I know platitudes do not help, but I am deeply sorry you had to go through this. I wish our stories were less common than they are. No one should have to go through that as a 'learning experience', but yes I feel the same way.
Clearly the only way to really test improved teaching on consent would be to change the education system and then wait 10-20 years to measure the impact once those children become sexually active adults. I don't think such a dataset is a reasonable request unfortunately.
It's interesting your phrasing of referring to people who commit sexual assault as 'monsters'. I do not think of my perpetrator as a monster, I do not believe him to be evil beyond redemption. Sure, there are some mentally ill individuals who do sexual crimes so heinous it is hard to imagine any road to recovery, but I don't believe my experience lies in that category. I personally feel a series of events in his life drove him to make that decision that day, and it is possible as a society to course correct future generations not to make that same decision. I have to believe that.
Do I have any concrete evidence beyond faith? No. Maybe all rapists are monsters born that way, but that is such a frightening concept I just can't accept that that is true.
I am a male who was sexually assaulted by another male. Strictly speaking I was raped, but I prefer not to use that term because of the emotive nature of it.
There is not much you've said I disagree with, but I do want to show that this goes both ways. I have never made a public accusation about the individual involved in my case because I do not have irrefutable evidence that it wasn't consentual. If I was in the jury of his court case I would find him innocent, so how could I reasonably go accuse him of anything?
Really I think we need to have two serious conversations as a society:-
* Individuals should not be able to weaponise sexual assult/harassment claims in public to the extent they do now. If anything, stories like yours make it even more difficult for legitimate victims to tell their story because the idea of destroying the life based off an accusation I cannot prove is really frightening to me. I would like someone to sit him down, privately, and educate him on consent (leading onto my next point) and to never ever do that to another individual again. That isn't an option though, it is a life destroying public circus or nothing.
* Consent, consent, consent. From as early an age we're willing to give children sex education, we should teach them about consent. Certainly in my time at school I was not once taught the legal definitions or importance of it.
Clearly the only way to really test improved teaching on consent would be to change the education system and then wait 10-20 years to measure the impact once those children become sexually active adults. I don't think such a dataset is a reasonable request unfortunately.
It's interesting your phrasing of referring to people who commit sexual assault as 'monsters'. I do not think of my perpetrator as a monster, I do not believe him to be evil beyond redemption. Sure, there are some mentally ill individuals who do sexual crimes so heinous it is hard to imagine any road to recovery, but I don't believe my experience lies in that category. I personally feel a series of events in his life drove him to make that decision that day, and it is possible as a society to course correct future generations not to make that same decision. I have to believe that.
Do I have any concrete evidence beyond faith? No. Maybe all rapists are monsters born that way, but that is such a frightening concept I just can't accept that that is true.