Training sessions for Keesler leaders debunks myths about sexual assault Published Oct. 26, 2011 By Airman 1st Class Heather Heiney 81st Training Wing Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Rape is a word that can be filled with raw or complex emotions. It is a word that is often whispered or left unspoken. But in her effort to educate and debunk various myths, Anne Munch speaks the word plainly, like the fact it is. Munch gave three presentations on sexual assault at the Keesler Bay Breeze Event Center, Oct. 20, targeting various key audiences to open the dialogue on the difficult topic. "Sexual Assault Dynamics: What Every Leader Should Know" was tailored for commanders and first sergeants. "Investigating and Prosecuting to meet Consent Defense" was intended for members of the judge advocate's office, Air Force Office of Special Investigations and security forces. "The Meaning of Consent" was for all first responders. "I was raised by a person who exemplified leadership to his country and to his family," said Munch, whose father was head of the law department at the Air Force Academy. She went on to study psychology, sociology and law at the University of Denver. Now she's an attorney with more than 22 years of experience who specializes in prosecuting sexual assault. "My mission is to work on that one corrosive thread that runs through your Air Force," Munch said. In a 2010 Air Force survey of nearly 20,000 service members, it was discovered that 3.4 percent of women and .5 percent of men questioned had been assaulted within the past year. Eighty percent of the perpetrators of female victims were active-duty military. The survey also showed that 29.7 percent of women and 4.3 percent of men questioned had been assaulted within their lifetime. Munch said civilian studies have shown even higher numbers. Munch said most people who commit sexual assault once do it multiple times and see nothing wrong with what they did. She said they typically have an outside persona that is positively perceived, but their inside persona has determined that they will get sex even if the other person doesn't want it. "It's the people that we know -- it's not the stranger in the bushes," Munch said. She also said that of those assaults in the survey, 83 percent of women and 94 percent of men didn't formally report the crime. Their reasons included that they didn't want their supervisor to know, they feared negative treatment, they didn't want any trouble, they didn't trust the process or they feared retaliation. "It is stunning how significant the under-reporting of sexual assault is in the Air Force," said Lt. Col. Trevor Wall, 338th Training Squadron commander and audience member. Munch said people raised in our culture are inundated with false beliefs and have a tendency to hold the victim responsible to an extent. She said women especially ask themselves what the victim did wrong to allow herself to be raped because then they can avoid that action and feel safer. The emphasis is on what the victim did or didn't do and not on the fact that the rapist committed a crime. Another part of the presentation focused on the influence of alcohol and how that affects the perceptions of the victim, the perpetrator and those listening to both sides of the story. She explained that in a prosecution, the use of alcohol works against the victim and for the defendant, becoming another factor that adds to the stigma of blaming the victim for the crime. However, Munch emphasized, "Vulnerability is meaningless unless there is someone who decides to take advantage of it." She explained that consent is received through overt words or actions. Consent to one thing does not mean consent to everything--full consciousness is required. For example, just because a woman is kissing or dancing with a man doesn't mean that she has to have sex with him. During an exercise, Munch asked the audience to turn to the person next to them and describe a recent consensual sexual experience. Most of the audience was befuddled and broke out laughing. Then one at a time, she asked audience members to stand up and represent one person a victim has to tell when he or she decides to report that he or she had been raped. More than 20 people stood up, including Munch, who took on the role of the rapist. Finally, she asked the audience to think about how difficult it is to talk about consensual sex with someone you don't know and how much more difficult it would be to talk about a rape. The exercise and presentation allowed audience members to see the issue of sexual assault in a new way. Maj. Matthew Pignataro, 81st Security Forces Squadron commander, said he learned "the approach toward breaking down preconceived barriers we may not have known existed and focusing the investigation on the perpetrator instead of consciously or subconsciously blaming the victim." Master Sgt. Ryan Bienvenu, 333rd TRS first sergeant said he learned "what consent is and what it is not. She gave clarification to eliminate those gray areas that confuse people." Munch concluded her presentations, emphasizing her message for society to change its way of thinking and stop blaming victims in an effort to expose the problem of sexual assault, encourage more support for victims, and decrease the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the future.