So I just stumbled across an article from the BBC, which addresses many of these issues--why victims remember some but not all details, the delay in reporting. It's an interesting read:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2018...-rape-debunked
A couple of nuggets of information from the article: It is estimated that 2 out of 3 sexual assaults in the US go unreported. In the US 18% of reported sexual assaults result in convictions. For me, as a woman, those are troubling figures. But this I think ties in with the feelings of the women that Ultralight knows--they feel that the official justice system can't or won't help them, so they are trying other strategies.
For what it's worth, I think many women don't report, not because of trauma, but because of our "blame the victim" attitude on this. Why were you wearing that? Why were you on that dark street/hiking by yourself/alone at a bar? Are you sure you didn't lead him on? Just like the high school dress codes for girls that are all about "not distracting the boys," the majority mindset in the US is that women who are assaulted are in some way to blame.
Again, I refer you to the Taylor Swift lawsuit. She was at a fan meet-and-greet event when a man touched her inappropriately. At the trial, she was asked why she didn't make a scene right then and there--as if making a scene would be the only proper action to take. Her response was that she didn't want to ruin the event for her fans--which is, to me, a valid reason. She's a professional, she tried to act professionally in the moment. But even that was cast back at her.
I remember very clearly attending a formal dinner in my 20s. The guy sitting to my right kept putting his hand on my leg--I had not met him before this dinner. When gently removing his hand, pinching his hand, stepping on his foot all did not work to keep his hand where it belonged, I turned to him and quietly, politely, asked him to take his hand off my thigh. You would have thought I had done something horrible, based on the reactions of the others at my table. His wife started yelling at me, my date got angry with me for flirting with the guy--which, trust me, I was not doing. The general consensus was that I had ruined the evening for everyone at the table, when the reality was that it was the man sitting to my right. The guy who took me to the dinner broke up with me. (Obviously, not a huge loss.) But I encourage you to ponder why I was considered in the wrong, when I just wanted to keep my body to myself, and no one, except maybe the guy's wife, saw him as doing anything wrong? I guess they all felt I should have handled it more discreetly, but that wasn't working.
If you read transcripts of the trial, Swift keeps making the same point over and over. It doesn't matter what she was wearing or what she was doing or what she did or did not do after the assault--the guy should not have touched her where he did. (For those who know nothing about the lawsuit, she complained to the guy's employer, who fired him. He then sued Swift because he lost his job due to her complaint. She counter-sued, for $1, and won. He has yet to pay the fine.)