TRIGGER WARNING: This article deals with themes of sexual assault and violence.

Twelve years have passed since I was inappropriately groped. But when I watched Companion (2025), I still started sobbing at the sexual assault scene at the beach. It’s still hard for me not to shed tears when I witness Anita’s attempted gang rape in West Side Story (2021) or listen to someone recounting their own horror story.

It’s easy to say “I’m over it.”

The fact I can openly talk about it should attest to it. But on the other hand, my deeply emotional reactions to depictions of sexual assault is evidence that what happened left an indelible mark on my psyche.

The truth is, sexual assault plagues our society more than some people would like to admit. From orphanages, religious educational institutions, to one’s household or even the internet, the lurking dangers of sex-based violence looms especially over women and sexual minorities. And it’s an issue penetrating all social classes; no matter a Hollywood mogul or a high-ranking officer or a random teenager in your neighborhood, anyone can impose a scar that’s as psychological and emotional as it is physical.

According to Sistem Informasi Online Perlindungan Perempuan dan Anak (SIMFONI PPA), an online archival system of records of violence, there has been 1,950 cases (32.58%) of reported sexual violence across the nation in 2025 alone—and that doesn’t include incidents that go undocumented. Not only is it the most dominant form of violence, hundreds of victims might’ve suffered additional psychological and physical abuse, not unlike the true crime stories that sometimes pass by your TikTok For You Page.

“My deeply emotional reactions to depictions of sexual assault is evidence that what happened left an indelible mark on my psyche.”

As expected, women disproportionately receive the short end of the stick, making up 86.81% of the reported cases. Exacerbating the situation is the statistics of where it happened: mostly in the household (2,754 cases; 67.27%), an alarming demonstration of the intersection between domestic violence and marital rape. It doesn’t come as a surprise, since a study by the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) in 2023 showed the majority of sexual assault perpetrators comprise the victim’s ex, current partner, and husband.

It’s not unfair to attribute this abhorrent trend of harassment to patriarchy, but it would also be a gross oversimplification. Understanding this phenomenon requires a dialectic look at society at large, where different systems interweave with one another to create an environment where sexual assault is prevalent—and not quite, but almost, normalized.

In the essay The Traffic in Women: Notes on the “Political Economy” on Sex, American anthropologist and feminist pioneer Gayle Rubin dives into the notion of female oppression. One can argue it’s driven by “innate male aggression and dominance” or the rise of capitalist stratification, but in reality, we are embedded into a patriarchal society where sex hierarchy rules. And without knowing the root cause, women and sexual minorities will continue to be oppressed.

One of the manifestations, as discussed in the essay, is through traditional marriage. It’s one form of kinship, a system of reciprocal social relations. Yet, riffing off Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Elementary Structures of Kinship idea that marriages are a gift exchange where the women are the gifts, Rubin argues that this relation is a transaction between the two men—her father and her husband. The two men are the ones actively participating in a social exchange, rendering the women only as consequential as a token of the men’s relationship. It’s why Jasmine claims she is “not a prize to be won” in Aladdin (1992) or why Brave’s (2013) Merida denounces her betrothal.

While this may be some insight as to why marital rape happens, Rubin asks a more pertinent question:

“Kinship is organization, and organization gives power. But who is organized?”

This question has everything to do with the society of today, where all facets of the human experience is stratified and classified to a degree where a clear line is always drawn. Sex and gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, income bracket, bodily ability and mental capability, education levels, family background—all contribute to determining one’s position in this organized society. Viewing sexual assault under this lens, it becomes obvious how all this contribute to a person being ensnared by perpetrators.

If nothing else, one thing that HBO’s The White Lotus (2021-present) gets right is how sex is always a symbol of power. Paired with the ubiquity of patriarchy and social politics of relationships, sex continues to be a tug-of-war of dominance where ultimately, it will always be the man who wins—who gets the fulfillment and pleasure. It’s a common theme in older erotic thrillers, and still is in heterosexual porn. (This notion even bleeds into gay porn, where the more submissive man who is often slightly more feminine is treated the same way a woman would.)

Harvey Weinstein, the pesantren (religious boarding school) leaders, Catholic priests, police chiefs of certain ranking, modelling agents, boyfriends and husbands: there’s a clear pattern of people in higher positions who wish to exert an extension of that power. In most cases, the targets are the very people who are seen as objects and transactional gifts.

In a country where victims are still to blame for harassment and assault—“That’s why you should cover up,” “That’s why you don’t go clubbing,” “That’s why this, that’s why that”—there’s no telling what would happen.

Even the justice system more often than not fails the victims, from the arduous court processes that force them to rehash and verbalize trauma to a jury of strangers to unfinished hearings that end in light to no sentencing.

Sex continues to be a tug-of-war of dominance where ultimately, it will always be the man who wins—who gets the fulfillment and pleasure.

“So, why not tell anyone?” or “Why not report it?” get flung around too easily. Yet, looking at these news headlines, at the responses to them, who would these complaints go to? The cop who uploaded videos his assault to an Australian porn site, the men you entrusted your child’s religious education to, the church’s clergymen whose confession booth witnessed heinous and unspeakable deeds, or the man who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer in your own bed? Should men open up about their experiences when their friends laugh and make him believe he probably enjoyed it?