Does Fight-or-Flight mechanism makes us vulnerable from sexual abuse?

Every 68 seconds, people throughout the world are being sexually assaulted. 60,000 children were victims of ‘indicated’ sexual abuse. 430,000 people 12 and older were sexually assaulted or raped. 18,900 soldiers in the military experienced unwanted sexual contact. Sex crime rate is undoubtedly increasing.

As human being cannot sympathize what they haven’t been through or experienced, a lot of people does not understand the severity of sex crime even though almost half of the Earth has been through sexual abuse. That is the main reason why the term ‘victim blaming’ was created.

Victim Blaming, a.k.a Victim Shaming, infers any response that states or implies that the victim is to blame for the abuse they have experienced. 

The ministry of Gender Equality and Family have announced that 46.1% of people said ‘the sexual abuse is caused by the victim’s inappropriate clothing’, 32.1% said ‘if the victims were abused when they were drunk, they share the responsibility with the offenders’. It sounds objectively unreasonable, however, still, a lot of people are causing the second abuse by blaming victims like this. These people largely think that the victims should have tried to stop the abuse, call for help, or attack the offender to get out of the situation. However, unfortunately, victims cannot stop the abuse or the offender when they want, and just walk away from it.

Have you heard of the Fight-or-flight mechanism? The Fight-or-flight mechanism is an automatic physical reaction to an event that is stressful or frightening. You choose to fight, or flight when you confront stressful and frightening situations.

Let’s make a supposition and think you are the victim of the sexual abuse. You are about to be sexually assaulted. Most of you would simulate the attacks or defenses to protect yourself such as kicking the offender, or shout as loud as you can. However, that’s not how the brain works. Some of you would fight, but most of you would freeze.

When you face a frightening situation, the brain sends blood to physical areas of your body to flee, like running away or fighting, from the less important areas like planning, organizing or even talking.

“when someone's in a dangerous situation where they don’t see an escape, they may alternatively have an involuntary freeze response”, said Dr.Gail Saltz, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New Work-Presbyterian hospital and Weill Cornell medical College.

Not fighting doesn’t mean that in any way the victims allowed the offenders to sexually assault them. We should remember what happened and the reason is not because of the victim, it’s because of the offender. It’s necessary for people, countries, and our society to consider the victim as the victim and the offender as the offender.