I'm doing a whole lot of reading for research for my book... which is damaging my uni work somewhat I suppose.lol
Anyway, I got three books out of the library today, one about date rape and abusive relationships, one about rape, and one about sex and relationships, yet none of them actually define any of the terms! Which has angered me somewhat. Every one of the books is up in arms about rape, abuse and sexual assault going unreported. Yet how do girls and women know it has happened to them if they don't understand what it is??? It took over a year for me to admit to myself that I had been sexually assulted. Because I was looking at the situations from the point of view of people like my mother and various others who attest that if you are with a guy somewhere, and don't do something which fits their scale of acceptable resistance, then it is your fault because you a)led him on, b) put yourself in that position and shouldn't be surprised, c) if you really didn't want you would have left or something to that effect. There are plenty of other bad ideas about sexual assaults that stop women from accepting what happened to them as what it truly is, and from reporting it.
What I'm asking today is:
What does rape, sexual assault, and date (or accuaintance) rape mean to YOU??