It's been more than a decade since Saxon Mullins accused a man of raping her behind his father's nightclub in Kings Cross. Since then she's learned a lot about endurance — and the life-saving power of pop music.
After a gruelling sexual assault trial, Saxon Mullins found hope in an unlikely place. She knew then she'd be okayThis month the judge of a high-octane defamation trial found that, on the balance of probabilities, a senior political staffer had raped a junior colleague in the office of a federal minister.reflects on the experience of another woman who endured the blaze of public scrutiny when speaking of trauma in court.
"I was brushing my hair and deciding if cutting my hair would fix me," Mullins says. "Robbie Williams's "Rock DJ" came on and I started to mouth along to the words. My energy kept increasing until I am practically performing this song as if I'm on stage, hair brush as a microphone, mirror as my audience, dancing and singing along. After it finished, I just stared at myself in shock, like witnessing someone come back from the dead.
A debate ensued about the three responses to stress and fear: flight, flight and freeze — the last being a response which has long been wrongly assumed to imply consent.You've probably heard her story, what happened in the laneway behind a Kings Cross nightclub. Now she's speaking publicly for the first time as a warning to others.
The idea of the "perfect survivor", she says, is not only incredibly harmful, it also does not exist. "It's a mirage that simply gets further away the closer we try to get. We need to drop this thought that we have ANY idea what a survivor would do in any situation. Until you're in it, you just can't know. When we let go of that notion, we will be free to truly listen to and understand survivors.
As for the one song that she says was the pivot her world swivelled on in Ireland, even today, Mullins is overwhelmed at the impact this had on her life: "Oh my gosh, if I met Robbie Williams tomorrow it would be so difficult not to fan girl. I don't think I can articulate effectively how important this one song has been in my life, I'd probably just cry. But I would try to say that he, without hyperbole, saved my life with his great pop song.
Luke Lazarus I Am That Girl Rape And Sexual Assault Research And Advocacy Robbie Williams Julia Baird Brittany Higgins Sexual Assault Police Courts Justice System
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