Beyond the Headlines: Sexual Violence and the Communities We Share

Reflections for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, 25 November–10 December 2026

Content note: Discussion of sexual violence, without graphic details.

With thanks to our member, Zoe Southcott, for this article.

When a story about sexual violence reaches the headlines, we respond in all sorts of ways. We might feel furious or sad, discuss it at length, make a joke, hug somebody, cry, or find ourselves laughing at something else five minutes later. Our responses can be contradictory, even within the same conversation. I don't think that makes us uncaring. I think it makes us human.

What I find harder to comprehend is the scale of sexual violence behind those occasional, highly visible stories. It is so much larger than the cases that become public talking points.

The number behind the headline

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, an estimated one million people aged 16 and over experienced sexual victimisation, including attempted offences, in the year ending March 2026. The estimate was 2.8% of women and 1.4% of men. These figures come from survey responses rather than the number of incidents reported to police, and changes to the questions mean they should not be treated as directly comparable with earlier estimates (Office for National Statistics, 2026).

One million. It is a number I can read and repeat, but not one I can easily imagine. It is tempting to think of it as a public problem, belonging to the news, the criminal justice system or specialist services. Yet those people are also neighbours, colleagues, friends, family members and strangers we pass in ordinary life. Some will have disclosed what happened. Others will not. Some will recognise the term sexual violence in relation to their experience; others may still be trying to make sense of it.

The statistics do not tell us what any one person feels, what support they might need or how their life has been affected. They do, however, make it difficult to imagine sexual violence as something taking place at a safe distance from the communities we inhabit.

The ordinary business of being human

I have been thinking about what it means to belong to a community in which experiences of violence are so widespread, yet so often unseen. Much of our life together is wonderfully ordinary. We talk nonsense, laugh at things we perhaps shouldn't, offer cups of tea, work, argue, fall in love, look after children and carry on. I would not want a world in which every conversation had to become solemn or every joke had to pass a test of correctness.

Humour itself can do different things. It may help us approach something frightening, make room for connection, express anger or give us a little distance from what feels overwhelming. Sometimes it lands badly. Sometimes it is precisely what helps. The same is true of silence, tears, questions and attempts to offer reassurance. People need different things at different moments, and none of us can know everything about another person's history from the way they respond in public.

What seems worth exploring is not a prescribed way of reacting, but the relationship between the world we share and the meanings people make of their experiences within it.

When private experience meets the social world

Those of us working therapeutically will be familiar with how difficult it can be to put experiences of coercion, fear or violation into words. Some people speak plainly; others describe confusion, loyalty, shame, anger, uncertainty or apparently conflicting feelings. Their responses are not always easy to categorise, nor should we expect them to be.

Research on responses to disclosure has found associations between negative social reactions and greater psychological distress following sexual assault. That does not mean there is a simple formula for what people should say, or that a single exchange determines someone's recovery. It does suggest that the relational environment matters (e.g., a 2023 systematic review by Ullman).

This interests me because so much of the meaning we give our experiences develops between people. We form understandings of what is normal, believable, shameful or speakable through families, friendships, workplaces, institutions and culture. These understandings are seldom the whole story, but they can become part of the story we tell ourselves.

What sixteen days might offer

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence runs from 25 November to 10 December. The 2026 theme focuses on justice, survivor protection and ending impunity. These are substantial concerns: the availability of specialist services, the accessibility of support, the response of institutions and the ways that people can pursue safety and justice.

As a counsellor and supervisor, I find myself drawn not only to individual experiences of trauma, but also to the many contexts in which people live with them. Therapeutic understanding matters, but so do housing, finances, relationships, professional systems, community resources and the practical possibility of finding help when it is needed.

Perhaps there is room during these sixteen days for curiosity as well as activism: about the scale of what people are living with; about how experiences become understood or remain hidden; and about what it means for our communities when so much can be happening beyond what we see.

There is room for laughter, anger, grief, warmth, irreverence, affection and all the other contradictory ways we cope with being human. None of those needs to be erased in order to take sexual violence seriously.

The number is enormous. The people within it are individuals. And we are all living alongside one another, whether or not we know one another's stories.