RAPE AND 'REAL RAPE' Joanne Spangaro Women's Health and Sexual Assault Education and Resource Unit Rozelle New South Wales T HE PRIMARY ROLE OF THE NEW SOUTH WALES SEXUAL A SSAULT EDUCATION Unit is to train health workers who respond to sexual assault. When we are running a course, one of the first things we do with a group is look at the dimensions of the problem of sexual assault. When this is done, the reaction of the groupor a large proportion of the groupis surprise. One of the reasons this is done in training is because it is important for participants to understand that sexual assault is not something which occurs to people 'out there' and in places remote from us. Not all the participants are surprised at the results of this discussion as there are always at least four or five people who have been sexually assaulted out of a group of about fifteen participants. Often an anonymous tally of the range of abuses people have experienced is done, in order to make this point and to ensure that participants are sensitive in the way they treat the topic of sexual assault. The language used when talking about the impact of sexual assault is important as language can be used to minimise and isolate people's experiences. One could argue that the use of the word 'victim', for example, operates to distance ourselves from the problem, as if it happens exclusively to some sub-group. When one becomes a 'victim' and not a person who has experienced sexual assault the rest of one's identity is obscured. Sexual assault is not something that happens to people somewhere else; it is something that has happened to a significant number of people in any group, community or setting. So what are the dimensions that allow such generalisations? Sexual assault is an area in which it is notoriously difficult to gather statistics, as reporting rates to police do not reflect the real incidence. Some of the best research to date has been done in the USA. The studies undertaken by Russell (1984) and Koss (1988) have provided important data because large, random groups of people were asked focussed, detailed questions about their experiences of sexual assault in Russell's study (1984), 930 women participated and in Koss's study (1988) over 3,000 students participated. Other crime surveys have been undertaken which have yielded lower figures. However, a number of studies such as those studies undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics