem, but also a celebration of the strength of those who continue to live after their encounter with sexual abuse. I hesitate to use the word survivor because to survive is to exist, but to live is to prevail -- to think, to breathe, to believe, to achieve, to create, to produce. To live is to triumph and that is the true test of strength -- the ability, the desire, the hunger to live, despite and in spite of the atrocities committed by some animal.
So this month, attend an event or two. Go see Ann Simonton or Don McPherson or the screening of the movie that celebrates strength, "You Don't Know What I Got" or any of the other events and I promise you, you won't regret it. If nothing else, you might just realize that the problem is graver than you thought and then we will be one step closer to ending the silence and acknowledging that sexual abuse is unacceptable and will not be condoned or excused. And who knows, maybe one of these days, a collective scream of outrage will end the silence forever.
