“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does anything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fail the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.” – Judith Lewis Herman.
“I lost my virginity to my lecturer! I was just 22years old and he was a 40years old recently honored professor. Number of times he called me to his office are too many to remember, Number of times he sexually abused me still haunts me. I was able to report the assault to the school management and no disciplinary actions was taken against him. Since then, I have been so disgusted with myself.” – Anonymous.
The official campus statistics on sexual violence as posted by a social scientist, JENNIFER J. FREYD shows that approximately 1 in 5 females experiences sexual violence in higher institutions. The reports from lecturers across universities in Nigeria on rape, sexual assault on female students rises, it was recorded that it rose by almost 50 percent in 2015.
Sexual misconduct maybe a violation of the state criminal law and of higher institution policies. Sexual misconduct is a broad term and by definition means any sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances that is committed without consent or by force, intimidation, coercion or manipulation regardless of the relationship between the perpetrator and victim. It can be committed by a person of any gender, strangers or acquaintances including people involved in an intimate or sexual relationship.
Consequently, one can define SEXUAL MANIPULATION as the usage of psychological influences, coercion and also physical/superior influences over a person to engage in sexual activities which includes sexual glances, touching and making sensitive comments which is against a person’s will. A sexual manipulator is an individual who perfectly and gently manipulates and coordinates the situation and the feelings of people to get a sexual satisfaction of any kind.
Sexual manipulation in higher institution occurs mainly between lecturers and students, especially male lecturers and female students. Lecturers generally are seen as life motivators, mentors, heroes, parents and most especially leaders who thrive not to teach only but to make influences on students, while some lectures remains a good role models others choose to take advantages instead.
Male lecturers with sexual manipulative minds manipulate female students to engage in sexual activities for some educational benefits or political posts and make threats that rejecting such offer will carry deadly consequences on the victim’s education and safety on campus. Most of the times, the victims are denied of good educational performances and are made uncomfortable for educational activities. Female students sometimes are not left out of the blame, there are recorded cases of female going to lecturers to ask for grades and offer sex in return. They use their feminine tricks, make sexual advances and dress provocatively to seduce male lecturers; where some lectures may decline, others will gladly accept such offer.
Lecturers with sexual manipulative minds are very good at their games and are so confident that they do all their misconducts in such a way that the victim might not be able to say that it is their complete fault. They seduce, tame, give subtle compliments, play dirty little games, and when they notice that their victim is suspicious, they tend to create all sorts of explanations, make excuses and at worst cases intimidate and make deadly threats like failure thereby shutting the mouth of the victim. Sexual manipulators generally are sometimes addicts, aggressive and do not concern themselves with law/legality, they are totally blind and act blindly to the consequences of their misconducts.
They have no concern for the best interests of their victims and tend to be pushed by their sexual disposition to do things impulsively, sexual manipulators (lecturers in this case) are not so hard to identify, one just need to pay attention, they are generally dominating individuals, eloquent smooth talkers, smart, deceptive, and are very good at unnecessary compliments. They are very fast at finding peoples weak/soft spot and deceitfully use it for their manipulations.
The persistence of sexual manipulation in higher institution is alarming. Sexual manipulation remains a sensitive topic that is difficult to deal with because it is often not reported. Victims of sexual manipulation may not report it, they are often reticent about making official reports and most times when they do, they face the danger of suffering negative reactions, victimizations, psychological imbalances, embarrassments and existential questions such as “WHY ME”? Subsequently, colleges and universities have an important way of discouraging sexually victimized students from reporting assaults to prevent the reputation of the institution and that of the perpetrator from being soiled.
They try as much as possible to invalidate, punish and even shame the victims thereby making the sexual act go unreported. Many a time, they conspire with societal forces to cover up the sexual violence. Victims of sexual manipulation needs a trustworthy confidant and if they do not feel they can safely report, the assaults will go unchecked and as a result cause additional harm to them.
Escaping sexual manipulation is not so hard but victims of sexual manipulations should know that outsmarting a manipulator is not easy. Female students who are already in a wrong sexual relationship should try as much as possible to stay away from the manipulator, seek help, confide in a trusted friend or superior and be blunt to the negative reactions that might follow as a result if they are already experiencing intimidations and threats. Relating with an expert in the field of sexual violence is also advisable.
There is no denying the fact that female students sometimes are the seductress, they should therefore be mindful of their mode of dressings and relationships with male lectures. Most importantly government should establish a separate court for female sexual assault where this violence can be closely addressed. There should be provision for sex psychologists on campuses to handle the case of traumatized victims. The management body of colleges and university should establish a disciplinary committee to bring any lecture found wanting to justice and to forbid any form of intimacy between male lectures and female students.
Again, government should punish colleges and universities who tries to prevent the report of any sexual assault because if there are strong regulations to which citizens will adhere to, which will serve as guardian through sexual violence, sexual violence perpetrator will greatly reduce. Consequently, if victims feel safe to enough to make reports, I believe sexual manipulations would be curbed and then we can have a better society free from traumatized students and sex addict lectures.
Conclusively, Sexual misconducts whether with the same or opposite sex remains a major problem in large part of the world, this violence brings with it some long-term consequences both socially and psychiatrically. It is a grievous crime and it calls for urgent attention from all segments of the society. This issue of sexual violence which includes manipulation has been ignored until now, ignoring it further will not be acceptable. It therefore becomes crucial to acknowledge that it is a grievous crime that needs to be addressed.
Source: eduregard
