Stages Phases The Emotional Feelings The Victim example essay topic

In the dictionary, rape is defined as! SS the crime of engaging in sexual acts with a person who has not consented!" . When people hear the word! Scrape!" , they usually first think of a stranger being the rapist forcing another person to do sexual acts without their permission. The actual fact is that most rape cases are committed by acquaintances that the victim knows (i.e. Husband / wife, employee, co-worker, friend, date, etc. ).

Acquaintance rape affects the victim's emotional health more than their physical health. Not only does the incident effect the assailant and the victim but others (family, peers, police, etc.) as well. In most acquaintance rape, the victim hardly suffers from physical harm. The attacker doesn! |t want to harm the victim, they only want to get what they want: sexual pleasure.

Victims could get bruises and maybe little cuts if they try to fight back. If the victim was a female, internal injuries such as tears of the vaginal or rectal tissue can be possible but this hardly happens. If no birth control was used during or after the rape, there is a chance for the female victim to get pregnant. There is also a chance of that the assailant could have sexually transmitted diseases. STDs can be passed on causing problems to the victim's physical health. The rape trauma syndrome is the perfect way to describe in stages / phases the emotional feelings the victim would feel right after the event.

Their emotional health will take longer to heal than their physical health. Some times they can never heal from what happen to them. During this time, victims should get professional help like counseling. The three phases of the rape trauma syndrome are: the acute / crisis phase, the disorientation phase, and the reorientation phase. The acute / crisis phase begins after or near the end of the rape. They will start to feel calm and carefree because of the shock they suffered.

They will become upset, angry, and guilty of what just happened. They! |ll question themselves of how the rape happened and will feel that they might have caused it. Disbelief, depression, shame, embarrassment mixed in with fear and anxiety are the flood of emotions that will affect the victim's choice of what to do next. During the disorientation phase, the victim will get confused and will start remembering the terrible event. They believe they did something to cause the assailant to rape them so they change their behavior patterns to avoid the same situation from happening again. Some stop going out on dates or start shrinking away from society.

They will have a hard time trusting and interacting with others. They try to repress the memory of the incident and if the victims have trouble dealing with their emotions, they might get depression. Some victims might even consider suicide if they feel really confused and can! |t find a way to escape their feelings. Not all victims of rape get pass the disorientation phase. If they do, they! |ll start making changes and try to rebuild their life back to normal. This is the reorientation phase.

Victims will begin to feel stronger and in more control. They will accept the fact that they were raped and will continue on with their life. The rape does not only affect the victim and the offender but also the people close to them. If the victim chose to tell his / her family, friends, etc., they can give a positive or negative response. Although they feel terrible, shocked or guilty of what happened to the victim, some will support and help the victim. Other people might feel disbelief and will be angry at the victim.

They will start blaming the victim for what happened and this will contribute to the confusion the victim is suffering. Some assailants don! |t even realize that they actually raped someone. They might have thought the victim was just resisting for fun or that they convinced the victim to have sex instead of forcing it. Some cases, the assailant is under influence of drugs or alcohol and doesn! |t realize what they did. If they learned the truth, they will feel ashamed, shocked, guilty, and upset.

If the victim chooses to report the rape to the police, the government is involved. The assailant will be charged of sexual assault and the case will go to court. This might result in convicting the offender if there is enough evidence to support that the rape took place. In the amendments of the Criminal Code made in the 1980's, the crime is sentenced by the violent nature rather than the sexual nature. The sentencing will be assigned based on the three levels of sexual assault.

Lorene Clark wrote, ! SS It takes time to rebuild a self-image and it is not surprising that some rape victims take months or years to get over the rape. What they are getting over is not just the rape but the awful awareness that they were taken in by a role identity left them defenseless against those whom they had been taught to trust. !" You can be healed physically faster than emotional and mental pain.

It takes a lot of time to heal on the inside than the on the outside. You can take all the physical medical treatment (medicine, surgery, etc.) offered to heal physical pain but you can! |t do that for mental or emotional pain. To get treatment for that, professional help is one of the best ways. To make it effective, you have to listen and share your feelings to help yourself regain control of your life. Bode, Janet. Fighting Back: How to Cope with the Medical, Emotional and Legal Consequences of Rape.

New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1978. Parrot, Andrea. Coping with Date Rape and Acquaintance Rape. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 1988. Clark, Lorene.

Rape: The Price of Coercive Sexuality. Toronto: Typeset at Women's Educational Press in cooperation with The Coach House Press, 1977. The Oxford English Mini dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Gibson, Dwight L. et al. All About Law: Exploring the Canadian Legal System Third Edition. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Canada Limited. 1990.