How to Help a Friend

How to Help a Friend

As a friend or family member of a survivor, you have been affected by the assault, also. It is important that you seek out support for yourself and address your own reactions to the violence, so that you are able to provide the best possible support to the survivor.

How can I help a friend? 

• BELIEVE the survivor, and never ask questions that may blame them (such as “Why did you go back to their room?” or “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”).
• LISTEN to the survivor, reassuring that it was not her/his fault.
• INFORM the survivor about options and resources that are available.
• SUPPORT the survivor. Do not give advice, but help her/him regain control by supporting her/his choices about whether or not to report or seek help.

What are the possible impacts of these situations?

Every survivor responds to sexual and interpersonal violence in a unique manner. Some effects may occur immediately, while others may show up later.

Common reactions may include (but are not limited to):

• Fear, loss of trust, isolation
• Disbelief, denial, shock, numbness
• Self-blame, shame, humiliation
• Depression, sadness, anger
• Problems sleeping, nightmares, anxiety
• Changes in sexual behaviors and comfort with sex (either an increase or decrease)
• Loss of a sense of control, helplessness
• Changes in relationships with other people

Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is any sexual contact that is unwanted, and occurs without a person's consent. A sexual act is non-consensual if it is compelled through coercion, manipulation, force, threats, intimidation, or helplessness. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• Someone having sex with you when you are high or drunk.
• Telling you that they will spread rumors about you if you do not perform oral sex.
• Forcing you to touch or be touched when you do not want to.
• Continuing to pressure you for sex, despite your resistance or uncertainty, until you finally give in.

Alcohol and Other Drugs

According to Oregon State law an individual who is "mentally incapacitated," including under the influence of alcohol or drugs, cannot consent to sexual intercourse.

If a survivor engages in what some might define as “risky behavior” (e.g., getting drunk, wearing revealing clothes), a natural consequence might be getting a hangover, not sexual violence. The violence occurred because there was a perpetrator present who was willing to hurt someone else.

For more information please visit Student Health Services’ Health Promotion Alcohol and Other Drugs Web site.

Stalking

Stalking

Stalking is a pattern of repeated, unwanted behavior that would make someone afraid. Examples of stalking behaviors include:

• Harassment through the Internet (Facebook messages, e-mails, etc.) also known as cyberstalking
• Another person following and/or spying on another
• Repeated unwanted and intrusive communications from the perpetrator by phone, mail, e-mail, texts, or other means
• Making direct or indirect threats to harm an individual or people they care for
• Leaving gifts at someone’s home or on their car

Safety Planning

It's often difficult to predict when and how a stalker will act or whether the unwanted intrusions into the survivor’s life will escalate into physical or sexual assaults. Some stalkers never move beyond threats and intimidation, while others do so with little warning. A safety plan is an important step in staying as safe as possible.

• Representatives at the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support Services can help with safety planning.
• Safety plans are intended to find ways to maximize your safety at every point in your day and include provisions for emergency situations.
• Safety planning involves thinking through short and long-term options, knowing how to access help, and having information about resources before you need it.

Collecting Evidence

Keeping records of unwanted contacts can be helpful in reporting stalking. This can be done by preserving e-mails, voice mails, letters, Facebook messages, and other communications that are received. A log can also be helpful in which you document the date and time, location, type of contact, and names of other witnesses to the contact. This can provide a picture of the pattern of the stalking behavior.

Relationship Violence

Relationship Violence

Relationship violence, also referred to as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), is a pattern of coercive behaviors used to control a partner through fear and intimidation. IPV can occur in many forms:

Sexual: Coercion, having sex with you while you are sleeping, humiliation during sex, forcing sex, refusal to accept “no,” threats of retaliation.

Verbal: Name calling, insults, threats.

Emotional: Controlling, blaming, criticizing, manipulation, intimidation, unfounded jealous accusations, not allowing privacy.

Economic: Preventing you from working, getting you fired from your job, withholding money.

Physical: Throwing objects, shoving, blocking escape, pulling hair, holding you down, hitting, cutting, burning.

How is Abuse Different from Healthy Relationships?
Power and Control Wheel (PDF) Abuse is about power and control; one person trying to make another do what s/he wants them to do through manipulation, coercion, and even physical violence.
Equality Wheel (PDF) Healthy relationships are based upon equality, choice, freedom, respect, cooperation, and compromise.

Sexual Harassment

Sexual Harassment

Oregon State University’s definition of sexual harassment is:

Unwelcome* sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:

• Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment or education;
• Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment or education-related decisions affecting such an individual; or
• Such conduct  is sufficiently severe or pervasive  that it has the effect, intended or unintended, of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work or academic performance because it has created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment and would have such an effect on a reasonable person of that individual’s status.

*Employee conduct directed towards a student - whether unwelcome or welcome - can constitute sexual harassment under OAR 580-015-0010(2).

Examples of Sexual Harassment

• A professor telling you that you will receive a failing grade if you do not go out with him/her
• A teaching assistant making sexist jokes while teaching
• Managers or co-workers making unwelcome sexual advances

For more information about sexual harassment, visit OSU’s Affirmative Action Web site.

Statistics

Statistics

Facts about Sexual Violence

• One in four college women and one in 13 men will experience an act of completed or attempted rape (NIJCDC, 1998).
• The vast majority of sexual assaults (at least 85%) are perpetrated by someone who is known to the survivor, such as a partner, friend, acquaintance, or classmate (NIJCDC, 1998).
• One in three college relationships have a violent component to them (Sellers and Bromley, 1996).
• One in 12 women and one in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime (NIJCDC, 1998).
• Nearly two-thirds of college students experience some type of sexual harassment, and less than 10 percent report the harassment (AAUW report, 2006).