The Canada Junior Hockey Trial and the Perpetuation of Rape Myths

As I’ve been following the court case of the five former Junior Hockey players, I have been dismayed that the media is generally participating in the public flogging of the victim, and actually spending a lot of time perpetuating rape myths, rather than taking the opportunity to educate the public on the rape myths that define how this case is being handled by the multiple defense teams. You can learn more about rape myths here, and here.

I have heard it discussed how the victim “dissociated” from their body, how they felt they had to say whatever their assailants wanted to hear, how they didn’t come back into their body until after they had left the room, but I have yet to hear anyone talk about the Freeze or Fawn responses. 

We live in a paradigm in which we all still expect that “normal” behaviour from a victim of sexual assault would be to run away or fight back, the Fight and Flight autonomic responses.  But study after study has shown that in the vast majority of sexual assault cases, the victim experiences the Freeze response, and sometimes the Fawn response. You can read more about the Freeze response here, here, and here.

This is an excerpt from a Government of Canada study(the link is above):

“Why Sexual Assault Victims Rarely take Flight or Fight

These habit-based reflex reactions, including “flight” or “fight,” are the ones most sexual assault victims are least likely to have. Most women are not trained to effectively fight. Most sexual violence prevention information is cognitively based and fails to offer repetitive practice on how to physically defend themselves. Without this training, highly stressed brains will default to habitual behavior. Police forces and the military know the importance of sustained, repetitive training to prevent police officers and soldiers from freezing in the face of threat and to promote the ability to take carefully planned steps to respond effectively.

An additional barrier to effective, strategic resistance or defence for most women is the fact that the offenders are often men they know (Conroy and Cotter, 2017), persons who are supposed to be trusted. As a result, the experience is not only alarming and threatening, it is also simultaneously profoundly confusing and destabilizing. In these circumstances, women often report a diverse range of intense emotional and psychological responses, particularly in situations where they are sexually assaulted by men known to them.

Understanding these complex yet common psychological and neurologically based responses to traumatic and threatening experiences such as sexual assault helps to explain why some sexual assault victims don’t exhibit “fighting back,” “yelling,” “escaping,” or taking some other kind of expected action for which they are later judged or blamed.”

This excerpts talks about victims of sexual assault as women, and perpetrators as men, but statistics show that male victims of sexual assault have the same freeze and fawn responses as women. And let us always remind ourselves that anyone of any gender can be either a perpetrator or victim of sexual assault.

Indeed, when we look at the string of similar incidents with Junior Canada hockey players over the past 30 to 40 years, it becomes clear that the accused in this case were basically following a script that relies on the victim being unable to advocate for themselves. During each of these historical incidents a young woman was selected, plied with alcohol until she was incapacitated, isolated, and then  surrounded. None of these young women had a chance. You can read more about these past cases here, and watch a Fifth Estate investigation about them here.

What we in the public hear about are the unusual incidents when victims were brave enough to come forward. Statistically, this must be only the tip of the iceberg. Why don’t more victims speak out? Perhaps ask the survivor of a similar attack in Swift Current in 1989, who after charges against the assailants were stayed, was then herself charged and tried for public mischief. Hockey players in Canada are considered local and national heroes and the collective ire visited upon anyone who accuses any of them is massive. You can read more about that case here, and here.

The same applies to the male victims within Junior Canada Hockey. Amidst horror stories of degrading and sexualized hazing rituals and sexual abuse by coaches and older players, only a few brave survivors have spoken out. It is within this toxic culture that this script for gang rape has spread.

This case has also highlighted something I would call an emerging “consent myth”. That is the idea that you can get someone to sign something or say on a video that they have consented to “sex”, and that this will count as legal evidence of consent to any and all sexual acts. Consent during sexual acts is a thing given from moment to moment, and it is the responsibility of the person asking for the sexual act to ensure that their partner is consenting enthusiastically at any given moment. If there is any uncertainty then they should(and are legally required to) stop and check in. Consent to one sexual act is not consent to any others, and when it comes to bodily autonomy, people can always change their minds. You cannot ask someone to sign a note that says that they consent to “sex” with you. What does that mean exactly? And they might change their mind during any act. If you videotape them saying they consented afterwards, you have no way to prove that you didn’t coerce them into making that video. Just imagine a victim who has been doing anything and everything to survive the attack and get out of the room alive. They’re told they have to make a video saying they consented before they are allowed to leave - what do you think they will do?

Another problem with how this case is being presented is that the issue of the vast power differential between the assailants and the victim is being glossed over. In fact, several times I have heard journalists talk about the possibility of one lone small woman being in charge of what happens with up to a dozen large athletic team members in a small room as if it were not only realistic, but probable. In this case, not only was the woman outmuscled and outnumbered, but her assailants were coordinated and communicating with each other, whilst she was taken by surprise. Presenting this scenario as if she could have or should have felt in control is ridiculous.

We are also seeing the David and Goliath nature of this case in the way it is presented. The victim has only one Crown lawyer, while the defense is made up of five high powered teams of lawyers. Because of this, we the public have heard weeks of defense arguments, largely based upon rape myths, with only a fleeting moment of the counter narrative on the reality of sexual assault. Over and over the victim’s actions and reactions are examined and held up as somehow incongruent with her testimony, while the behavior of the men in the room is glossed over and their inconsistencies undermined. The messaging is clear, their behavior was somehow expected or normal, while hers was aberrant. 

This case also has all the hallmarks of how the legal system further abuses victims. When the victim first reported to the London police in 2018 they grossly mishandled the case, barely doing any investigation before closing it. They only reopened the case and began a proper investigation in 2023, after media attention and a massive public outcry. When they reopened the case, the evidence that they had found compelled them to make a public apology to the victim.

You can read more about the noteworthy reputation of the London police in the Broken LIves, Broken Dreams Report - about rampant sexual assault and abuse within the RCMP- here.

The media has an opportunity to do some real education in this moment on how sexual assault actually occurs - usually with someone we know and have previously trusted - and how victims actually respond. We need to get rid of the misconception that rape is an act that always involves fighting and yelling no. That it is loud and aggressive. In fact, rape is usually a very quiet event with no resistance, and even acquiescence, because the victim is having a Freeze or Fawn response. 

Our focus needs to move on to what the perpetrators did or didn’t do to make sure they had consent, rather than on what the victim did or didn’t say or do. I’ve written more about this in my blog post, Why We Need To Stop Telling People To Get Better At Saying No.

We have not caught up as a society to the new definition of legal consent. It is no longer a matter of no means no, but of seeking clear and enthusiastic consent. But how can you expect people who don’t know about the Freeze and Fawn responses, or have an understanding of power dynamics, or even that an incapacitated person is unable to consent, that they will somehow be able to recognize clear and enthusiastic consent, or a lack of it?

We as a society are failing again. We are crucifying this young woman in public. We are allowing her to be mentally and emotionally tortured by the legal system while we all look on. She has suffered for almost a decade  because of the failures of this legal system and of our society. We can only imagine how this very public court case will compound the damage she has already endured. Nine brutal days of being cross examined by five teams of lawyers on some of the most painful moments of her life.  And none of the perpetrators are required to be on the stand for even a moment if they so choose. The media reports on what is said, which is overwhelmingly the cross examination of the victim and the scrutinization of her every action and statement, while the horrific actions and statements of the defendants are barely addressed in the public discourse. Their incredibly incriminating and very pertinent text messages to each other aren’t even allowed as evidence. This version of “justice” has got to change!

In our book Creating Consent Culture: A Handbook for Educators, we have an entire chapter on the Freeze Response. My co-author Marcia Baczynski and I feel that this is such an important subject that we all need to understand better. We also spend two chapters talking about how and why it can be difficult to say no. The fun and interactive exercises in the workshop and the book help participants to practice skills such as hearing no, recognizing a lack of enthusiasm, and knowing what to do when you’re a maybe.

To learn more about consent skills, the workshop, or the book, come learn more at my website, www.creatingconsentculture.com.

Order the book here!