Girls Play Dead: Acts of Self-Preservation

Percy (Demon Camp), a New York Times Magazine contributing writer, offers a groundbreaking exploration of women’s often shamed and silenced responses to sexual assault. Confused by her own “accumulation” of passive reactions to sexual harassment, Percy wonders, “Why aren’t we getting up and walking out?” Through extensive, empathetic interviews with sexual assault survivors, she examines a range of trauma responses, from freezing during a rape (known as tonic immobility) to post-assault symptoms like agoraphobia, dissociation, seizures in response to stimuli reminiscent of attacks, and increased sexual activity as a way of regaining agency. While these methods of self-preservation are deeply ingrained (Percy compares tonic immobility to prey animals playing dead), they also have “imprisoning powers,” leading victims to suffer feelings of extreme guilt. Noting that “there is hardly any historical record” of these experiences from women’s perspectives, she tracks down unconventional literary references and probes her own family’s generational trauma. The latter helps reveal how she, like many women, learned passivity as a girl, taught to “accommodate the pain of others.” Percy also emphasizes that the justice system’s continued reliance on “believability” prevents victims who react to trauma in passive or “strange” ways from getting justice—but that fighting back, as women are exhorted to do, can lead to even worse outcomes (she relays the harrowing stories of three women imprisoned for killing their attackers). The result is a vital record of a little discussed aspect of women’s lived reality. (Nov.)