MAGAZINE

Over the recent years there has become a huge rise in awareness for sexual assault in media, especially social media. There is no doubt that spreading awareness on this matter has great positive impacts to people, however, it can also create many negative effects on people and how they view this subject. Society is heavily influenced by what they are told and shown by the media, causing people to struggle to form their own opinion or view on a specific topic as people will naturally assume that what they are being told or shown is the truth.

Many Tv shows and films that are targeted at young adults do discuss sexual assault but will often portray it in an impropriate way. Firstly, many storylines often follow female victims’ assaults and will not shed much light onto male victims which heavily suggests that male victims are near to non-existent when that is far from the truth. In the popular Netflix series ’13 Reasons Why’ sexual assault, along with suicide, mental illness and substance abuse are all heavily discussed topics in this show. This series follows the story of Hannah Baker and how she ended her life. It was shared in the story that herself, as well as many of her classmates all endured sexual assault in their life’s, however it was still mainly focused on females and their experiences. The viewers sympathise for the female victims, and it was almost like males where not even involved in this topic.

However, in the last episode of season two a horrific scene was shown of a student (Tyler Down) being sexually assaulted with a mop by three of his classmates in the school bathroom. This scene was probably one, if not the, most graphic scene in this series and it was frightening to watch as nothing could prepare someone to watch a scene like that. It wasn’t until towards the end of season three where Tyler was able to openly discuss what had happened to him to one of his friends (Clay Jenson). Later in the series Tyler does share his experience with more of his friends but it was never shown that he received any professional help for his trauma. It was shown that he majorly suffered physically and mentally and was in desperate need for professional help, but it was never suggested by a person in the series that he should reach out for professional help or that he even received any help when it was clear that he desperately needed it. The negative effect this can have on viewers, specifically male ones, is that they can become discouraged to reach out and receive help and so they may begin to feel like they don’t need help. It also suggests that male victims need to ‘man up’ and get on with life when in reality this can cause many real mental and physical issues for people. On top of this, it was later shared that many of the boys in Tyler’s friend group also endured sexual assault, but the audience weren’t given a full story of what happened to those boys and weather they received help. As there is no scene shown of a male receiving help for sexual assault, it seems that they never received any professional help at all.

Another scene in this series that supports the idea of males not being represented in this topic is when Tyler is with female victims. After many girls came forward and shared their sexual assault experiences, they decided to create a support club called ‘Hands Off’. This club was aimed at sexual assault survivors to have a safe space to come together to heal together. However, at first it was only females in this group, but Tyler would sit in the same room whilst the meetings were taking place to help himself silently. As these meetings go on, Tyler is confronted by one of the girls in the group and she openly confronted him and told him that this club was for survivors only and that he had no say in their meetings, little did she know that he had endured a horrific assault but had not told anyone at this point. This scene was incredibly disheartening to watch and again supports the idea of naturally assuming that men and boys do not go through these experiences.

Another aspect of sexual assault that the media often gets wrong is that sexual assault victims are normally portrayed as someone who has been raped. Sexual assault is when a person touches another person sexually without consent or forces someone into a sexual act with no consent. This can be confusing for victims to view as they may second guess whether they have been assaulted in a sexual way and if it is a serious matter or not. Any sexual assault is serious and can cause serious harm to physical and mental health. However, this is not often shown within media, as rape is normally a ‘go to’ example of sexual assault when any sexual assault can make people feel the same mentally. Yes, rape is considered to be the most damaging kind of sexual assault but someone who has been touched in an inappropriate way can still feel the exact same emotions and hurt as someone who has been raped and this isn’t seen often within media. Any other sexual assault, other than rape, is often missed in media (specifically in Tv and films) which is something that needs to change in order for more awareness to be spread in a correct way. The idea people and victims will take away from shows that only present rape as sexual assault is that their assault is not important, serious or valid and so this can discourage people from opening up and getting help which can cause immense mental pain and conflict.