Sexual assault: Noticing the red flags

Rape — the word even sounds intrusive. It slices through conversation and renders even a gossip silent.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. So, why am I talking about rape? It's because people are more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know than by someone they don't: The person walking you home is more likely to rape you than a stranger lurking in the bushes.

Nationally, 84 percent of rape victims are raped by someone familiar. At the University Health Center,  99 percent of the clients served by the Sexual Assault Response Prevention Program can identify their attacker.

A famous example is Mackenzie Phillips. You know her as the daughter of John Phillips, lead singer of The Mamas and the Papas, and as an actress who I fondly remember from fifth grade as the mom on So Weird. You might also know that Mackenzie Phillips said she was raped by her father.

In her memoir, she wrote she was raped by her father during a drug-induced blackout and then eventually engaged in a consensual relationship with him. She said she ended it when she became pregnant — she aborted the pregnancy because she didn't know who the father was.

Phillips said many people tried to stop her from publishing her book. Some people support her, but others accuse her of lying.

This situation is terrifying. People don't want to admit that someone they know and care about could be capable of hurting them. In cases of incest, this could be the person who raised you.

Rape victims, especially those of incest, are often shamed into silence to protect their family name or to avoid ruining a friend's future for one so-called "tiny" indiscretion.

Victim-blaming has somehow become acceptable. Last year, when The Diamondback reported that a woman who accepted a ride from someone who later raped her, the comments left by online readers were disturbing. Some people insinuated she deserved it because she was probably drunk and stupid enough to get into a stranger's car. I don't understand how people can say these things even under the veil of Internet anonymity.

And that is what's said about, and sometimes in front of, the victims who are brave enough to come forward. Some people never come forward out of fear and still exist in a social setting with their rapist.

Some perpetrators genuinely aren't aware they are committing rape. The difference between having consensual sex and committing rape is that both parties have to freely and affirmatively give consent to sex.

Even if someone is saying yes, a perpetrator could be considered coercive if the other person doesn't feel like he or she has the power to say no. Some examples are if the perpetrator is stronger or has a greater tendency to be violent, or if the perpetrator is familiar with the location and the potential victim is not.

If you want to learn more or help in combatting or educating others about domestic or dating abuse, I recommend becoming a member of the Red Flag Campaign, which tries to teach people about the red flags in dating abuse. If you have your own sexual assault story and want to design a shirt for the Clothesline Project, you still can: The deadline has been postponed to Oct. 14.

Shruti Rastogi is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at rastogi at umdbk dot com.