As a fun-loving and energetic six-year-old, there was no reason for anyone to suspect sophomore Abby Leonard was different from her peers. She loved school, coloring, softball, her Nintendo DS, Barbies and Disney Princess movies. However, she had a deep secret she did not tell anyone about; she had been sexually molested.  Leonard kept this incident to herself for seven years until she told her mom about it at age 13.

Leonard said, “(When I told my mom), it was such a big relief to take it off my shoulders because I had to see him for every single weekend or more for those seven years. It was a constant reminder of what had happened, and I had never been able to get over it.”

With recent reports on college campus rapes, one could assume that the number of rapes and sexual assaults is increasing. However, according to FBI.gov, the number of forcible rapes reported to law enforcement has decreased over the years. The number in 2011 was actually 2.5 percent lower than the 2010 estimate and 9.5 and 12.4 percent lower than the 2007 and 2002 estimates, respectively.

Dr. Amanda Miller, gender studies professor at the University of Indianapolis, said that the decrease in rapes is caused by changes in cultural attitude and more people speaking out about rape.

“Cultural attitudes about rape have changed pretty significantly over time. I’m definitely not saying they’ve changed for everyone. There are absolutely still ignorant people who are very much victim-blamers. But in general, women got tired of that,” Miller said. “With the spread of things like the Internet and social media and women gaining more power in general, in education and the workforce, they felt more comfortable speaking out about it.”

However, Miller said there has been a backlash toward this female power, which has resulted in a more prevalent rape culture, “normalizing sexual assaults and a cultural attitude that those who are sexually assaulted must have somehow asked for it.”

Rape culture can been seen in many aspects of society, according to Miller, such as school dress codes and people telling women not to drink alcohol at parties. Leonard said she has seen a lot of rape culture in society as well, especially after telling others about her sexual assault.

“Sometimes there will be people who say things like, ‘Well, it’s just a boy being a boy’ or kind of blow over it. That hurts a lot because they’re diminishing something that has affected you for so long,” Leonard said.

However, she said she has always been greatly affected by her sexual assault, both physically and emotionally.

“Over the seven years (I did not tell anyone), I just felt like a waste. (The sexual assault) was continuously just on me. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe most of the time because it was just so much of a burden to deal with and actually, it kind of affected me physically as well,” Leonard said. “I used to wake up so scared in the middle of the night that I would throw up. It was such a scary experience. Sometimes I have flashbacks, and I’ll wake up paralyzed, and I can’t move because I’m so scared.”

In addition, as a result of the sexual assault, Leonard said she became apprehensive about being with the opposite gender, afraid of being taken advantage of again.

She said, “Whenever I was with any guy alone, whether it was my dad, my stepdad or a teacher, it would always scare me because I had a doubt and a lack of trust in the ability of guys to control themselves…just a fear that that was going to happen again.”

According to Miller, rape culture makes it the women’s responsibility to prevent rape, as opposed to the men’s responsibility not to rape someone. Leonard said that after telling her story, many people made excuses for her stepbrother, blaming his upbringing and family problems. She said many people asked her what she did wrong to cause the sexual assault. Although she did blame her stepbrother for the incident, she said she also blamed herself.

“For some reason, I thought I deserved it. For some reason, I brought it on myself, which is completely ridiculous now that I’m older and realized that it’s not my fault at all,” Leonard said.

Brittany Winebar, youth program coordinator at Prevail, an organization that advocates for victims of crime and abuse, said it is not abnormal for victims to blame themselves.

“Many teens and children do feel guilty about getting the offender in trouble, about how their family, friends and community responds, for being in a risky situation, that they may have liked certain parts of the abuse, for creating new stressors for the family,” Winebar said via email.

However, according to Winebar, it is important to remember that it is never the victim’s fault.

“Sexual assault is only preventable by the people who commit the crime,” she said via email.  “Survivors are not responsible for the abusive acts of others. We can’t force someone to rape us. That is their decision alone. Sexual contact should be an excited ‘yes’ from both parties.”

Miller said victims often blame themselves because of the way they are taught to not be victimized. When something happens to them, they think they didn’t do enough to prevent it, which is not right.

“There’s nothing that victims can do in these circumstances. The rapist is often a guy that you know and trust,” she said. “What are you supposed to tell somebody? Don’t hang out with your friends? Don’t accept a drink from your boyfriend? Don’t be alone with your husband?”

Miller said one way to prevent rapes is to enlist males as allies, which is what President Barack Obama is currently doing with the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. Many college campuses have also started to train males to look out for female friends or tell male friends when they have stepped over the line.

Miller said, “(The kind of men who are rapists) are not going to listen to me. They think I’m one of those angry feminists and (that) I just don’t understand, ‘she wanted it anyway’ and every excuse you hear in the book. They generally don’t have very positive attitudes towards other women. But they do buy into that sort of bro culture, where they feel positively towards other men.”

Despite everything she has gone through, Leonard said she has been able to make her sexual assault into something positive. She said she talks to a lot of girls who have been through similar situations and people who think they are worthless because of what happened. In addition, she has started working to create her own nonprofit organization that helps sexually and physically abused girls called Trading Tears for Tiaras.

Leonard said, “I’ve kind of come to terms with (the sexual assault). It’s something that happened, and it does not define me. It’s a really big thing because in our culture people are so focused on, ‘Oh, you were raped,’ and you’re known as the person who was raped. But that does not define you as a person. You’re so much more. So I guess I just realized that that’s something that happened, but I can use that experience to help so many other girls who have been in that same experience.”