Center for Hope & Safety
Defining Sexual Assault and Rape
Sexual Assault or Rape: Sexual contact with anyone who cannot or does not give informed, willing consent.
This is not the legal definition of rape in Oregon. The legal definitions distinguish between degrees of rape and between rape and other forms of sexual assault. However, the Center for Hope and Safety has developed its own definition of rape - the one just given - in order to focus attention on the pivotal issue of consent.
Whether a stranger or a family member attacked the victim, whether she was violently assaulted or coerced by threats or pleas, whether what happened to her legally would be defined as rape, sexual assault, or sodomy, she suffers the pain of being sexually assaulted. She deserves to be believed, to have her feelings validated, and to know that she is not to blame.
Pinpointing Responsibility
A pervasive and devastating myth about rape is that the victim is in some way responsible for the crime. We have often heard people (including, unfortunately, some defense attorneys and judges) say, “What was she doing out alone?” or “She shouldn’t have been drinking” or “She shouldn’t have been wearing those clothes.”
The reality is, a rapist is responsible for the rape. The Center for Hope and Safety refuses to accept that sexual violence is ever the appropriate consequence for going out alone, drinking, or wearing certain clothing, any more than banks should be blamed for bank robberies because they intentionally keep a lot of money in their vaults.
Those who blame the victim also fail to take into account that most victims of sexual assault or rape are assaulted by someone they know and believe to be trustworthy; that many sexual assaults occur in the victims’ homes where they believed themselves safe; that victims often are children or the elderly; and that the crime is planned in detail and the victim is powerless to change the plan.
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