Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Matthew Holm
Ms. Wilson
English II Honors
December 6, 2019
victims of. Sexual assault/ sexual violence, in general, has always been a major issue but never
have been addressed and properly gotten rid of. Teens today are facing many growing issues that
can make their lives more difficult. One of these issues is widely known as sexual harassment/
sexual violence. The significance of sexual violence is that is can be linked to long-term
consequences for both the individual being targeted and their surroundings. People who are
mainly affected by this are women, younger boys, and homosexuals (and other people part of the
LGBTQ+ community). It is important that this issue is immediately addressed because any
non-consensual sexual activity can result in negative long term mental and emotional effects on
the victim of the situation. If nothing is done about this growing issue, sexual predators will
continue to assault younger people who they view as easy targets, which is not acceptable.
Teens shouldn’t have to face sexual violence, especially being a young age. Issues that
can become a result of sexual violence are symptoms of depression, anxiety, paranoia, high
blood pressure, and lack of sleep. “Experiencing sexual harassment and/or assault not only has
implications for your quality of life, social functioning, and job performance, but also for your
mental and physical health.” -Prof Rebecca Thurston, the first author of the study from the
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University of Pittsburgh. Interviews from 2,750 teens from Florida between the ages of 13 and
21 explained their experiences of sexual harassment and assault. According to a study done by
the CDC in 2016, the number of sexual violence reports increases by 5% annually. “In order to
escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote
forgetting everything about the event”- Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The
Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. “No amount of me trying to
explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how
could I have explained it to them?”― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie, a survivor of sexual assault.
This shows that sexual violence and the aftermath can be very traumatizing for the victim.
One solution to sexual violence would be to seek help from an outside source, this source
could be a loved one, a pier, or a professional who specializes in those situations (typically a
counselor or a hotline/ network where you could talk to somebody about it and get advice. Ex:
RAINN). Another solution would be to (if you can) surround yourself with people in an
environment that promotes safety and security, which could prevent the aggression from taking
place at all. Another solution would be to practice self-defense in case if you fund yourself in a
situation like this. One way you could also prevent yourself and others from having this happen
is to them would be to educate people on the importance of practicing sexual consent. Giving
consent means to give permission/ to mutually agree on something happening. Practicing consent
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is important when it comes to sexual activity because if the “victim” in this case is not giving
consent, or is unable to give or not give consent, the “predator” in this case, should not proceed.
Sexual assault/ sexual violence, in general, has always been a major issue that teens
should not have to be dealing with at such an early age, but never have been addressed and
properly gotten rid of. But, there are many sources of help and education that you, as the victim,
can seek if needed. I think the best way to kickstart a movement to end sexual violence is to
educate everyone on the importance of safe, consensual sex. The impact that I hope for my
solution to having is a complete end to all sexual violence. I think it is the best solution to end
sexual violence because it would hopefully unite people together to stand against sexual
misconduct. The people who would be positively affected by this are victims of sexual assault.
People who would end up being affected negatively by this would be the predators who assaulted
the victims. If this solution were to be carried out, the outcome would hopefully be a complete
end to sexual violence to teens, along with everyone else who is a target.
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