. @AOC is incredible and I love her, but I really don't love the language around her "revealing" she's a survivor of sexual assault. Statistically, sexual assault is widespread and we should understand it not as a juicy detail about her life, but a common experience she's sharing.

sensational language creates a kind of spectacle out of trauma, and that's the last thing most survivors want when they think about speaking publicly about their experience

I think the framing of it as a "revelation" speaks more to the shock value for the listener, who doesn't expect it and perhaps doesn't know what to do with the information b/c we do not talk about sexual violence the way we should.

Which is: this is something that happens, it's horrible, and you as a listener are a witness and fellow human to someone who chooses to talk about it with you. That act of just being there for someone does not require you to comment or explain it to them.

Like most women, I have repeatedly and frequently been on the receiving end of information about a friend or even casual acquaintance's sexual assault. I am not inured to the horror of it, but I no longer feel shock. I am practiced in the process of receiving and connecting.