Robert Forster, a supervisor on the crimes against persons squad at the Sioux Falls Police Department.
When someone comes into the police department saying they’ve been sexually assaulted, the first step is to understand how the survivor wants to proceed, said Sgt. Since filing that report, Penny’s been in limbo. Sioux Falls police confirmed to the Argus Leader that Penny made a report. Penny walked into the Law Enforcement Center in Sioux Falls at the beginning of August to file her report. While the assault is crystal clear in her mind, she can’t remember exactly how many days it took her to file a police report, but she knows it took about a week, she said. She left the apartment before 10 a.m., still dressed in the red Nebraska shirt and shorts she’d worn the night before, and went about her day, she said. However, an orgasm is a physical reaction that cannot be controlled, whether or not someone has consented to a sexual act. "I remember thinking to myself, 'One: I got to get up and get away from him, and two: why am I laying here, and my body is having an orgasm?'"Ī common rape myth circles around if the survivor had an orgasm, then it couldn't fall under rape, according to the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. "I was just baffled that I wasn't getting out of there," Penny said as she described where her mind went during the assault. She alleges "The Boy" bit her forcefully, digitally penetrated her and forced her to masturbate until her body naturally reacted before he would let her go. Penny said the assault lasted 20 minutes. “Next thing I know, he’s got me laid on his bed and I just froze the rest of the time,” she said. She tried to head toward the door to leave, but he grabbed her and threw her again, she said. In the morning, "The Boy" gruffly told Penny it was her turn to make breakfast, but as she stood at the microwave, “the next thing I know, someone’s grabbing my shirt and he threw me to the side and I almost fell.” They spent the night talking and listening to the radio. Penny refers to him as "The Boy," because after the assault, he was no longer a 44-year-old man in her eyes and she didn’t want to use his name anymore.Ī month later on July 25, Penny made the 20-minute walk from her home to "The Boy’s" apartment. “He walked in and caught my attention, because he was cute and had lots of hair,” she said. Penny first met "The Boy" in April 2021, when she was working as a cashier at a Sioux Falls casino. “This approach tries to distinguish between wanted and unwanted sex, even though both might conceivably be 'consented' to, and attempts to encompass both agency and desire.” Craving safety and security, she missed the red flags - at “More than the absence of a no and the presence of a yes, the yes needs to be engaged, excited and active,” Christine Emba wrote about affirmative consent in her recent book “ Rethinking Sex,” an exploration into American society’s views of sex. States like California and Minnesota have created statutes called “affirmative consent laws,” which means there should be verbal and expressive consent as a way to combat these myths. More: The Link will offer sexual assault kits starting in early Mayīut Heeren-Graber said there’s a bigger societal issue at hand: myths surrounding the definition of consent, when survivors don’t fight back and what consent actually looks like. “There's been times that come up in cases, where consent is not defined anywhere in statutes, and so it has created some concerns during prosecution,” said Krista Heeren-Graber, the executive director of the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault. The closest South Dakota gets is second-degree rape, or forcible rape, and third-degree rape, which includes being incapable of consent due to intoxication.īut if a survivor freezes and can't fight back, like Penny, there's no statute for them. Twenty-six states, including South Dakota, do not have clear consent laws on the books, according to RAINN. It should be freely given, meaning the person shouldn’t be under the influence of alcohol or a substance, or feel threatened or intimidated. What do we mean when we talk about consent?Ĭonsent is the action of saying yes to a sexual activity, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).
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