Content warning: Discussion of sexual assault in the context of impact and social activism.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). If you’ve read an advance copy of The Wilderness of Girls or even just skimmed the content warnings on the book page, you know that the topic of sexual assault comes up. I don’t want to spoil the book by discussing it too much here, but I will say this was not a choice I made lightly, and yet when I did make the choice it was like uncovering the precise cypher I needed to decode the rest of the book. I’d written a story not just about the cruelty and unfairness of female socialization, but the true danger inherent in it, physically, and psychologically. Leaving out the likely consequences because they were upsetting was not going to help anyone.
The truth is, the topic of sexual assault has haunted me in some way or another since I was a teenager and heard my first rumor about other people’s sex lives. I’ve spent a lifetime replaying and analyzing the reactions of peers to rumors of SA and confessions of victimhood. I’ve spent years in therapy coming to conclusions that the me of today could come to in a heartbeat. I have shared my story with a handful of people who needed to hear it; I have held the hands of women who have been assaulted and listened to their stories when they needed to tell them.
I am, frankly, tired of talking about sexual assault.
And yet it keeps coming up, because we keep seeing cases like Brock Turner, and we keep not seeing cases for all the millions of sexual assaults that are not witnessed by passerbys. We keep seeing a former president and known sex-offender on television and in the news, triggering every woman who was convinced the Hollywood Access tape had spelled his electoral doom, only to be smashed upside the head by grim reality November 2016. We keep hearing about incels plotting violence against women, using language to refer to women that is so grotesquely dehumanizing it makes the blood run cold. We keep hearing about the Andrew Tates of the world teaching men to objectify and villify and subjegate women and girls. We keep hearing tone-deaf men ask “if she didn’t want it, why didn’t she just say no?” We keep hearing about women getting murdered because they said No.
I am tired about talking about sexual assault, but I am convinced now, more than ever before, that to remain silent on this subject is to allow the epidemic of sexual assault to continue to fester1. Silence is the incubator of shame and the propagator of violence. Giving victims a voice is like letting sunshine in—like putting antisceptic on a wound.
So, even though it is exhausting, I often talk about sexual assault in my writing, because I hope that by doing so I can give the voiceless a voice. I can help victims see they are not to blame. Perhaps I can even arm some people with enough awareness and knowledge that they might even be able to protect themselves or their friends, and get out of dangerous situations before they are harmed. But above all, I write about sexual assault to build empathy for victims, which is still sorely lacking in our world today.
This year’s SAAM theme is “Building Connected Communities.” In support of this, I have been asked to team up with several talented YA authors who are just as passionate about (and exhausted by) this topic as I am to participate in a panel event on April 10 called Outspoken: The Importance of Representing Sexual Assault in YA, organized by Kim DeRose. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say about this subject, from the ways SA has been poorly represented or used as a plot device instead of treated with the care it deserves, to how seeing accurate depictions of victims on the page can potentially change someone’s life, or save it. This feels particularly important now, in this era of book-banning and conservative censorship. I am honored to be a part of this conversation and to speak alongside other talented, passionate YA authors: Rocky Callen, Annie Cardi, Kim DeRose, and Hannah V. Sawyerr, and delighted to have this panel moderated by Vicki Pietrus, librarian extraordinaire and co-chair of Rise: A Feminist Book Project.
If you would like to attend, please register here! Registration is free or donation based, and all proceeds will be donated to RAINN. We would love to answer your questions about writing on this very important but difficult topic, while coming together virtually to build a stronger community. Plus, everyone who registers is automatically entered to win a copy of each author’s most recent book—that’s FIVE books!
(Also, if you attend, you might get to hear a bit about my next book which deals much more overtly with the subject of SA, and the complicated feelings we have, as survivors, about justice and repair.)
I hope to see you all there!
- This is not to say that all victims of sexual assault are required to speak up. Your healing and self preservation come first. I have done a lot of therapy, so I feel safe pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. ↩︎
Four feral girls believe they are princesses from another world. The world believes they are brainwashed kidnapping victims.
What is the truth?
You decide.
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