Of all crimes, sex­u­al as­sault and child sex­u­al abuse are prob­a­bly the most mis­un­der­stood. They al­so get the strongest re­ac­tion from the pub­lic. Every­one has a com­ment and an opin­ion and every­one just knows that he or she is com­plete­ly right. This week, we de­bunk some myths about sex­u­al as­sault and abuse.

Women and girls who are as­sault­ed 'asked for it' ­in some way.

Prob­a­bly the most en­trenched be­lief about sex­u­al as­sault. It's al­so com­plete­ly in­cor­rect. Sex­u­al as­sault and abuse don't hap­pen be­cause the per­pe­tra­tor has wild, un­con­trol­lable sex­u­al urges, which are aroused by see­ing sex­i­ly dressed fe­males. Per­pe­tra­tors plan care­ful­ly and the at­tacks are pre­med­i­tat­ed.

This be­lief al­so ig­nores the fact that boys and men are al­so as­sault­ed.

Vic­tims are al­ways fe­male.

See above! Abuse of boys is of­ten passed over as 'mak­ing a man' of them, in­tro­duc­ing them to sex, etc. The truth is, tak­ing ad­van­tage of boys sex­u­al­ly is just as harm­ful to them as it is to girls. And boys aren't en­cour­aged to com­plain or seek help or get pro­tec­tion. The mes­sage they're giv­en is that they were sup­posed to en­joy it, no mat­ter how young they are. In oth­er words, if you don't en­joy some­one us­ing your body, vi­o­lat­ing you and dis­re­spect­ing your per­son­al bound­aries, then some­thing is wrong with you.

If it wasn't rape then it wasn't re­al­ly sex­u­al as­sault.

Vi­o­la­tion oc­curs in a num­ber of ways. Rape is just one of them. The truth is, ANY vi­o­la­tion of your per­son­al bound­aries and your body feels hor­ri­ble. Some forms of abuse don't even in­volve touch­ing – think of some­one be­ing made to pose for ob­scene pic­tures, or be­ing spied on in the bath­room. Vic­tims in these cas­es feel just as out­raged and de­meaned.

It doesn't make sense to try to de­cide which type of abuse is worse than which. What mat­ters most is how the vic­tim is af­fect­ed.

Rapists and sex­u­al abusers are sick­os and weirdos.

Ab­solute­ly. How­ev­er, they are al­so your neigh­bours, teach­ers, bank man­agers, cler­gy, sports coach­es, house­keep­ers, babysit­ters, sales clerks, of­fice work­ers, in­sur­ance sales­peo­ple, fac­to­ry work­ers, busi­ness own­ers – in fact, they could be any­one and they could be any­where. You can't tell by look­ing at them. In fact, they of­ten have rather good peo­ple skills, which they use to get close to oth­ers in or­der to vic­timise them. And they are of­ten re­spect­ed, up­stand­ing mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, be­cause they are very good at cov­er­ing up.

Abuse on­ly hap­pens in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties and class­es of peo­ple.

Sad­ly, sex­u­al as­sault and child sex­u­al abuse cross all bound­aries. There is no com­mu­ni­ty, class, re­li­gion, eth­nic­i­ty, which is ex­empt. Abuse and as­sault are more vis­i­ble in groups or com­mu­ni­ties which have many prob­lems or is­sues. Po­lice and So­cial Ser­vices are more like­ly to be in­volved in these com­mu­ni­ties and so may more quick­ly de­tect cas­es of abuse. In af­flu­ent com­mu­ni­ties, fam­i­lies can af­ford to seek help qui­et­ly and pri­vate­ly, with­out ever go­ing pub­lic.

Men who abuse boys are ho­mo­sex­u­al.

Com­plete­ly wrong. The ma­jor­i­ty of child abusers, whether they abuse boys or girls or both, are het­ero­sex­u­al. Men abuse boys for a num­ber of rea­sons: be­cause they them­selves were abused, be­cause it's eas­i­er for them as men to get ac­cess to boys. This myth is es­pe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous be­cause it means het­ero­sex­u­al men who abuse boys can hide their be­hav­iour more eas­i­ly. Par­ents will be cau­tious of a man who seems to be ob­vi­ous­ly ho­mo­sex­u­al, but won't have the same pre­cau­tions around a man who seems to be 'straight'. Why is it im­por­tant to know the truth? When you do, then you can be more help­ful to friends who have been un­for­tu­nate enough to suf­fer sex­u­al as­sault. They'll have enough to deal with fight­ing off oth­er peo­ple's ig­no­rance and mis­con­cep­tions.