Lady Gaga’s performance at this year’s Oscars touched lives across the country.  The emotional rendition of  “Til It Happens To You” brought the crowd to their feet, and started a conversation about sexual assault.

The song was written for The Hunting Ground, a documentary about sexual assault at colleges and universities.  The lyrics provide a portrait of what it is like to be a victim, and a survivor, of sexual assault. We are talking about more than rape; we are talking about non-consensual sexual contact. In the song, she addresses how abuse victims are mistreated long after the incident itself is over.

You tell me “it gets better, it gets better 

in time”

You say I’ll pull myself together, pull it together,

“You’ll be fine”

Victims of sexual assault often are told that if they just pull themselves together and go on with their lives, the memories and feelings about what happened to them will recede.  Life will return to how it has always been.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Non-consensual sex is a crime of violence done to a man, woman, or child who is powerless to stop it.  It leaves the survivor filled with anger, shame and confusion. On an instinctive level, they know they have been violated and wronged by another human being, yet they feel in some way they could have prevented what happened to them. This causes them to feel that they are somehow to blame.

In reality, it was not possible for them to stop what happened to them, but they continue to wage a war of confusion and anger inside their minds. The feeling of powerlessness is so horrendous that we will do anything not to acknowledge it or feel it. The more survivors are told to “move on with their lives, they will be fine”, the more shame and anger they feel.

Tell me what the hell do you know,

What do you know,

Tell me how the hell could you know,

How! could you know?

Till it happens to you, you don’t know

How it feels,

How it feels.

This confusion, along with the act of violation, creates unjustified shame.  No matter how much the survivor believes it was not their fault, he or she will need help to heal from the experience. Time alone will not heal them, self-control will not heal them, and the attempt to deny how horrible and ashamed they feel will not heal them; they only make the unbearable pain, shame and anger worse.

You tell me, “hold your head up

Hold your head up and be strong

Cause when you fall, you gotta get up

You gotta get up and move on.”

We must fight the use of power and violence against men and women.  We must also fight against the tendency to sweep painful issues under the rug so that we do not have to feel our powerlessness and our shame over the injustices and crime in our world.

Vice President Joe Biden, who authored the Violence Against Women Act, introduced Lady Gaga’s performance.  He urged viewers to take a pledge against violence: “I will intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given”. It can be found at http://itsonus.org.

“Let’s change the culture,” Biden said. “We must and we can change the culture so that no abused woman or man ever has to ask themselves, ‘What did I do?’ They did nothing wrong.”

Take a stand against Assault

As a society, we must take a stand against sexual assault in its many forms, and enable people to come forward when they are violated. We must offer an antidote to the shame of violation. We can offer a public outcry against sexual assault, and we can share in the belief that the victim is not responsible for the actions of their assailant.

Healing comes when these men and women are given an opportunity to talk about what happened to them with safe, accepting and non-judgmental listeners.  As much as it scares all of us, the truth is that there are victims in our world, and they need our help.

Do you need someone to talk to about a sexual assault or traumatic experience? Call me. I can listen. 919-881-2001.