Interacting with Literary Representations of Assault
Reading and discussing stories that include representations of sexual assault involves a paradox. There is a need to represent, expose, and challenge the ideologies and systems that enable such assault. At the same time, interacting with such representations can be an imposition on those who experience sexual violence, misogyny, and cisheterosexism. Because sexual assault trauma is often felt in the body in recurring reverberations throughout a person’s life, textual representations of it may trigger a trauma response. Rape culture ensures that sexual assault remains obscured by shame and victim-blaming, making it profoundly difficult to resolve sexual assault trauma.
