Stopping sexual violence before it starts

By CHRIS PORTER • Daily Tribune Staff

BURNET - Sexual violence is a disease that must be prevented before it occurs, much like a vaccine protects against sickness.

The concept is called primary prevention, veteran counselor Morgan Curtis told an audience that included police officers and social workers Oct. 18.

Now Curtis, the primary prevention coordinator for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, is hoping communities - including those of the Highland Lakes - will embrace a new form of sexual violence prevention.

Primary prevention is the steps taken to prevent sexual violence before it occurs, including communitywide initiatives and training for potential victims and perpetrators.

Curtis detailed the concept of primary prevention to an audience of law enforcement officers and social workers at a special day-long training session hosted by the Hill Country Children’s Advocacy Center.

“I’ve heard people say ‘Sexual violence is inevitable. We must teach women and children to protect themselves against this threat,’” Curtis said. “This quote is very concerning to me, because really the victims aren’t the problem.”

At least 20 percent of women and 5 percent of men in Texas are victims of sexual assault, Curtis said. In all, about 1.9 million Texans have been victimized, she said.

“This doesn’t account for the individuals in the victims’ lives that are also impacted by the violence and the consequences of the assault,” Curtis said.

Besides the physical scars, Curtis said, sexual assault can cause a number of difficult
psychological problems, including suicidal thoughts.

“There’s also the societal cost of women having to walk around scared all the time,” she said.

And while many government groups and advocates do their best to deal with sexual assault after the crime has already occurred, TAASA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control are taking a different tack.

“Ever since the CDC started controlling the funding for sexual violence prevention, they’ve started considering it a public health issue,” Curtis said. “We want to stop rape and sexual assault before it occurs, but we’re doing so in a public health manner by removing the risk factors.”

Most current sexual violence prevention programs focus on protective measures for women, children and other potential victims, Curtis said.

“The result of all this risk reduction is to restrict our lives as women,” she said.

So, just as doctors recommend getting vaccines to avoid disease, authorities at TAASA are urging communities to adopt training programs that remove the risk factors of sexual assault prior to the actual crime.

“We want to spread the responsibility for preventing sexual violence to the entire community,” said Annette Burrhus-Clay, TAASA executive director. “It’s not just the rape victim’s job.”

Curtis explained the concept this way:

“Plain risk reduction is ‘How do I get the skills to keep me safe?’” she said. “With primary prevention, no one is at risk for sexual violence because everyone knows that it’s wrong.”

The best way to accomplish that, Curtis said, is by identifying the risk factors for sexual violence, which she broke down into four categories.

“There are individual factors, like alcohol and drug use or hostility toward women; community factors such as poverty; relationship factors such as a family attitude characterized by physical violence; and societal factors such as a culture that’s supportive of sexual violence,” Curtis said.

Negative media portrayals of women and glorification of sexual conquest can also contribute to an increased risk of sexual violence, she added.

After identifying the risk factors, Burrhus-Clay said the bulk of primary prevention consists of educating community members on ways to avoid sex crimes.

That includes training sessions for young men, who are the frequent perpetrators of sexual violence.

“It’s about skill building,” Curtis said. “Bystander behavior, for example. If you’re a young man at a party, and you see an intoxicated or incapacitated woman being led away, what do you do to get involved?”

Other prevention measures include leadership and parenting classes, sessions on healthy relationships and discussions on respecting an intimate partner.

Educating the community is another important step.

“If we’re looking at changing the way our community operates, we need a lot of people at the table,” Curtis said.

Other community-based programs include working with teachers and coaches to discourage inappropriate behavior among students and athletes, developing a multi-part faith-based curriculum on healthy relationships, stricter enforcement of sexual harassment policies at schools and workplaces and working with law enforcement and lawmakers to enforce existing laws while reporting violations, Curtis said.

It may be a some time before primary prevention takes root nationwide, however.

According to information from the CDC, the majority of federal funds are directed at dealing with sex crimes after they occur.

“In this field, we use ‘prevention’ to talk about a lot a lot of things that, under the public health model, are not considered prevention,” Curtis said. “Really, what they are is risk reduction.”

In the end, a communitywide effort is needed to change the focus from reacting to sex crimes to prevention, Burrhus-Clay said.

“It’s not just the job of the people at the rape crisis centers,” she said. “It’s up to the entire community.”

chris@thepicayune.com

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Stopping sexual violence before
it starts