Recently I reacted angrily to one man’s comment that “if the bitch doesn’t want to, the dog won’t jump up”! If only men knew how many women are simply unable to say “No!” to the man who is harassing her. due to the fact that they have experienced violence in their lives, more than once! Their boundaries were unceremoniously treated by parents, teachers, peers, so that girls simply became tolerant of violence, unable to immediately notice it and unable to resist it, since this is the norm for them. What some men consider assertiveness, acting from their The myth that a woman's “no” is simply a delayed “yes” can be perceived by women as harassment. Depending on her traumatic experience, her reaction may not be what she wants. And it takes years of psychotherapy to change the pattern of freezing or alienating oneself from one's body when a man is persistent. Statistics on rape are quite contradictory. Since not all victims report this to law enforcement agencies. Reasons why rape and attempted rape are kept under wraps may include fear of retaliation, uncertainty about whether a crime was committed or whether the perpetrator intended to cause harm, as many victims blame themselves for being raped. Especially if the victim has a prohibition on refusal, on expressing anger, or if she experienced some kind of pleasure during the rape. In addition to guilt, there may be shame, hence the reluctance for others to know about the rape. There may be a reluctance for the perpetrator to get into trouble, fear of a trial (when the victim is subjected to gynecological tests and a full body examination), and doubts about local law enforcement agencies also stop women from reporting. The hardest thing for these women to hear about themselves is that they themselves responsible for their victimization. These accusations confirm their feelings of guilt, since they believe that they themselves provoked the rapist. But even if the girl was unreasonable in that she simply wanted romance, admiration and to attract attention to herself by dancing sexy drunk in a nightclub, flirting with strangers, does not make her responsible for the immoral actions of the rapist! If a woman has been subjected to coercion many times (no matter what), she does not recognize the signals of aggression, loses her will and cannot set boundaries. But that doesn't make her guilty. She was used to submitting to someone who had power over her, on whom she depended and whose location was important to her, whose rejection was like death for her. Behind the feeling of guilt lies a huge amount of repressed anger that could not be expressed as intended. Often victims of violence become rescuers for others. There they can get angry, defending the boundaries of someone, but not their own. The right to assert your own boundaries, although difficult, can be regained in psychotherapy. And I know many such cases.