HJAR Sep/Oct 2024

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  SEP / OCT 2024 21 assaulted as well, and I think that people need to be open to understanding and recognizing that. The numbers may not be as high, particularly when it comes to men. For example, my area of expertise, in particular, is college sexual violence, and I know that 6% of college men are sexually assaulted. That may not sound like a lot, but 6% is still 6%. And when you start looking at 10,000 college men, well, 6% turns into a high number real quick. We already know that 25% of college women ... Our numbers tell the truth from decades of research. A lot of the research that we do have right now currently says about 21% of LGBQIA+ are sexually assaulted. We know that undergraduates are more likely than graduates. We know that with age, the risk decreases. So, one of the things that I think is important for particularly those who work with a younger clientele, is understanding that sex abuse happens about equally between boys and girls up until about the age of 12. Then, around the age of 12, that's when we start to see this provocation where males' risk starts to decrease, and females' risk continues to climb. Abuse among children is a whole different area of sexual violence. I think that it's important to realize, too, that the vast majority of individuals who are sexually assaulted are between the ages of 15 to 25. So, for those who are working with pediatric patients and young adults, that's something to be acutely aware of when it comes to sexual violence. Of course, then domestic violence can carry on forward beyond the age of 25. We haven't even talked about domestic violence and relationship violence and how silent that is as well, but for many of the same reasons as sexual violence is silent, it goes unreported in the revictimization and individuals not being believed and the power and control aspect. There's just so much that can be talked about. Editor This 6% number in college males that are sexually assaulted — what's happening there? Wyandt-Hiebert It can be a number of different ways that a college male could be sexually assaulted. It could be part of an initiation experience in some group or another. It could be a fraternity, an athletic group, a military group — any group — but there's an initiation type of practice. It's not any one particular group, it's just any group where there may be a male-based power and control, where you have the dominant males over those who are not dominant in the group, who are being initiated in and so forth. They're seen as initiation practices and things like that there, and people don't consider them to be sexual assault or rape in the case when sodomy occurs during any of these practices. It makes me think back to a professor that I knew once years ago. We were hav- ing a conversation about sexual violence and male sexual violence, and there was a poster that we had put out there to bring about awareness. He was talking about a time when he was part of an athletic pro- gram where one of the freshman players was sodomized by a baseball bat. And at the time, he never thought about that as sexual assault or rape but here, some 30 years later, realized, "Wait, that was." A lot of times, people see it as these rites of passage, initiation practices, although the one that's on the recipient end probably feels differ- ently about it. But others don't necessarily see it. That’s how it happens sometimes. It could be male on male; it doesn't mean it's always homosexual. In fact, most males that are sexually assaulted are sexually assaulted by other males that are heterosexual with a willing partner. It's about that power, control, and things like that that come into play. For example, there was a situation once where a male that I've worked with was sodomized with a beer bottle in the back of a bar bathroom, and it had nothing to do with sexual orientation. It had to do with, again, power and control of what was going on in that bathroom and one male dominating over another. It could be a female that could be the aggressor. It's much less likely, but it's not impossible. Most sex offenders are males — the vast majority — but there's a small percentage of sex offenders who are female, and it is very possible that a female could sodomize a male against his will; and alcohol is almost always involved in every sexual assault, particularly on college campuses — 90% or more of sexual assaults. There are differ- ent ways that it can happen among that 6%. Editor Are campus groups being shut down because of this reporting? Wyandt-Hiebert It depends on how things happen. There have been groups on college campuses across the nation that have been shut down, but I want to emphasize that this is not to say the groups are responsible for this. It's one of many different ways that these things happen. Other individuals are victimized as well as women. Sometimes it's affiliated with different practices. It's not just on a date that's gone wrong or something like that, as people often think it is. There are many different ways that individuals are victimized by sexual violence. Editor This has been a hard interview to conduct, and I thank you for your time. Thank you for what you're doing. And if you ever come across something that we can do that will help stop this problem, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Let us be an arm for you to get the victims and survivors what they need to walk through this and hopefully to get enough education out there that stops this. Wyandt-Hiebert I think that would be a big part of it — just giving the safe spaces for victims and survivors to come forward, to be heard, to get help. I think that would be a huge step in part of that cultural change that we talked about. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your efforts in getting more information out there because I really do think that is critical. n