How to Interview a Rape Survivor

Feb 17, 2023 · 9 min read

Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash.

Author’s note: this piece is a partial memoir of the work I do with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Despite the title, it is NOT intended as a guide to interviewing survivors of sexual trauma. Please be a professional in the field or consult with one, before enquiring after a person’s trauma experiences. Naturally, the article contains confronting and disturbing material throughout.

I was talking to a friend the other day, on the subject of passing casual judgement on other people without knowing much, or anything, about them. Unless you’re the kind of person who is truly driven to make snap judgements about complete strangers, me and my friend agreed that – as most reasonable people would – it’s generally best to know something of the backstory before ploughing in with your indignation and opinion of people and the predicaments they find themselves in.

I mention this because the person I was talking to then almost immediately launched into a jeremiad about the prisons being full of thugs, gangsters and drug addicts and what a mess society is etc and so on. Prissily informing him that some of my best friends are thugs, gangsters and drug addicts, I reminded him of the work I do with prisoners and rape survivors, and said in my experience…