Hindsight is 20/20

Why is it that rape victims are offered unsolicited, useless advice after an attack? As if the suggestions offered to them wouldn't have been carried out while they were being assaulted if that was even a remote possibility. Do they think they are helping? Better yet those who take it upon themselves to judge a rape victims circumstances as to the amount of time it took to report her attack or her actions following the assault. 

Rape victims experience complex physical and emotional feelings during and after an assault. If they were drugged and rendered completely unconscious for the entire sexual assault as I was but knew sex had occurred and I didn't consent it's very hard to verbalize the attack to anyone. The victims I know floated in and out of consciousness while Jeffrey Marsalis raped them, some describing it as having been in a dream like and confused state. 

Reporting is also a complicated decision. Rape victims are ashamed, confused and question what they did to provoke being attacked. All you want to do is forget about it not relive what happened to strangers (i.e. police, doctors, advocates). Because I was drugged I wasn't even sure of all the details because my memory was fragmented only remembering prior to being drugged or after I woke up 8 hours later. How do you explain to someone what happened when you can't explain it to yourself? Why subject yourself to questions that you don't have the answers to?

We are seeing a lot of delayed reporting in the news lately with the Bill Cosby accusers. Their accounts of having been drugged and raped (some failed attempted sexual assaults by him) are decades old therefore being scrutinized by the public only reinforcing what the women thought immediately following their attacks. "He's a powerful celebrity, who is going to believe me?" Fans of the actor/comedian and skeptics immediately turn to the claim that a victim is in it for the money. Trust me when I say it's never for the money or the attention. If it were so easy to come forward and solicit monetary compensation or seek media attention then why wait 10, 20, 30 and almost 40 years? The victims are accused of reporting now for the same reasons the victims didn't come forward to report their sexual assaults originally. The skeptics can't have it both ways.

The public and media have the benefit of assessing accusers and their stories after the fact but the victim doesn't have that luxury because she is living in it. Let's give victims the benefit of the doubt because it's easy to go back but impossible to look forward.