Rape Victim Shares Stage With Attacker to Tell Story, Combat Shame and Understand Sexual Violence

Last updated on 24 JUN 2025

What happens when the story of rape doesn’t end in silence—or in punishment—but in a conversation between the victim and her attacker?

It’s a scenario that unsettles many, and for good reason. In a world where sexual violence is both rampant and under-reported, most survivors are never given justice, let alone a stage. Yet, in a moment that has sparked both admiration and outrage, Icelandic writer Thordis Elva stood side by side with Tom Stranger—the man who raped her when she was 16—to speak not only about the night that changed her life, but about what it means to confront harm, shame, and accountability head-on.

Their decision to collaborate, first through years of written exchange, then through a book and public talks, disrupted conventional narratives of justice and healing. For some, it was a powerful example of reclamation. For others, it was dangerously close to giving a platform to violence. But behind the controversy lies a deeper, more difficult question: how do we address the root causes of sexual violence when we rarely hear from those who commit it?

What unfolded between Elva and Stranger wasn’t a story of forgiveness as absolution—but of two people, on opposite ends of a violent act, asking the world to look beyond punishment toward prevention. And that, perhaps, is where the most uncomfortable—and necessary—conversations begin.

A Radical Encounter with Accountability

When Thordis Elva invited the man who raped her to join her on stage, she wasn’t offering absolution—she was demanding accountability in its most unfiltered form. Nearly two decades after the assault, she and Tom Stranger began a public conversation that few would dare to imagine, let alone initiate. Their joint appearance, beginning with their TED Talk in 2016 and followed by their co-authored book South of Forgiveness, was not about closure. It was about rupture: disrupting the traditional, often binary narrative of victim and villain to ask harder questions about why sexual violence happens—and what we do about it.

Their story began in 1996, in Elva’s home in Iceland. She was 16. Stranger, her then-boyfriend and an 18-year-old Australian exchange student, walked her home after a Christmas dance. She was heavily intoxicated. Stranger, whom she trusted, took off her vomit-soaked clothes, then assaulted her while she lay disoriented and unable to fight back. “My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding,” Elva later said in their TED Talk. “I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock to stay sane. Ever since that night, I’ve known there are 7,200 seconds in two hours.”

Stranger’s admission is striking not only for its content but for its clarity: “My actions that night in 1996 were a self-centered taking,” he said. “I sanctioned my own perceived needs and had no regard for Thordis’s wellbeing.” Despite being raised in what he described as a nurturing, respectful environment, Stranger acknowledged he had internalized cultural narratives that entitled him to a woman’s body—a reflection of the wider societal currents that normalize dominance, especially among young men.

Their collaboration began in 2005, when Elva sent Stranger a letter confronting him about what he had done. To her surprise, he replied with a confession, not a denial. That exchange led to years of soul-baring correspondence, culminating in a face-to-face meeting in South Africa. What followed was not reconciliation in the traditional sense, but an attempt to understand the violence for what it was—and why it happened.

The decision to speak publicly was met with fierce backlash, particularly from survivor advocacy groups who questioned whether giving a rapist a platform, however remorseful, sent the wrong message. But Elva has made it clear: “I believe a lot can be learned by listening to those who have been a part of the problem—if they’re willing to become part of the solution.”

The Long-Term Cost of Silence

For years after the assault, Thordis Elva lived with a wound that had no visible scar, but quietly dictated the shape of her life. Like many survivors, she internalized the violence rather than report it—partly because her experience didn’t match the stereotypical image of rape perpetuated by media and society. There was no alleyway, no stranger, no weapon. Her rapist had been someone she cared for and trusted, and that made her doubt whether what happened counted.

But her body remembered. The trauma embedded itself not just in her memory but in her daily functioning. “My self-worth was buried under a soul-crushing load of silence that isolated me from everyone that I cared about,” she later recalled. “I was consumed with misplaced hatred and anger that I took out on myself.” By the time she was 25, the psychological toll had reached a breaking point. She was, in her own words, “headed straight for a nervous breakdown.”

This kind of long-term, corrosive aftermath is tragically common. According to the World Health Organization, survivors of sexual assault are at significantly higher risk for anxiety, depression, PTSD, substance abuse, and even suicidal ideation. But what often compounds the trauma is the cultural framing that shames victims into silence. Elva’s internal struggle was amplified by a persistent societal message: that if you didn’t fight back, scream, or report the assault immediately, your story might not be valid.

In choosing to write a letter to her attacker, Elva was not seeking reconciliation at first, but truth. She needed acknowledgment of what had been done to her—something the criminal justice system had failed to provide, as the legal window for pressing charges had already closed. When Stranger replied with an unreserved confession, it initiated a difficult but ultimately liberating process: naming the violence, analyzing its roots, and giving shape to her story beyond the binary of victimhood.

This personal reckoning was about reclaiming authorship of her life. As she later told a live audience, forgiveness wasn’t a gift to Stranger—it was a way to unburden herself from the shame she was never meant to carry. “People somehow think you are giving the perpetrator something when you forgive,” she said, “but, in my view, it is the complete polar opposite.” It was, for her, an act of agency.

Perpetrator Responsibility and the Myth of the ‘Monster’

Rape is often framed as an act committed by aberrant individuals—violent strangers lurking in dark corners, easily distinguishable from the rest of society. But the story of Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger directly challenges that narrative, forcing a confrontation with a more uncomfortable truth: most sexual violence is committed by someone the victim knows. And, often, by someone who doesn’t fit the traditional image of a “monster.”

Tom Stranger was not a social outcast or career criminal. He was a white, middle-class teenager from a supportive family, on a school exchange program. He had been exposed, by his own account, to positive examples of gender equity growing up. Yet on the night he raped Elva, none of that stopped him from feeling entitled to her body. “I presumed that after a night out with ‘your’ girlfriend, a boy is deserving of sex,” he said. “I sanctioned my own perceived needs and sexual urges, and had no regard for Thordis’s wellbeing.”

This admission underscores a core issue in discussions of sexual violence: the gap between how perpetrators perceive their actions and the harm they inflict. Stranger’s story reveals how sexual violence often stems not from sociopathy, but from entitlement, denial, and cultural conditioning. It’s a sobering reminder that rape does not require malice to be devastating—it only requires disregard.

Elva and Stranger have both spoken out against the “monster myth”—the idea that rapists are easily identifiable villains. While this myth offers a sense of security to those who want to believe they could spot or avoid a perpetrator, it ultimately undermines efforts to address the real dynamics of consent and abuse. Stranger himself remarked that the term “rapist,” while factually accurate, can also be “weaponised”—used in a way that ends dialogue rather than opening it. “The semantics of it—it’s the grandest of sins… Being a rapist is unforgivable—something beyond any kind of redemption or understanding.”

But that’s precisely why accountability, not demonization, is key. Understanding why perpetrators do what they do is not about offering excuses. It’s about prevention. As Stranger pointed out, if we want to stop rape before it happens, we need to examine the cultural messages that teach boys and men to see sex as a right and women as gatekeepers.

Despite working as a youth counselor for years, Stranger admits he only fully grasped the depth of his crime when confronted with Elva’s written account nearly a decade later. “Her words took me back to that room… They revealed the effects my actions had on her.” That moment, he says, broke the narrative he had long told himself—that what happened was somehow a misunderstanding.

Elva’s decision to engage with Stranger was not about humanizing perpetrators for sympathy. It was about humanizing them for responsibility. By refusing to see her attacker as a monster, she stripped away the false comfort of distance and demanded a deeper accountability—one that implicates not just individuals, but the culture that shapes them.

As Stranger puts it, “Unless it’s a mutual thing, unless there is consent, then it’s wrong.” A statement that, while seemingly obvious, remains radical in its simplicity when so many still rationalize, minimize, or ignore the violence that occurs in the absence of that clarity.

Public Backlash and Ethical Debate

The backlash was swift and visible. In London, protesters gathered outside the Royal Festival Hall, where Elva and Stranger were scheduled to speak. “There’s a rapist in the building,” they chanted, waving signs that decried the event as a platform for abuse rather than a forum for healing. One survivor, Diane Langford, criticized the appearance bluntly: “I’m here because I feel a rapist is profiting from his rape… I don’t believe there can ever be impunity for a rapist.”

These concerns were echoed in petitions and commentary across media platforms. Critics argued that the event risked triggering survivors and could unintentionally normalize contact between victims and their attackers. Liv Wynter, an artist and activist who is also a survivor, warned that such high-profile engagements might encourage other perpetrators to reach out to their victims, potentially retraumatizing them under the guise of seeking closure. Organizations like Rape Crisis and The Survivors Trust echoed this caution, affirming the value of Elva’s personal healing while underscoring that her approach should not be considered a template.

One central ethical concern was whether Stranger’s public visibility—even unpaid—could be construed as a form of redemption or celebrity. Some questioned if merely admitting to rape, in a society where most perpetrators are never held accountable, should ever be grounds for public recognition. “Why should a sexual assault perpetrator be praised for the mere acknowledgement of wrongdoing without being held accountable at law for his crime?” one audience member asked Elva during a panel discussion. The question drew applause—and revealed the deep emotional tensions embedded in the debate.

Elva responded by reiterating that her choice to forgive Stranger was about her own healing, not about offering him a stage. “It is not about applauding the rapists,” she said. “It is about a rapist giving voice to the immeasurable hurt that he caused.” She also emphasized that Stranger would not profit from their collaboration, stating that he received only a small portion of the book’s royalties and had committed to donating them.

Still, many felt that symbolic gestures were not enough. Lawyer and survivor advocate Josephine Cashman argued that the legal system—not public talks—should be the forum for accountability. She cautioned against a model of forgiveness that might blur lines between healing and impunity, particularly in countries where survivors struggle to access justice at all.

For Elva and Stranger, the purpose was never to offer a universal roadmap but to challenge the narrow ways in which society views sexual violence—often focusing solely on the aftermath for victims, while rarely confronting the attitudes and conditions that lead to harm. “We need to shift the discourse,” said Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre. “It too often focuses on rape survivors rather than rape perpetrators.”

Reimagining Justice and Healing

Thordis Elva’s decision to confront—and eventually forgive—her rapist wasn’t about absolution. It was an act of reclaiming her voice and rewriting a narrative that, for too long, had been shaped by silence, shame, and social expectations. In a world where many survivors are retraumatized by their attempts to seek justice through legal channels, Elva’s path forced a difficult but necessary question: what does justice look like when the traditional system fails to deliver it?

For Elva, the answer lay not in a courtroom, but in clarity and confrontation. “Forgiveness was, for me, so that I could let go of the self-blame and shame that I had wrongfully shouldered,” she told a live audience. It was not a reconciliation with Stranger the person, but a liberation from the psychological grip his actions had maintained over her for years. Her healing came not from excusing the harm, but from naming it fully—and being heard.

This reframing resonates with a growing critique of how justice is defined in cases of sexual violence. In many countries, legal proceedings are marked by low conviction rates, procedural delays, and victim-blaming narratives. Survivors often report feeling like they are on trial themselves, their credibility and choices scrutinized more than the accused’s actions. For Elva, the statute of limitations had long expired by the time she processed what had happened to her. She is one of countless survivors whose experiences, though deeply valid, fall through the cracks of the system.

Her story has drawn both admiration and concern. Critics, including legal experts and survivor advocates, warn of the risks in presenting forgiveness or confrontation as alternatives to legal accountability. They cite the danger of reinforcing a model where perpetrators avoid justice and instead seek redemption through narrative control or public empathy. “The courts are the best place, and the police,” said advocate Josephine Cashman. “If someone rapes you, the best place to go is the police.”

But Elva’s point was never to offer her process as a prescription. Instead, she emphasized the diversity of healing journeys and the need for survivors to define their own path. “I find it very confining to say that all survivors should do one thing when that might not feel safe for everyone,” she said. “Everyone has to find their way and do what feels safe and right for them.”

Toward a More Honest Dialogue

The story of Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger is not easy to digest—nor should it be. It demands that we sit with discomfort, question our assumptions, and confront the limits of how society understands sexual violence. At its core, their collaboration is not about closure, forgiveness, or controversy. It’s about shifting the lens from what survivors must endure to what perpetrators must own.

Their decision to speak out together sparked justified debate, but it also created space for a conversation that too often remains one-sided. As Stranger himself noted, “If you never hear from men, then how is anything ever going to change?” It’s a provocative point, and one that challenges the prevailing narrative: that accountability begins and ends with punishment, rather than with the transformation of harmful beliefs and behaviors.

This isn’t to suggest that every perpetrator deserves a platform, or that every survivor should confront the person who harmed them. Rather, it’s a call for nuance in how we talk about justice and prevention. Demonizing perpetrators may feel satisfying, but it often oversimplifies a problem rooted in cultural norms, entitlement, and silence. When rape is seen as a “women’s issue,” it reinforces the harmful idea that women alone must bear the responsibility for avoiding, surviving, and healing from violence. But if the majority of sexual violence is committed by men, then men must be central—not sidelined—in the solutions.

Elva and Stranger’s story underscores the urgent need for education, dialogue, and accountability that begins long before harm is done. That means teaching consent not just as a legal concept but as a lived ethic. It means challenging ideas of masculinity that equate control with strength. And it means making room for difficult conversations about remorse, repair, and responsibility—conversations that must be survivor-centered but also inclusive of the people who need to hear them most.

If we are to meaningfully address sexual violence, we must be willing to do more than punish what’s already been done. We must examine how it happens, why it persists, and what it takes to prevent it. That requires courage—not only from survivors, but from all of us.

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