In order to stem the plague of sexual violence on university campuses, California was the first American state to adopt a specific law regarding the sexual activity of its students, aimed at clarifying the ambiguity around cases of violence.
Based on the law “Yes Means Yes“(I.e. only if I say yes it means yes), consent is defined as an conscious and voluntary affirmative agreement of having a sexual relationship. Therefore it is therefore necessary to clearly consent that the sexual act is not violence. The text excludes that the silence or lack of resistance of the victim are sufficient to indicate a consent.
Often the investigations on sexual violence are skilled precisely on the pretext that the victim had not fought, he had no physical traces of an attack, wounds or abrasions.
Last year is a sentence in our country – relating to a matter of a 16 -year -old girl victim of a group violence by teenage friends – who has established that if there are no screams, kicks and punches towards those who act violence, it cannot be proved that there has been an abuse.
If it is true that the victim’s passive behavior could induce to suspect that he did not have the lucidity necessary to provide a valid consent to the sexual act is equally truereads the sentence, that the absence of rejection actions and invocations of help could have generated the belief that the girl was consenting.
Stephen Porges, a neuroscientist and psychophysiologist of Chicago, through the Polivagal theory, tried to answer the question about how a person, who is not willing to have sexual relationship, can consent to the request and not fight with the abusator. In a recent article published on BiofeedbackPorges explained why many victims of sexual violence do not oppose actively.
According to Polivagal theory, the act of not responding is nothing more than a primitive immobilization response with fear to an extreme threat, which can be erroneously interpreted by the attacker as a passive acceptance.
Porges’ pulvagal theory
Porges of Porges on the autonomous nervous system (SNA) allows you to understand what happens on a neurophysiological level when a stressful event is needed in the life of an individual.
Before Porges was in vogue an old interpretation for which the SNA consisted of two antagonistic branches: the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system, which belonged to increase or decrease the activity of some organs. Therefore a vagal parasympathetic inhibition inhibition was indicated to a nice adrenal activation.
Porges of Porges the theory extends the range of responses considering three subsystems organized hierarchically: these are three neuronal circuits corresponding to three development phylogenetic states and three defense strategies. According to Porges, through a process he called neurocectionour brain would be constantly engaged in assessing the risks present in the environment and in reacting automatically, without awareness, depending on that stimuli are considered safe, dangerous or threatening life.
The circuit is active in safety conditions vagal twentywhich is the most recently evolved system, which supports communication as well as establishing and maintaining social ties. It has a calming effect (the so -called vagal brake) as it keeps the nice circuit at bay. Through constant attention, even unaware, to the signals coming from the interaction with a conspecific (voice, neck, eye contact …) and from the environment, evaluates the safety of the situation and inhibits the defense responses of the nice circuit.
Where a condition of danger occurs, the vagal brake would retire and the circuit would enter into action friendly. It regulates the physiological activation of our Fuga attack response, which is the election response of mammals. When the sympathetic circuit is activated, an alarm reaction is produced in which the heart and respiratory frequency increases, increases blood pressure, preparing the body for an attack/escape reaction, which constitutes the fastest response to the danger.
If the nice circuit is not enough to ensure a functional response to survival, because the threat is potentially overwhelming for life, the circuit comes into action vagal back. An immobilization with fear occurs, which is the elective response of reptiles, and which translates into a state of emotional dullness in humans.
This primitive defense system triggers a totally different defense reaction from the nice circuit: our heartbeat and our blood pressure decreases; There is like a physiological shutdown in which the person appears as dead and endogenous opioids are produced in order to have an analgesic effect that reduces sensitivity to pain. It is a psychophysiological state that represents the origin of dissociation.
Polivagal theory, through neurophysiological knowledge, therefore explains why some individuals in situations of serious threat do not react.
The signs that reach the brain, through the process of neurocectionautomatically trigger the primitive immobilization reaction. This response is not conscious and has nothing to do with choices, intentions or desires. It is like a reflection that turns off the body, preparing it for serious damage and/or death, and prevents him from activating an attack or escape reaction.
In general, the probability that this immobilization response increases when the individual is physically blocked or is found in a restricted physical environment.
Don’t say no doesn’t mean saying yes
Porges of Porges thus provides us with a neurophysiological explanation of why not say no in the case of sexual violence does not mean saying yes.
Many men assume that if the woman does not say no, sexual intercourse is consensual and it is not about violence. In these cases men interpret the absence of response as a passive acceptance.
Moreover, many women report that they have not been able to say no when the attacker was threatening or physically blocked their ability to move. At the time of the physical block, in fact, the victims have no longer felt able to convey the resources necessary to communicate clearly that they did not want to have sexual intercourse.
The immobilization response during sexual violence is one of the most difficult elements to overcome for people victims of abuse.
You feel ashamed not to have escaped screaming, for not being able to fight against one’s attacker and shame can push us not to talk about it, as if to fear that someone can attribute to us the responsibility of what happened, having not managed to do everything possible to come out of that situation. And perhaps because at the bottom of us he liked it. We were looking for it. Horror. You feel raped once more.
And so we remain in the shame of being part of those who have undergone a sexual abuse, which translates into not having been strong enough to prevent it. We feel deep contempt for themselves for not having been able to defend ourselves from violence. There was no struggle. Just a silent and painful cry and the conviction that nothing serious had happened.
A great difficulty in therapeutic work with the victims of sexual violence lies precisely in bringing the person to recognize that the activation of the Vagal back circuit has had an adaptive value at the time of trauma.
We must be able to make her feel that its paralysis reaction was intended to save her from more serious risks that threatened its survival. Our passive reactions are, in fact, fully justifiable in phylogenetic terms: the mammal knows well that the dead animal does not affect the predator.
Star still, surrendering to the attacker, submission have an adaptive value from an evolutionary point of view. Often patients feel weak, inept for not being able to behave differently. The passive reaction is experienced as something bankruptcy, a sign of their intrinsic defectiveness or inability.
The Polivagal theory therefore, in addition to providing a scientific contribution of great importance, also has the merit of returning physiological dignity to a body that has been violated during violence. In fact, that body has nothing wrong. He only activated the last and extreme defense strategy compared to a stimulus threatening life. And it is precisely being able to feel that survival is linked to the intrinsic physiological wisdom of our body that can help those who have experienced an abuse experience to make thanks to their body, instead of destroying it.
Bibliography:
Porges, SW, & Peper, E. (2015). When Not Saying No Does Not Mean Yes: Psychophysiological factors Involved in turnover. Biofeedback; 43 (1): 45-48.
Giovannozzi, G. (2015). Clinical applications of the Porges Polivagal theory at the EMDR. EMDR psychotherapy magazine. Year IX. No. 30: 8-12.
