freezing response after rape

2026-07-31 23:49 Note Type: research. research-papers Tags: freeze, trauma, rape, sexual-assault

Across may articles I have come across how someome freezes during any sort of physical intimacy after they have been raped. I have seen this in my female friends, who are rape survivors, of how they would shiver and flinch with the slightest of touch.

I read a snippet where a writer writes a line in the paper @schneider-2023-rape-ritual-rupture , "Their world and mine are worlds apart."

"Then they look at me, the broken one, ask over and over whether I am OK. And I say yes, over and over because what else would I say? Their world and mine are worlds apart."

"For years, I could not look at my hands without seeing my rapist holding them, much less other parts of my body."

"In the yearsafter my rape, no matter how much love and desire people extended to me, I threw it back, explaining myself-relation as one of revulsion, making it inconceivable that I could be either loved or desired."

References:

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/etho.12392