1 in 16 Women Say Their First Sexual Experience Was Forced
Rape culture is alive and well in America
Rape culture doesn’t just mean living in a country that has elevated two sexual predators to the Supreme Court and gives “promising young men” little or no jail time at all for rape. It’s also the larger belief, of which those are a function, that women are on earth for the pleasure and gratification of men. Nowhere is this belief made more evident than the data gleaned from a study that was recently published in the medical journal, JAMA Internal Medicine.
This pervasive belief that women exist to sexually service men is reflected in a shocking statistic wherein 1 in 16 women said that their first sexual experiences were coerced or forced, often violently so. The study purposely did not use the word rape when asking these women about their experiences so as not to lead them with such an emotionally charged term, but what was clear in this cross-sectional, nationally representative study of 13,310 American women aged 18 to 44 is that a significant number of respondents indicated that their first sexual experience was non-consensual — they were in fact rapes.
“We feel it is accurate to describe these events as rape,” said Dr. Laura Hawks, a primary care physician and research fellow at Harvard Medical School who co-authored the study.
The average age of women who experienced forced sexual initiation was 15.6. The average age of the partner or assailant at the time was 6 years older. Among women whose first sexual intercourse was voluntary, the average age was 17.4.
Some 50% of women surveyed said the perpetrator was larger or older. More than 46% of the women were held down. In 56% of the instances, men used verbal pressure. Men used physical threats more than 26% of the time and caused physical harm in more than 25% of the instances. Some 22% of the women were drugged.”(emphasis mine) CNN Health
This is not “flirting gone awry” or miscommunication between partners about whether or not the sex was mutually desired — it’s out and out predatory rape from men who have intentionally selected younger, less confident and less likely to be able to resist targets. These men believe that women owe them sex and should these girls be reluctant or resist, they will simply coerce them or force them to comply.
The study also took note of some of the co-occurring conditions that were more prevalent in women who had had this kind of experience. This included things like an increased rate of HIV, unwanted pregnancy, STDs, and menstrual problems as well as emotional problems. The doctors who headed the researcher team concluded:
“Forced sexual initiation in women appears to be common and associated with multiple adverse reproductive and general health outcomes. These findings highlight the possible need for public health measures and sociocultural changes to prevent sexual violence, particularly forced sexual initiation.”
Not every man looks at women and girls through this excessively predatory lens, but the cultural narrative and behavior of many men is still disturbing. “Young men still too often learn to prioritize their pleasure over women’s feelings, to interpret a partner’s behavior through the lens of their own wishes. Their claims of “miscommunication,” Bedera concluded in her research on college men, may actually be part of “an expectation that they control both partners’ narratives about desire and consent.” This is not because these men are inherently monsters, but because they have been socialized to think in this way, no matter how subconsciously.
Previous research indicates that about 40% of women have experienced some kind of sexual violence and about half of those have been rapes. This latest study sheds additional light on how much further we really need to go to create a society where men do not identify with being predators and women are not considered as prey — a society that is sexually safe for women and girls.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.
