Paralysis is a survival reaction which the brain applies to the body whenever all other options to avoid sexual violence (prevent, freeze (hypervigilance), flight, fight, compromise) have been exhausted.
Paralysis is sometimes also called freezing, although scholars prefer avoiding this word usage to prevent confusion with the 'freeze' (hypervigilance) response that usually precedes it (see below).
[8] Paralysis or tonic immobility is the action threatened humans and animals perform whenever all other options have been exhausted: in physical contact with the aggressor, they pretend that they are dead, and thus attempt to survive the dangerous situation.
[6][1] Dutch psychologist Agnes van Minnen (2017) proposed prevent or avoid (voorkomen) as an extra strategy which precedes freeze or hypervigilance: try to prevent/avoid ending up in dangerous situations in the first place.
[9] Paralysis is employed whenever all other options have been exhausted, and the brain decides to undergo the looming sexual violence in hopes of protecting the body against death.
[9] For example, if the threatened person would run too great a risk of being killed by trying to fight back against the aggressor, the brain could decide on paralysis in order to allow the body to survive.
[10] Aside from humans, tonic immobility is also a survival response in all other mammals, which is applied whenever fleeing or fighting would increase the risk of dying and would therefore not be the best options (anymore).
[14][15][16] Furthermore, the assumption that every person could say 'no' or resist at any moment if they did not want to have sex, could afterwards lead the perpetrator to blame the victim for not having objected to their advances.
[17] This could lead to great shame, the tendency to tell nobody what has happened, attempts to forget the traumatic experience and erase all traces of it (including matters which could have been used as evidence against the perpetrator).
Such coercion-based legislation falls short in cases where paralysis prevents the victim from resisting and thus the perpetrator does not have to use force or coercion to perform sexual acts with the person who does not want to.
[2] To remediate this issue, several countries not only define sexual violence by force or coercion, but also by psychological pressure and/or the defenselessness of the victim.