Sexual assaults increase during summer

More frequent on weekends and during warm weather

Several studies, including a 2007 report in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, shows how sexual assaults like rape and rape attempts are more frequent during warm weather and on weekends.

It has been estimated that around half of all "stranger-to-stranger" outdoor sexual attacks is occurring during the summer season.

This is definitely nothing new; it should be a well known fact by now. Still, it might be a good idea to remind ourselves of this from time to time. After all, the best women's self-defense tip is perhaps to be armed with knowledge.

A Swedish psychology professor with the Stockholm University, Sven Aa. Christianson, recently noted what he believed contributed to these figures going up.

There is no coincidence that we see a significant increase, he said. The professor stated that even though a rapist has the same thoughts and fantasies during winter, the number of possible targets are far greater during summer.

We spent more time in, or passing through, higher risk areas. These areas are, from an attacker's point of view, suitable places to hit on a potential victim.

The Swedish professor also pointed to how our consciousness about possible risks decreased. He said that we are in effect lured into a false sense of security by the brighter summer nights and the number of people moving about.

"You may take a shortcut which you would normally avoid in the winter, when it's darker," he pointed out. The same shortcut is in fact safer during the winter...

Concerts, outdoor parties, alcohol, walking home alone because it's nice and warm, a reduced sense of risk ... All these factors probably contribute to the fact that 50% of a total of 837 outdoor rape incidents were reported during the months of May through September in Sweden (2007).