Freezing

It's now one year since I began writing this blog. It's been a very busy one, full of highs and lows: frantic studying, deteriorating health, and heart breaking bereavement, but also wonderful friends, and so much love. And you lot - reading my blog, sending me messages, and sharing your stories with me. Thank you for contributing to this crazy rollercoaster <3

I've written before about ways in which victims of sexual violence are blamed for perpetrators' actions. This can take many forms, and while all are lies (sexual violence is always the fault of the perpetrator - no exceptions) some are more pernicious, more difficult to argue against. One tactic used by apologists for sexual violence, rape-deniers, victim-blamers is to create a falsely specific definition of what constitutes real sexual violence, and then to discredit anyone whose experience falls outside of this. 

So, I'd like to address one such lie: "real victims fight back". 

Many victims of sexual violence describe an involuntary "freezing" reaction to rape or sexual assault. If you've read my story, and the readers' submissions to the blog, you'll know what I mean. Maybe you yourself experienced sexual violence, and you froze. For years after I was raped, I felt guilty for not fighting back. I felt like I couldn't legitimately call what happened "rape", because I hadn't done anything to stop it. I felt like it was my fault. 

But this freezing reaction is both common and real. One study found that 37% of rape victims experienced immobility, or freezing, during the attack (40% were mobile, 23% were intermediate). In non-human animals, a freezing reaction to threat has long been observed: tonic immobility, thanatosis, playing dead, playing possum - all names for the same response. Think of a rabbit in headlights. More recently, (for example here and here) science has recognised its presence in humans, too.

Now, I am by no means an endocrinologist, but I do have a very hazy understanding of the physiology behind this "freezing". To give you a fuller picture, here it is, in all its hazy glory:

• When an individual's safety is threatened, the sympathetic nervous system kicks in - with the aim of saving the individual's life.
• The adrenal gland swiftly dumps stress hormones (including adrenaline and cortisol) into the bloodstream, causing (among other things) blood-glucose and blood pressure to rise, preparing the individual for "fight or flight". 
• Of course, in a violent situation it may not be possible to fight one's attacker, or to run away. And so, without any conscious input, the body freezes.

In the context of sexual violence, the freeze response may seem illogical or unhelpful, but if one's predator were an animal with keen motion-vision, it might save one's life. 

So what am I hoping this blog post will achieve? Well, should there be any apologists for sexual violence reading - anyone who thinks that "real victims fight back" - then I hope they will read the research I've linked to, and reconsider their position. And if you're reading this having experienced sexual violence (whether recently, or years ago) and you froze... well, I hope that what you've read here can be another brick in the wall between you and guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty for, nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong. These Are Not Your Secrets.

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