“Till it happens to you, you won’t know how it feels…” Lady Gaga sang solemnly at the Oscar’s, while being surrounded by dozens of other sexual assault victims. Each of the victims had words of empowerment written on their arms, and walked out onto the stage with their hands joined together, prepared to fight the stigma of sexual assault. Gaga used the performance as her way to reveal that she was a victim of rape herself, which was something her family didn’t even know of.
“I don’t want to be defined by it,” Lady Gaga said, speaking about the assault she endured as a 19-year-old.
Kesha is another pop star who recently came into the news when she spoke out about her own sexual abuse. Kesha claims that her record producer, Dr. Luke, assaulted her sexually, physically and emotionally for years while she worked for his label, Sony. There was public outrage when Kesha was denied the right to end her contract with Sony Music due to the abuse she suffered from Dr. Luke. The judge claimed that she could work with one of the many other record producers at Sony Music, but Kesha was fearful that Dr. Luke would be able to manipulate the other producers to try and destroy her career.
That fear is well-founded, with Dr. Luke being one of the country’s most powerful record producers, having Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry all among the people that he has worked with. To get out of her contract, Kesha would have to prove that the rape happened, and that Sony knew of the rape and directly approved of it. Rape and sexual assault are some of the hardest crimes to prove, with 97 percent of rapists receiving no punishment for their crime.
Sexual abuse and assault are such horrible and shocking crimes that many people are able to distance themselves from it, thinking it will never affect them. When in fact, one in five women, and one in six men claim to have experienced sexual abuse sometime in their life. Each year, there are 293,000 victims of sexual assault, meaning there is another person being assaulted every 107 seconds. There is a huge stigma and taboo with sexual abuse, though it affects so many people. The stigma may be to blame for the low number of victims speaking out about their abuse, with 68 percent of sexual abuse not being reported to the police.
A frighteningly frequent place for assaults to happen is college campuses – with 23 percent of female students reporting being sexually assaulted on campus. The group “It’s On Us” is taking a stand, they are trying to spread the conversation about sexual assault on campus and how to prevent future assaults from happening. “It’s On Us” was a popular hashtag that trended during Gaga’s performance, stating that it is our responsibility to spread awareness of sexual abuse.
As Kesha and Lady Gaga’s stories about their own experiences with sexual assault are huge news topics, it is the perfect opportunity to spread the word of sexual assault and take a stand to prevent future crimes.