Why It’s Hard to Resist Rape

(1)All information that comes to the victim’s body and brain during sexual assault is traumatic and threatening. The amygdala recognizes this information and sends a dangerous signal through the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland
(2)First, catecholamines, known as stress hormones, are secreted by the amygdala This hormone triggers a struggle-escape response, which refers to a physiological arousal condition that automatically appears under a tense threat Breathing accelerates, heartbeats surge, all muscles enter tension, gastric and intestinal movements decrease, and blood vessels contract It’s the state of an animal facing a natural enemy, so to speak The function of the frontal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for rational thinking, is almost lost. Thinking flows only for survival
(3)If adrenal cortex hormones are not controlled, the energy to move the body decreases For this reason, some victims lose the physical energy to resist or escape from sexual assault It is called tension immobilization, and it refers to a phenomenon in which the body is temporarily hardened due to tension or fear Stockholm investigation shows 70 out of 298 victims of sexual assault suffer from tension immobilization