Here’s Why The Cowardly Victim-Blaming of Sexual Assault Survivors Must End

Rachel Thompson
7 min readOct 13, 2021

Expecting victims of crime to prove their innocence is shameful. Let’s discuss.

I recently read a piece here on Medium by a writer who blamed Epstein child-trafficking victim, Virginia Giuffre, née Roberts, for being a victim of child trafficking. The basic premise of her piece is that, at seventeen years old, ‘she should have known better,’ and that the grooming, drugs, threats, etc., had nothing to do with any of the crimes perpetrated against her by Epstein and Maxwell.

Virginia was ‘old enough’ to walk away. She should have known better. The responsibility was solely hers.

Oh, and if people objected to this writer’s premise, we must be victims ourselves, because we can’t get past our own traumas, you see; unlike her, who successfully avoided these types of situations because she knew better. She’s the winner!

Is your skin crawling yet? Well, you should have read the comments agreeing with her. Disgusting (which is why I’m not posting it). Feel free to search.

Teen Brain vs. Adult Brain

As for age seventeen being ‘old enough,’ it’s well-known that a young person’s rational brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25. In fact, recent research has found that adult and…

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Rachel Thompson
Rachel Thompson

Written by Rachel Thompson

Author, 8 books. Writer: Start It Up, Writing Coop, Better Humans. Childhood sexual assault survivor/advocate. Book Marketer http://BadRedheadMedia.com

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