One psychological struggle dealing with sexual assault that was consistently mentioned throughout Brison’s essay that stood out to me was that of shame of the victims after those traumatic events.  The author states from her own case of sexual assault that “Still, I didn’t want people to know that I had been sexually assaulted.  I don’t know whether this was because I could hardly believe it myself, because keeping this information confidential was one of the few ways I could feel in control of my life, or because, in spite of my conviction that I had done nothing wrong, I felt ashamed”(Brison, 3).  It is hard for me to imagine the thoughts and emotions going through one’s head after suffering such a demeaning event, in comparison to loosing a loved one other means of trauma.  In most cases of trauma, it seems as though talking about the events, to help clarify and vent one’s thoughts would be helpful, but when being abused in such a manner is the case, I start to grasp the ideas of shame and helplessness.  Brison does a great job in explaining and expressing these emotions after sexual assault.

            Brison also mentions in her essay, agreeing with many other essays dealing with trauma, that society has a huge influence on how one can deal with traumatic events such as rape.  Brison goes on to explain that society had made it so that rape victims are accused of often being antagonizing the attackers. 

I also was interested in the ideas behind Brison’s comments on page, when rape is compared to normal sexual activities besides the consent of the woman.  She states “in the case of both theft and murder, the notion of violation seems built into our conceptions of the physical acts constituting the crimes, so it is inconceivable that one could consent to the act in question.”    “distinguishes theft from normal gift-giving  murder as “assisted suicide minus consent.”