Acting "Friendly" After A Sexual Assault Can Actually Be A Form Of Self-Preservation, According To Experts

Survivors of sexual assault may not react in the ways you might expect — and that doesn’t mean they didn’t experience or weren’t traumatized by the assault.

This concept has recently played out with Jane Doe, the former Cornell University student who says she was gang-raped at a fraternity party in 2024 and is suing the college and fraternity brothers she says were involved. In surfaced texts that were sent after the alleged assault between her and one of the defendants, Doe stated that “non(e) of the sexual stuff was illegal,” that she liked being with the defendant and suggested they smoke together again — alongside messages about having a “super clouded” memory and wanting to “leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine.”

Survivors and trauma experts do stress that victims of sexual assault often don’t respond in typical ways; in fact, there are psychological reasons why many survivors may even act congenial following an incident. Here’s what to know:

The body is focused on survival during an assault and even after.

You might have heard of the nervous system’s “fight or flight” response, but “freeze and fawn” are also parts of the equation. The “friendliness” is the “fawn” response. People might smile, say they forgive you or act like everything is fine because it feels safer than confronting the issue.

“To put it bluntly, survivors ‘fawn’ because we live in a world where people are killed for upsetting men,” said Faith Ferber, a therapist at Viva Center, a practice supporting clients in D.C., Maryland and Virginia that specializes in using non-talk therapy to heal trauma. She has nearly 15 years of experience working with survivors of sexual violence. “Fawning keeps people alive.”

Ferber added that after an assault, a survivor may feel disempowered, out of control, in shock, confused and scared. “This is the perfect priming for fawning because it allows the survivor to stay safe through being nice, complimentary and doing whatever it takes to minimize the chance that their perpetrator will commit further violence,” she explained.

This was true for Alexis Flores, a survivor and trauma therapist in her 30s who lives in Southern California. She experienced sexual abuse at the hands of her high school partner.

“Fawn was not my go-to until this relationship, and, I believe, it prevented a situation from escalating in ways that could have been far more harmful and dangerous for me,” she recalled.

What this comes down to, in part, is the nervous system’s response. “Our nervous system is wired for survival, and sometimes survival can look like being agreeable, friendly or even affectionate towards someone who has hurt us,” explained Cheryl Groskopf, a licensed professional clinical counselor in Los Angeles who specializes in anxiety, trauma, attachment and nervous system regulation. “When we perceive a threat, it may turn to appeasement as a way to reduce the possibility of further harm … [Survivors] can even reassure someone who hurt them because they’re still trying to feel safe.”

Groskopf clarified that fawning is automatic (not a choice), a natural reaction to danger and, in its own way, effective. “Fawning is deeply protective when the violence can’t be escaped,” she said.

The trauma puts the person on autopilot.

Part of that nervous system response is feeling confused, overwhelmed and unsure. It’s a shock. That can cause people to revert to old, “safe” responses.

“In the aftermath of an assault, the survivor is often left feeling deeply overwhelmed, disconnected and unsafe as their brain struggles to process the sudden trauma,” said Gillian O’Shea Brown, a psychotherapist, adjunct professor of trauma studies at New York University and author of Healing Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Clinician’s Guide. “The survivor is often left feeling trapped on autopilot, relying on familiar social scripts, like politeness, to navigate the terrifying shock of the assault.”

While people of any gender can be sexually assaulted, women, in particular, may be all too familiar with that societal pressure to be polite and “not make waves” no matter what.

Understanding and processing sexual assault takes time.

Realizing, acknowledging and coming to terms with a sexual assault experience isn’t something that happens instantaneously, or even in the weeks or months after. “People don’t always immediately understand or process what they’ve experienced,” Groskopf said. “They might feel confused, disconnected or unsure how to make sense of it. Sometimes, acting ‘normally’ is the only thing that feels manageable in that moment.”

Plus, piecing everything together — especially if alcohol, drugs or memory gaps are involved — can make that process longer or more complicated.

Survivors want to feel in control of their body and life.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wants to be sexually assaulted or identify as a victim or survivor. It’s a scary, out-of-control, life-changing feeling.

That can contribute to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s theory of “repetition compulsion,” or unconsciously reenacting a traumatic event. This also shows up with survivors who have experienced multiple assaults (it’s why survivors are more likely to experience assault again, and it does not mean they’re at fault).

“This happens because a survivor may feel a deep longing to rewrite the past and approach the situation from a position of power,” O’Shea Brown said.

You might see this play out in various ways that may not make sense on the surface. For example, she continued, a survivor may try to seduce their perpetrator to transform the memory into something wholesome or empowering. They want a “corrective experience” to erase the past trauma and feelings associated with it.

Some survivors may try to “correct” the experience in their minds. “Survivors frequently default to trying to rationalize or lean into a toxic dynamic as a survival mechanism, convincing themselves they are participating willingly because the reality of total powerlessness is too terrifying to accept,” O’Shea Brown added.

They don’t want to believe someone they know could and would do that to them.

This was the case for Rose, a 34-year-old in California, who was assaulted by a family friend in high school.

“It’s shockingly difficult to make the mindset shift that someone can go from ‘family friend’ to abuser or attacker in the span of one night,” said Rose, who asked to keep her last name anonymous. “My brain couldn’t reclassify someone so quickly — even with all of the evidence in front of me and the disgust I felt toward him.”

Groskopf said conflicting feelings are “totally normal,” especially when there’s an existing relationship. “Human responses to trauma are complicated, and behavior alone doesn’t tell us what someone was experiencing internally,” she added.

Ferber explained further: “The survivor tries to make sense of what happened and the fact that their safety was violated by someone they may have previously felt safe with,” she said. “This is intense to grapple with, especially when the brain is in a traumatized state, so it’s not uncommon for survivors to experience delayed anger.”

There’s a combination of reasons.

It’s important to note that for some survivors, multiple of the above reasons (and others) can contribute to their reaction. For example, Flores recalls fawning or being “friendly” and “normal” because she felt ashamed, doubted anyone would believe her, wanted her pre-assault life back and needed time to process.

Rose’s case is similar: Her attacker was a family friend, so she wanted to believe there was an emotional connection or reason. She wanted everything to be okay, so she pretended like it was. It took time to realize and come to terms with the fact that what he did was wrong, and that “victim” had become a part of her identity. She felt embarrassed and wanted to “preserve the version of me who was never overpowered and attacked.”

Simply put, one (of many) problems here is that people are conflating how someone acts after an assault to how they felt in that moment — and that needs to change.

“Being friendly and giving consent are two completely different things,” Groskopf said. “How they behave afterward doesn’t retroactively establish that agreement.”