What Donald Trump’s comments mean to survivor’s of sexual assault

http://mashable.com/2016/10/08/donald-trump-sexual-assault-survivor/#ZuPC0bv_CPq5

My assault began when this boy “grabbed me by the pussy.”

It isn’t up for debate: What Trump describes is sexual assault.

Those are the exact words used by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in a 2005 recording released by the Washington Post on Friday. In the tape, Trump describes how his power as a famous, rich man gives him the ability to pursue any woman he pleases. He describes how he sometimes just starts kissing a woman and “doesn’t even wait” for her to say it’s OK. He says his star power even allows him to do it.

In the United States, a person is sexually assaulted every two minutes. Most survivors of sexual assault are women; 1 woman out of every 6 is the victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

To a sexual assault survivor like me, Trump’s words are not the harmless “locker room banter” he claims they are in a statement he released immediately after the tape went public. They are words that reach into the deepest parts of me, plucking out trauma that gets replayed over and over with each new article and retweet. They are reflective of a culture of men that sees women as available to fulfill their desires, even without their consent.

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