We Will Not Go Quietly - Centre Against Sexual Assault

JO O’LONE-HAHN
IN COLLAB. WITH ZACH G
SURVIVOR SOLIDARITY
For the full version of Survivor
Solidarity see:
http://notgoquietly.tumblr.com
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I’m tired of the isolation of survivors. Every day we hear the statistics, 1 in 6
women are sexually assaulted, and 1 in 33 men are too, 73 percent of rapes
are perpetrated by someone the survivor knows. Numbers tell us what to
fear. These statistics keep the real, breathing, heart-beating survivors trapped
in obscurity. We know the numbers, but not the faces. The world doesn’t want
to know the real, down-in-the-dirt facts. Rape exists, and survivors live on
every day carrying what we’re told should be a secret.
Survivors are a group. Survivors are the people you see on the subway and
walking down the road. You’d never know unless there was a sign on their
forehead, or they told you. We are expected to always pretend.
I’m tired of this shame. I’m tired of people being called victims. Victims
are helpless and alone. We live in a society that creates victims rather than
survivors, that makes survivors feel helpless, and that doesn’t help. Society
does not make the attacker feel the shame instead. I’m tired of a world
allowing for traumas to be held in so long that survivors eventually break.
Survivors are questioned by police and blamed for the acts committed
against them. We are joked about, we are tip-toed around. People in the room
often don’t look at survivors the same again, the subject changes. When we
develop post-traumatic stress disorder, rape trauma syndrome, or a myriad
of other mental dificulties due to the attack, we are discriminated against
should any institution discover these issues.
Survivors are shamed, beaten, and abused by family members and friends
who are too weak to deal with the subject. Survivors are told that they
will never again have normal relationships, that they are homosexual if
they’re attacked by someone of the same sex, and that they can never fully
experience the joys of consensual sex. Survivors are told how to deal with