Three Myths of Sexual Assault

One of the most popular – and perhaps the most consequential – Sexual Assault Awareness presentation I give is on the subject of “Myths and Misunderstandings of Sexualized Violence.”

“ It is only by understanding the widely held false ideas or beliefs about sexual assault that we can begin to challenge them and find real change.”

— Andrew Pari

The three biggest myths about sexual assault are as follows:

1)       Women lie about or falsely report sexual assault.

2)       “Normal” men don’t rape. And those that do, just can’t control themselves.

3)       Some women are “unrapeable,” while some women actually deserve rape.

While each of these statements may seem unbelievable at first, think about the ways rape is treated in our culture. Do we as a society tend to believe women’s story over men’s? Acknowledge men’s historical status as being valued over women? Does anyone you know think only a certain kind of girl finds herself in the situation to be raped? All of these are misogynistic ideals that we have internalized for centuries and as a culture have only recently begun to unpeel.

When you think about the fact that our judicial system in this country was developed more than two centuries ago and is rooted in even older misguided legal concepts, you realize that we might not have the most supportive system to modern injustices. In fact, when our country was first being born, rape was seen more as a property crime against a woman’s husband or father than an assault on her personhood. Women who weren’t believed were ostracized. In the last century, “tooth and nail” laws defined physical violence as the only means to refuse. Most rape laws in the U.S. centering the harm on the victim were only enacted in the 1970s. And yet, over 80 percent of sexual assault cases go unreported today.

So, without overwhelming you with my entire presentation, here are a few ways I like to address the three myths listed above.

• Do women lie about sexual assault? The research points to no.  In one study conducted by a veteran forensics law enforcement officer, seven percent of 650 cases were found to be falsely reported. [Det. C. Hershman, “False Reporting of Sexual Assault Cases,”(2018), Conference on Crimes Against Women] The majority of those had unnamed assailants, usually due to a need to draw attention to a different need or because of reports made by someone other than the victim.  This doesn’t mean a rape did not occur, but often because the women are so afraid that they won’t even incriminate their rapists.  This left a real number of 1.7% of reported cases being probably false. To make things worse, the news tends not to cover rape that much (for a variety of reasons), but when they do, it’s in cases that are rare, unusual, or surprising.  As a result, our society tends to view rape as uncommon and cases of false reporting as common. 

• Do “normal men” rape? There is no definitive profile of a rapist, molester, or sexual perpetrator. Let’s get that out of the way. And those that do rape, tend to do it more than once (in fact many more times, according to research). Furthermore, rape is not a crime of passion, but one of power. Rapists want to exert power over the vulnerable, often due to insecurity and perceived sexual inadequacy. And though the human male’s primal brain drives us towards reproductive urges, we are also blessed with a well-developed frontal cortex that allows us to reason, think, slow down, recognize nonverbal cues, and hear the word “no.” There is no such thing as an uncontrollable male urge.

• Are some women unrapeable? No! Every day (and it pains me to say this), women and girls, of all ages, races, levels of experience, socioeconomic backgrounds, level of ability, level of education, and profession are sexually assaulted. And that includes sex workers and victims of human trafficking.

In summary, there is no such thing as an unrapeable woman, an uncontrollable man, or a victim who shouldn’t be believed. Sexual assault doesn’t happen for thirty days out of the year, it happens every day. It’s constant, which means our awareness of and dedication to ending it must also be constant.

To learn more about this or invite me to speak on this issue, you can contact me here.

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Uber and Lyft Have a Sexual Assault Problem

For several years, it has become apparent that Uber, Lyft, and the ridesharing industry as a whole has a severe national sexual assault problem on its hands. Ridesharing has become ubiquitous in recent years, and for good reason, but one area where it has fallen short of its traditional taxi competitors is safety. Where training, safety checks, and customer protections have been a routine part of the taxi industry for over 50 years, Uber and Lyft – despite multiple class-action lawsuits – require minimum background checks, vetting, or training. This fact has resulted in an obscene amount of sexual and physical assaults at the hands of drivers with criminal records, a history of substance abuse, or more. 

So, while I definitely can’t recommend that anyone avoid using Uber or Lyft – though it is concerning how little they have done to prevent attacks on their passengers  – I would like to recommend the following safety tips when ordering your car:

• Check that the car that you ordered is the one in front of you. Predators sometimes pose as drivers, especially outside of bars and nightclubs. Always verify that the info provided to you by the app matches the car and driver before you.

• Ride with friends if possible. If riding alone, check-in with friends before you leave and after you arrive.

• Stay awake in your car to monitor your driver’s navigation, activity, and connection with the app.

• Report any concerns about your driver to both the ridesharing company as well as the Better Business Bureau. Low ratings on the app might stop the particular driver, but won’t necessarily encourage the larger company to adopt safer practices for its passengers.

• Take a taxi if you can. This may seem like antiquated advice (and I know many of us have had strange taxi experiences as well), but major cab companies do have better safety practices across the board. CURB is a taxi app that connects you to local taxi services.

You may ask, though, what advice would I give Uber and Lyft on making their services safer for passengers and combating instances of potential sexual assault?

• Take complaints seriously. Believe victims when they report. Offer support and referrals to hospitals and law enforcement. This may sound like obvious or simple advice, but it’s not and certainly not at a corporate level.

• Launch a program offering free rides for sexual assault victims to hospitals, police stations, and other victim-related services as a show of good faith and support.

• Install a panic button in the app. This is something that I’m sure would be easy for these companies to implement.

• Hire more female or female-identifying drivers. Most victims of Uber-Lyft-related sexual assault (and sexual assault overall) are cis-gendered women and their perpetrators cis-gendered men, so this would help to reduce concern or fear among female passengers. Also, make sure those female drivers feel safe when hitting the road and picking up passengers.

• Upgrade your vetting and approval process for drivers. This should include more than the initial drug test currently required.

• Require sexual assault training for all employees. This should include basic consent training, bystander intervention techniques, and instituting a check-and-clear practice to confirm both passenger and driver are the same as matched by the app. This will both put the drivers on alert that they are being watched and provide training for them to help passengers who may be in need after an assault.

• I would then suggest that drivers display a certificate of sexual assault training in their vehicles to bring comfort to passengers, as well as keep drivers on their toes.

You can read about a few worrying articles about that here:

·       BuzzFeed News, “Lyft Received Nearly 100 Complaints Of Sexual Assault By Drivers In Just One State Over Two Years” (Sept. 4, 2019)

·       Vice, “Lyft Has Been Flooded With Sexual Assault Lawsuits” (Aug. 21, 2019) 

·       The Guardian, “Female drivers feel abandoned by Uber and Lyft after reporting a sexual assault” (June 19, 2019)

·       Huffington Post, “How Uber Silences Women After Sexual Assaults” (May 12, 2018)

·       CNN, “CNN investigation: 103 Uber drivers accused of sexual assault or abuse” (April 30, 2018)

If you’d like to learn more about this sort of training, you can read more on the “Sexual Assault Training” page of the SAA website or get in contact here.

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Sports and Rape Culture

Though sports as a whole have many positive outcomes, we can’t talk about male team culture without acknowledging its driving force in sexualized violence.

As part of an awareness event earlier this year, Sexual Assault Awareness teamed with the film producers behind Roll Red Roll for a special screening of the award-winning 2018 documentary (now on Netflix!). Called “an essential watch” by The New York Times, the film explores Steubenville, Ohio’s attempted cover-up of the rape of a teenage girl by local high school football stars.

The powerful discussion that followed raised many key points and concerns about how we, as a society, prioritize winning and sports – from the playground to the professional arena – above women who have been harmed by those same athletes.

Though sports as a whole have many positive outcomes, we can’t talk about male team culture without acknowledging its driving force in sexualized violence. According to a 2014 study (“Expert Testimony on Sensitive Myth Ridden Topics: Ethics and Recommendations for Psychological Professionals” Gemberling, TM; Cramer, RJ, Professional Psychology Research & Practice, Vol. 45 #2, Apr 2014), male-inclusive groups, such as fraternities, segments of the military, and sports teams, are 300% more likely to commit sexualized violence than their non-affiliated male peers. 

For example, college athletes make up less than two percent of most campus populations, but comprise over 20% of the men involved in sexual assault or attempted sexual assault (“Sport, athletes, and violence against women” Flood, M. and Dyson, S.; NTV Journal, Vol.4, #3, Summer 2007). When we talk about how one in four women will be victimized by male predators in their lifetimes, that number goes up with women routinely exposed to male in-groups, such as sports teams.

As we all know, from a young age, men are taught and socially conditioned with group strategies for dominating, scoring, or winning, on the playing field, in the classroom, in conversation, in the bedroom, and beyond. These reinforced concepts easily translate over to the domination of women if they are not provided ways to recognize that a human being should never be seen as a “goal.” The same bonding and team spirit that can be so valuable and positive on the playing field can also lead to group intimidation and humiliation off the field.

Love for a certain team – as well as an antiquated “boys will be boys” mentality – on the part of local authorities and law enforcement can reinforce these negative aspects of team sports by not holding men responsible for their behavior, not taking the necessary steps to investigate or prosecute, and ultimately prioritizing perpetrators over victims. When parents, administrators, schools, and the community prioritizes their teams, games, and wins over the safety of girls and women, it results in increased instances of sexual abuse, harassment, and assault, with victims silenced and shamed into doing nothing to stop it.

We must all take responsibility to never allow women to be harmed because of celebrity and sports culture.  Here are a few suggestions on how to address and combat sports rape culture:

• Adults and leaders, you should set the tone. When coaches, administrators, and authority figures insist on the values of respect and empathy for others, even your opponents, it becomes part of who you are both on and off the field.

• Embrace cold, hard facts. Most men don’t like the idea of being thought of as hurtful towards women. Knowing that male athletes, who are “looked up to” have a higher rate of sexualized violence may help them want to change that perception by understanding consent, asking first, and checking in with their sexual partners.

• Know that alcohol makes everyone vulnerable. It’s also no legal excuse for rape. So, be aware that a man is at a higher risk for a rape charge if he aggresses under the influence. And if a woman has been drinking, encourage the interested man to get her number and ask her out later.

• Practice “bystander intervention.” When you see something toxic about to happen, step in and stop friends from hurting a woman, themselves, or their team – and encourage others to do the same. The easiest method is to address the potential victim directly, ask if she’s alright, and move her away from the aggressor. Here’s a quick article on the “3 D’s” of bystander intervention.

To learn more about combating rape culture or to set up a training for your team, you can contact me here.

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Sexual Assault Awareness Training for Law Enforcement

One of the reasons I decided to launch Sexual Assault Awareness was my interest in working with law enforcement and the wider justice system to better understand and address issues of sexual assault and the impact of rape culture within their sphere of influence. As you can tell from the myriad of cases that have made headlines over the past decade, this work is now more crucial than ever.

Sexual assault reporting is already extremely low in the U.S., under 30% nationwide, so victims believing they won’t be respected by law enforcement is a major hurdle towards the prosecution and ultimate prevention of sexual assault. 

In my work, I offer a variety of trainings on understanding, preventing, and addressing sexualized violence, all built on theory, research, and case examples from my direct work with survivors. Over the years though, I’ve found that the needs of law enforcement are very specific given the sensitive nature of their work and the environment within which they operate.

When coming forward after a sexual assault, victims can often feel like their perpetrators are better believed by law enforcement. Sexual assault reporting is already extremely low in the U.S., under 30% nationwide, so victims believing they won’t be respected by law enforcement is a major hurdle towards the prosecution and ultimate prevention of sexual assault.  In my office and online, I routinely hear from women who won’t approach law enforcement because they fear not being believed or worse, being told what happened was their fault. 

As discussed in previous posts, teaching law enforcement – be they police officers, investigators, prosecutors, judges, juries, advocates, or any other member of the system – to start by believing will result in getting more information from victims, conducting a better investigation, and eventually impact how police present their cases to prosecutors and prosecutors in turn present their cases to both judges and juries.

I was interviewed earlier this year at a training for nearly 300 Indianapolis law enforcement officers.  There, I explained that the understanding we have as trauma specialists “isn’t getting from us, the experts, into the hands of the people who need it: law enforcement, judges, prosecutors, juries. One of the things when I do expert testimony is educate juries on the basics of neurobiology, what happens to the brain during a sexual assault. And I think that information, getting it from the people who know to the people who need to know, is really the gap that needs to be bridged.”

Here are a few key points I like to convey in my trainings with law enforcement:

• As law enforcement is a career historically dominated by white males, I start by drawing a clear connection between cultural biases and their impact on victims, particularly women, persons of color, and those in the LGBTQ+ community. This can include the belief that a woman with a prior history of rape or a sex worker is a less valid or worthy victim.  Treat each report on its own merits without prior assumption.

• ·       I also like to encourage taking a trauma-informed approach to rape or assault investigations. When you understand trauma’s affect on the brain – something to which police officers can certainly relate – you can gain a better understanding of why victims respond the way that they do, during and after the crime. I explain how trauma can affect threat response, memory storage and recall, emotional aftermath, post-trauma response, and even result in hormonal effects.

• ·       And, as with all my trainings on sexual assault, I like to address myths and misconceptions around the victim experience (for example, why they might freeze up, not fight back, or delay in speaking up or coming forward). I also seek to discredit so-called “credibility challenges,” which might prevent victims from being believed or assault charges from moving forward.

Research shows that the impact of this sort of training is incredibly positive. Law enforcement officials who experience this kind of training are better equipped for victim reporting, investigation, and systematic response, building them up as a more trustworthy resource instead of a re-traumatizing force.

Similar trainings can be conducted for military personnel, who have their own systems for reporting and prosecuting sexual assault. My work with that audience also focuses on tools to provide outreach and support to fellow soldiers, decreasing the effects of trauma and helping victims to return to their duties with more resilience.

If you’d like to learn more about these sort of trainings, you can read more on the “Sexual Assault Training” page of the SAA website or get in contact here.

Arousal Does Not Equal Consent

One of the most taboo aspects of my work has been my research and training around the experience of arousal during sexual assault. I receive far more requests for this training than any other I provide.

What should be treated as just a normal biological response has been used, for decades, to shut victims down, prevent reporting, and used in trials by the defense to equate arousal with consent. 

Most important to the victim, when arousal is present during an assault, trauma symptoms such as anxiety, intrusive thoughts, depression, and dissociation are exponentially greater.

Several years ago, I worked with Aequitas, an organization dedicated to supporting prosecutors in their “efforts to achieve justice in gender-based violence and human trafficking cases,” to research  sexual assault cases in which evidence of arousal had been brought up during trial. Of the thousands upon thousands of cases where arousal was raised as evidence of consent, over a more than 40-year period, only three cases ended in conviction. Here is what Aequitas found:

People v. Austin, 219 Cal. App. 4th 731 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. 2013) Defendant was convicted of forcible and non-forcible sexual offenses, including oral copulation with a person under 16, forcible oral copulation, lewd act on a child, and attempted unlawful sexual intercourse, against his 14- year-old stepdaughter. The trial court initially ruled that the defense could not ask the victim whether she achieved an orgasm during the incidents. However, during trial, the prosecution introduced evidence regarding orgasms, and the court then permitted the defense to question the victim about that subject. The victim testified to having orgasms each time the defendant had orally copulated her, and the defense argued that this showed that she consented to the sexual contact. The prosecution offered an expert witness who testified than an orgasm was merely a physiological reaction to physical stimulation, so a child could experience an orgasm while being sexually abused, even if s/he did not consent to or want the contact. On appeal, defendant contended that the trial court erred in allowing the prosecution’s expert witness. The court affirmed the judgment, concluding expert witness was qualified to give testimony.

Curtis v. State, 223 S.E.2d 721 (Ga. 1976) Defendant was convicted of rape after having forcible sexual intercourse with the victim. On appeal, the defendant argued that: (1) the victim consented to the encounter and (2) he should have been allowed to ask the victim whether she experienced orgasm during intercourse. Regarding the first argument, the defendant contended that victim had moved in a way to “assist” the intercourse, and did not do everything she could to resist him. The court found that lack of resistance induced by fear cannot be legally recognized as consent. Regarding the second argument, the court held that the trial court did not err in refusing to allow defendant to question the victim regarding orgasm, as it was legally irrelevant to the issue of consent. This court affirms his judgment.

State v. Pancake, 296 S.E.2d 37 (W. Va. 1982) Defendant was found guilty of first-degree sexual assault and burglary. After the defendant broke into the victim’s home, the victim submitted to defendant’s sexual advances out of fear. On appeal, defendant argued that the victim consented to the encounter, based on inferences from her failure to scream or leave, by her orgasm, and by the fact that they had engaged in sexual intercourse once before. Defendant also argued that testimony from an expert on female sexuality about the unlikelihood of a woman having an orgasm while she was having a fearful sexual experience should have been permitted. The trial court had held the evidence inadmissible because the expert had not examined the victim and could not testify with medical certainty. Conviction affirmed.

That we could only find three sexual assault cases where arousal was brought up that resulted in conviction is astounding. Arousal is overwhelmingly viewed as consent – and wrongly so, let me be clear – that victims are consistently denied justice. The reason this is such a large focus of my work is the incredible bias against victims for having a completely normal physiological response under threat. The myth of arousal as consent reinforces the idea that the victim “wanted it,” a concept largely carried by American society over the past century and beyond. When you read that rapists commit more than six rapes on average [Lisak, D., & Miller P., Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists, Violence and Victims, Vol.17, No.1, 2002], you can extrapolate just how many get away with their crimes based on this one misunderstanding.

Even when I encounter colleagues who have some familiarity with the arousal response, they often have no idea of the lack of justice around this issue, and how the interviewing techniques I’ve developed can easily help forensic interviewers to negate the bias and even prove lack of consent when arousal is present.

There isn’t space here to detail the neurological, hormonal, and psychological process inherent to how this works, but to learn more about my work in this arena or if you’re interested in having me speak on this subject at your next workshop or seminar, please contact me here.

A Ban on Abortion is an Attack on Victims of Sexual Assault

““Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.””

— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

You’d have to have been living under a rock not to notice the full-on assault currently facing legal abortion – and thereby women’s and civil rights as a whole – in our country. Just last week, Louisiana joined Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia in passing so-called “heartbeat bills,” or bills outlawing most all abortions once a heartbeat can be detected. This usually occurs at the embryonic stage (five to six weeks), before most women even know they’re pregnant.

Given the way many of these laws are written, women and doctors will potentially face greater legal sanction and prison time for a medical service than a rapist would serve for the actual assault.

Beyond posing a dangerous threat to the health, futures, reproductive and civil rights of women across this country – and straight-up denying the personhood of half the population – these actions would only further deny justice to victims of sexual assault. In fact, you don’t have to read too far into the details to see how these abortion bans protect rapists over women, girls, and those trying to provide them aid and assistance.

All of these recent laws have yet to be enacted, but they are most certainly part of a larger conservative movement pushing to have Roe v. Wade overturned at the Supreme Court level. If you’ve found my page, I can’t presume that you share my exact politics, but I assume you’re here looking for expertise. So let me tell you, in no uncertain terms, that this movement would be harmful to the already vulnerable population of women who have been sexually assaulted.

And remember, one in every 6 women in this country will be raped or sexually assaulted. The #MeToo movement has been so resonant for this very fact:  the experience of sexual violence, harassment, and intimidation is a universal one for women. To dictate how a woman must respond to her own rape – by keeping a baby she didn’t ask for or have control over creating – is horrific and has much greater implications then I can even go into here.

As someone who works with women who have experienced sexualized violence daily, I could talk for a week about the threats currently being posed to rape victims across America. But for now, I’d like to suggest the following articles on the subject:

• The Cut, “Which State Will Pass an Extreme Abortion Ban Next?”

  https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/which-states-have-passed-six-week-abortion-bans.html

• Rolling Stone, “How States Like Alabama Protect Rapists Over Women and Girls”

  https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/alabama-abortion-law-rape-sexual-assault-punishment-835583/

• USA Today, “I was 12 years old and pregnant. Alabama’s abortion ban bill would punish girls like me.”

  https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/05/15/alabama-ohio-abortion-heartbeat-restrictions-choice-column/3679623002/

Should you like to learn more about a therapist’s take on the matter, I invite you to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to follow my responses in real time.

This Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Start By Believing!

How I Got Involved

In 2016, I was invited to speak at the End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI) conference.  It was a huge honor and one I had been working towards for some years.  Anyone working on behalf of sexual assault survivors will tell you EVAWI is among the top U.S. conferences in the field, perhaps even the world.

At the conference, I was introduced to the Start By Believing (SBB) Campaign.  Like many others there, I took a photo and had it posted up on their website.  I gave my talk to several hundred forensic investigators, prosecutors, and other justice system folks (think “top of the SVU” chain) and returned home.   

I knew what the sex crimes and domestic violence landscape was like in the Antelope Valley area of Los Angeles, where I live.  It’s called the most stressful place to live in CA, has one of the highest national rates of hate crime and abuse due to race and gender, and is a highly conservative political zone with little support for women’s issues.  I kept looking at that photo and decided that I needed to bring the work I had been doing nationally and internationally closer to home.

I began talking about SBB during presentations, at local events, to others in the community interested in the same issues, basically anyone who would listen.  During the summer of 2018, after two years without much traction, I was asked to speak to a group of local agencies under the Department of Mental Health’s “Health Neighborhood” program about my work.  I mentioned SBB and it took!  By November, a small coalition formed, made up of the local hospital rape crisis unit, a victims advocacy group, the Health Neighborhood, and myself.  Our Start By Believing Campaign Kick-Off made the Channel 11 news and local print media, with the wonderful support of U.S. Representative Katie Hill, just prior to her election to congress. 

Since then, we’ve picked up more members, political support, and community interest. And the Antelope Valley region of California, long known for its high rate of sex crime, now boasts the largest Start By Believing campaign in the state!

What Is Start By Believing?

Start By Believing is a national campaign, a philosophy, and a social awareness challenge to the community with a simple message: When anyone says they are a victim of sexualized violence, verbal or physical, harassment, abuse, or rape, we will listen to them and believe them.  It’s a systemic change in how our society has historically treated victims of sexualized violence.

Despite all the social and media influence that would have you believe otherwise, victims of rape and sexual assault do not lie.  The concept of “false reporting” is largely a myth and one I address in my work.

The basic idea of SBB is this.  When any of us are the victim of a crime; a home invasion, injured in a hit-and-run, or robbed at gunpoint, the typical response from family, friends, and law enforcement is support, empathy, and compassion, not questions or an interrogation of what we did or didn’t do to cause the crime. 

If my friend is held up at gunpoint, my response isn’t, “Well, you really wanted to give him your money, didn’t you?” or “Were you clear that you didn’t want to be robbed?”  When someone’s house is broken into we don’t say, “What did you expect?  Your front door looks really tempting.  You were kind of asking for it.”  Yet routinely, victims of sexualized violence are subject to questioning and doubts as though they were the criminal or brought their rape or abuse on themselves.

To those who say, “Hasn’t #MeToo changed all that?  Everyone believes women now,” I reply that the #MeToo movement only started gaining major traction in late 2017.  Law enforcement still routinely fails sexual assault victims, many people still ask humiliating questions about what she wore or did “to get raped,” sexually active women are still told that if they kept their legs closed they wouldn’t have been attacked, and many still don’t believe rape applies to sex workers, even when they are minors.  Eighty percent of sex crimes still go unreported.  Only three percent of all filed rape charges lead to any type of conviction, and not necessarily jail time for the rapist.  As progressive a state as California is, until recently it was written into the law that a woman had to physically fight or be unconscious for a charge to even be considered rape.  Husbands could rape their wives with impunity.  Though many of these laws have improved, many haven’t, and juries remain largely tainted by those dangerous ideas.

Start By Believing is simple, yet powerful.  If all people adopted its mission, reporting a sex crime would no longer be a source of shame, doubt, and guilt. 

Law enforcement departments that have adopted the Start By Believing philosophy have higher reporting rates, better information gathering, and improved prosecution rates because this shift in approach creates more safety and comfort for victims to come forward.  This helps law enforcement gather the evidence they need towards prosecution and conduct better investigations. 

It is an ongoing source of frustration to law enforcement that victims don't come forward, yet when they do, they are often questioned and scrutinized as if they were the criminal themselves.  When a community commits to Start By Believing, it shifts the blame from victim to perpetrator.  And justice is better served.

What’s Next for SBB Antelope Valley?

Our goal right now is to continue to build and expand the Antelope Valley Coalition to join with other SoCal SBB communities and we are currently in talks with the national and Los Angeles-based efforts. One of my personal goals is to turn California into the ninth (Missouri was just named eight) national SBB state and I am starting to believe this is doable.

With the improved understanding SBB offers, sex crime investigators can do a better and more compassionate job of interviewing victims.  Sexual Assault Awareness LLC can bring this training home.

Last month, which happened to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I spoke at various sites across Los Angeles County about SBB and what happens to the brain and body during sexual assault.  Last weekend, I hosted a table and spoke to attendees of the Antelope Valley Poppy Festival, quite a few of whom signed a pledge to Start by Believing themselves (pictured above). I also gave a community talk on myths and misunderstandings around sexualized violence alongside other fantastic local experts and Valley Oasis, the Antelope Valley Domestic Violence Council. Thanks to a recent grant from the California Mental Health Services Authority and Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, we are hoping to do more events like these throughout the rest of 2019.

And, of course, the individual trauma work I do with victims of sexual assault here in my practice where I always start by believing, often even when my clients doubt themselves. Please join me in promoting the message of SBB: When any victim reports sexualized violence of any kind, listen to them, support them, and believe them!

To learn more visit:  https://www.startbybelieving.org/