The Stranger in the alley vs. the man you love

One of my focuses in consent education is on unlearning the myths about sexual assault that we’ve been taught. The consent skills that I teach rest on a foundation of understanding the problematic messaging and social programming that we’ve been brought up on, and how to undo it. I’ve addressed some of these myths in earlier blog pieces such as Consent and Unwanted Arousal, and Why We Need To Stop Telling People To Get Better At Saying No, where I address myths about how victims are expected to react to sexual assault and what sexual assault looks like.

Another myth that we all learn on TV and in the movies is that sexual assault and murder happen to scantily clad young women after dark when they run into the wrong stranger. She is having a nice night, laughing and feeling free when suddenly she is confronted by a man that is immediately scary and threatening. She knows she’s in danger now, we see the terror on her face, but it’s too late and she just can’t get away.

The reality is that for more than 80% of girls and women who are assaulted, it is by men that they know and trust. 

“Between 2011 and 2021, police reported 1,125 gender-related homicides of women and girls in Canada. Of these homicides, two-thirds (66%) were perpetrated by an intimate partner, 28% a family member, 5% a friend or acquaintance and the remaining 1% a stranger.”

This means that for a woman, the highest risk of murder occurs when she falls in love with a man.

I have to say at this point that anyone of any gender can be a victim of sexual assault, but statistically the perpetrators are almost exclusively male. Most studies put the percentage of male perpetrators at between 97% and 99%.

Most studies also show that between 80% and 90% of murders are perpetrated by men.

Male violence against women is a global epidemic, and personally I believe that if these statistics were reversed - if men had to fear assault and murder as a very real and common consequence of being in relationship with women - there would be task forces, emergency funding, and men would be advised to avoid living with women.

In fact, after a few high profile murders of husbands by their wives in India, there has been this kind of panicked reaction:

“Reactions have been extreme: calls for male protection laws, debates about toxic femininity, and comment sections full of men claiming they’re afraid to marry.”

Meanwhile, we are fed this myth of the creepy stranger after dark, and made to feel afraid of going out or walking down the street. Many of us have learned the hard way that it is actually home that is the most dangerous place, and that there is no completely safe place.

There is another component to the myth of the creepy stranger. Even when women are assaulted and murdered by strangers, they are usually charming. Ted Bundy was good looking and put his victims at ease. The truth is that most successful predators will be good at attracting and earning the trust of their victims, and be seen by their non-victim peers as “regular” or “nice guys”.

Over and over and over again we see how serial predators such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby were adept at selecting and silencing vulnerable victims, while earning accolades and the adoration and admiration of the public and their peers.

We have to stop spreading the myth of the creepy stranger, and start looking more closely at the highly charismatic and powerful. We need to investigate the correlations between power, charm and predation. 

We also need to interrogate and better understand how we as a society are trained to give more credibility and grace to predators, while having less trust and being more likely to blame victims for their own victimization. I highly recommend the book Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers by Deborah Turkheimer. It examines this phenomenon and how we are primed to disbelieve allegations of sexual violence. I only wish that she had more closely examined all of the different kinds of systemic inequity involved in this dynamic.

We are taught to see totally unacceptable conditions as normal and understandable. Pervasive sexual violence towards girls and women, and the constant threat of it, is a form of terrorism and serves to oppress female empowerment and freedom. Sexual assault of boys and other men is a tool of the patriarchy to maintain oppressive hierarchies, and to brutalize and prepare men to be traumatized and obedient soldiers for their powerful leaders.

We need to understand that the power dynamics inherent in our current and prevalent state of heterosexual relationships can easily lead to gender based violence and that prevention means breaking out of the status quo and teaching young people skills to recognize the warning signs in ourselves and others, and how to avoid the escalation from red flags to coercive control to abuse, assault and murder.

From the article linked above, here are 12 signs of coercive control:

“1. Isolating you from your support system

2. Monitoring your activity throughout the day

3. Denying you freedom and autonomy

4. Gaslighting

5. Name-calling and putting you down

6. Limiting your access to money

7. Reinforcing traditional gender roles

8. Turning your kids against you

9. Controlling aspects of your health and body

10. Making jealous accusations

11. Regulating your sexual relationship

12. Threatening your children or pets”

If any of these signs look familiar to you, I encourage you to read the full article and seek help. It can be confusing for women, because many of these controlling behaviours are normalized to a certain degree by the cultures we live in. So when they become more extreme we are already accustomed to a lesser amount of coercive control. Combine this with the fact that we have all been conditioned to doubt women, even to second guess and question ourselves, and a deadly dynamic is set in motion.

Every high school student should learn the eight escalating stages that lead to intimate partner homicide, how to recognize them, and what to do, whether they are the victim, the offender, or a bystander.

From the article linked above, here are the 8 escalating steps in domestic abuse homocides:

“A pre-relationship history of stalking or abuse by the perpetrator

1. The romance develops quickly into a serious relationship

2. The relationship becomes dominated by coercive control

3. A trigger threatens the perpetrator's control - for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty

4. Escalation - an increase in the intensity or frequency of the partner's control tactics, such as stalking or threatening suicide

5. The perpetrator has a change in thinking - choosing to move on, either through revenge or by homicide

6. Planning - the perpetrator might buy weapons or seek opportunities to get the victim alone

7. Homicide - the perpetrator kills his or her partner and possibly hurts others such as the victim's children

The only instance where a stage in the model was not followed was when men did not meet stage one - but this was normally because they had not previously had a relationship.”

If any of these steps ring familiar to you please know that there is help out there, and find someone to talk to. This article has a lengthy list of resources for the UK. In the US, RAIIN is a great place to start, and in Canada you can find local resources at the Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment.

It’s not the creepy stranger in the alley that we need to fear. It’s our own societal paradigm that denies or diminishes the very real experiences of victims of any gender, while training men to be entitled perpetrators of violence. It’s foundational and pervasive in how men and women are socialized to interact with themselves and each other.

It’s high time we let go of misleading and misdirecting rape and murder myths and grapple with our clear and present danger.

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

Order the book here!