The correlation is strong although it does not prove causality. Women, men and children who are sexually assaulted and think they should have resisted but did not may also be prone to feeling guilt and shame. The connection between this paralysis response and suffering greater PTSD and depression makes sense at the intuitive level, clinicians say. The 2005 study, for example, found an association between having experienced tonic immobility and significant psychological impairment. These findings strongly support previous research that links this involuntary paralysis with greater psychological harm following the assault.
This latest research is important because of its large sample size (298 women reporting, 189 of whom returned for a follow-up assessment after six months) and because they related their experience within 30 days of the assault, thus reducing the possibility of faulty recall. (The condition’s severity was assessed using a scale that measured feelings of being frozen, mute, numb and so on.) The new study, published in Acta Obstetrecia et Gynecologica Scandinavica,reports that of nearly 300 women who visited the rape clinic, 70 percent experienced at least “significant” tonic immobility and 48 percent met the criteria for “extreme” tonic immobility during the rape. A study from 2005, for example, found 52 percent of female undergraduates who reported childhood sexual abuse said they experienced this paralysis.
Much less is known about this phenomenon in humans, although it has been observed in soldiers in battle as well as in survivors of sexual assault. In animals this reaction is considered an evolutionary adaptive defense to an attack by a predator when other forms of defense are not possible. Tonic immobility (TI) describes a state of involuntary paralysis in which individuals cannot move or, in many cases, even speak. And those who experienced extreme tonic immobility were twice as likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and three times more likely to suffer severe depression in the months after the attack than women who did not have this response. During the assault they experienced a kind of temporary paralysis called tonic immobility. According to a recent study, a majority of female rape survivors who visited the Emergency Clinic for Rape Victims in Stockholm reported they did not fight back. Unless it is clearly too dangerous, as when the rapist is armed, resisting is generally thought to be the “normal” reaction to sexual assault.īut new research adds to the evidence debunking this common belief. Is it my fault? And to make matters worse, although the laws are in flux in various jurisdictions, active resistance can be seen as necessary for a legal or even “common sense” definition of rape. Why did I not resist? they may ask themselves. Did you scream? Just as painful for them, if not more so, can be a sense of guilt and shame. Survivors of sexual assault who come forward often confront doubt on the part of others.