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Raise Your Voice on Campus this Fall

Did you know that students, especially young women, are at the highest risk of sexual assault during the first few months of college? This “red zone”–roughly from the beginning of the school year until Thanksgiving break–is especially unfortunate because many new freshmen are not yet aware of the resources available to survivors or of the options they have in reporting sexual assault.

With most of the nation’s colleges and universities back in session, now is the perfect time to get informed and start raising awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence on your campus. Here are four simple ways you can help make this school year a safe one–for everyone.

1) Find out who your school’s Title IX Coordinator is.

Title IX is an awesome bit of legislation that prohibits any educational institution receiving federal funding (including student loans) from discriminating against anyone on the basis of sex. Under Title IX, schools are legally mandated to respond and remedy hostile educational environments, including environments in which sexual assault, harassment, stalking, and dating violence take place. Every school must appoint a Title IX Coordinator to ensure that the school is compliant with Title IX and to coordinate the investigation and disciplinary process of sexual assault and violence complaints. Your school’s Title IX Coordinator can answer questions you have about these issues on campus, and fill you in on steps the school is taking to ensure safety for all students. To find out more about Title IX and the Clery Act (another good piece of campus safety legislation you should know about), visit KnowYourIX.org.

2) Learn about your campus resources.

Many colleges and universities have their own rape crisis hotlines, counseling centers, and other resources available to survivors of sexual assault and dating violence. These centers and hotlines often act as hubs of information where you can find out about other local, off-campus, resources. Most of this information will be available on your school’s website, but when in doubt, ask your RA or academic advisor.

3) Get involved with campus groups.

There are so many groups working to combat issues of sexual assault and dating violence on campus. Join them. Not only do these groups do amazing work, but their members are usually extremely smart, dedicated, and involved campus leaders. Not a bad group of people to get to know. Attend your school’s activity fair to learn about groups on your campus and check out these national organizations

SAFER: Students Active For Ending Rape On Campus

Run by a volunteer collective, SAFER facilitates student organizing through a comprehensive training manual; in-person workshops and trainings; free follow-up mentoring; our Campus Sexual Assault Policies Database; and a growing online resource library and network for student organizer

FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture

FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture is a creative activist collaboration to upset the culture of rape and promote a culture of consent. They also created and organized The Monument Quilt, a crowd-sourced collection of thousands of stories of rape and abuse.

End Rape On Campus (EROC)

End Rape on Campus provides free, direct support to campus activists who are filing federal complaints, like Title IX, to the Office for Civil Rights, and/or Clery complaints in order to hold colleges and universities accountable for their handling of sexual violations.

KNOW YOUR IX

Know Your IX fills the gap between the law on the books and survivors on the ground: they work to educate fellow students about their rights and empower them to take action for safety and equality on campus; and bring students’ voices, experiences, and concerns to policy.

It’s On Us

It’s On Us is the White House’s initiative to address sexual assault on college campuses. Take the pledge and download the Toolkit to start organizing It’s On Us events on your campus.  

 

4) Bring NO MORE to your campus.

Create a [your school] says NO MORE campaign. Host events throughout the year to raise awareness. Some ideas for events are below.

  • Use the “Awareness Event Toolkit” located in the NO MORE tool kit. Replicate the outlined event, scale it to your needs or simply use it as a source of inspiration to raise awareness in a comfortable and accessible way. Share the the NO MORE PSAs at the event, or create your own.
  • Create your own NO MORE products, t-shirts, pins for backpacks, NO MORE stickers (to put on water bottles), etc. You can order items from our online store or through NCADV’s shop (they offer discounts for bulk orders of 100 items or more), or use the image files and usage guidelines in our tool kit to make them yourself. You can share the image file along with the index and spectral data sheet (both of which are housed in the folder “usage guidelines”) with the vendor of your choice to have the NO MORE symbol branded on any product, or even it have it co-branded with another logo. Sell products to raise funds for a local domestic violence/ sexual assault organization and share helpful information about these issues.
  • Host a NO MORE day and create an event on Facebook and invite friends and community members change their profile pictures to the NO MORE symbol to raise awareness or add the NO MORE symbol to their existing profile picture using the NO MORE Twibbon – a great time to a NO MORE Day is during Dating Violence Awareness month (February), Sexual Assault Awareness month (April), and Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October).
  • Host a bake sale: for example, bake doughnuts and use blue frosting to mirror the NO MORE symbol and host a bake sale where the proceeds go to the local crisis center.  Take photos and share on social media with the hashtag #NOMORE and tag @NOMOREorg so we can share with our network as well!
  • Ask a local restaurant or movie theater to host a “NO MORE Night” or a “[your school] says NO MORE Night.” Ask them to donate a percentage of the proceeds to a local crisis center. Promote the event with fliers with the NO MORE symbol and the restaurant’s logo on it. Post fliers with statistics about how domestic violence and sexual assault are not talked about and ask people to say NO MORE silence and talk about it with their friends. Invite professors to start a conversation with their students by sharing a piece of information about domestic violence and sexual assault (statistics for women and men, places to get help, rates of under reporting, etc) at the beginning or end of class every day for a week leading up to NO MORE Day or NO MORE Night.
  • Start a NO MORE Photo competition, similar to the NO MORE Week campaign and ask your school to share why they say NO MORE and submit a photo with it. Find the “I SAY NO MORE BECAUSE” poster (which is located in the Tools to Say NO MORE).  Ask a local establishment to partner with you so you can provide a special discount for anyone who submits a photo (to generate more submissions) and tell students that they can show their submission to get the discount.

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On the morning of July 31, Karri Baker’s ex-boyfriend shot her in the head before taking his own life. The Germantown, Tennessee, couple had recently broken up, according to reports, and were moving out the house they had shared. Baker, who died in the hospital two days later, was 38. She left behind a daughter from a previous marriage.

While tragic, Karri’s story is hardly unique. Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides in the U.S. have involved an intimate partner, and in those cases, 94% of the victims have been women.

On average, three or more women in the United States are killed every day by intimate partners. In many cases, the relationship may have already ended, as leaving a relationship is often the most dangerous time for a victim of domestic violence.

Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, may seem like an unlikely setting for such a gruesome crime. The city of 40,000 has low crime rates, and is by most accounts a safe, prosperous community. But Doug McGowen, director of the Memphis Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team and coordinator of the recently launched Memphis Says NO MORE campaign, knows that this sort of violence can happen anywhere, and to anyone.

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“Memphis is a city that is a good representation of the fact that it [domestic violence and sexual assault] happens everywhere,” McGowen says. “We have a high rate of poverty, but we also have very affluent areas. Demographically, it’s equally represented by black and white residents.”

In response to stories like Karri’s, as well as the discovery of thousands of untested rape kits, Memphis leaders, including the Mayor’s Office, launched the Memphis says NO MORE campaign this Spring, taking a multi-pronged approach to the issue. In addition to testing the backlogged rape kits, the campaign works to increase availability of victim services and promote awareness of the issues.

Local television stations have agreed to run the NO MORE PSAs, as well as several PSAs featuring Memphis community members and leaders.

This September, area colleges will convene at the University of Memphis to screen The Hunting Ground, a unflinching expose of sexual assault on college campuses, with the hope that each campus will follow up by launching its own NO MORE campaign.

McGowen says the goal of the campaign is to raise awareness while decreasing the number of untested rape kits and incidences of domestic violence and sexual assault. He hopes that the campaign’s multiple levels of engagement will reach every sphere of the Memphis community and compel them to join together in saying “NO MORE.”

 

Want to start your own local NO MORE campaign? Download the free NO MORE Toolkit and email info@nomore.org for details.

 

Need help? Visit our Resources Page for hotlines and lists of local shelters.

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Nationwide, college campuses are grappling with how to appropriately address the problem of sexual assault in their communities. From The Hunting Ground’s unflinching examination of sexual assault on college campuses to best-selling author Jon Krakauer’s investigation of rape on campus in Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town to California’s recently enacted “Yes Means Yes” law requiring college students to give affirmative consent before sex, 2015 has been a year filled with headlines about campus sexual assault. Greek Life has been the subject of much of the campus sexual assault debate but the discussion has predominately focused on the ways that fraternities contribute to rape culture. Why are sororities overlooked?  We spoke to Alexandra Robbins, an investigative reporter and author of five New York Times bestsellers, including Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities which she recently updated for 2015. Robbins answered our questions about sororities’ culpability in campus sexual assaults and how prospective pledges can stay safe.

Q: What led you to start focusing on sororities?

A: No one had ever written a fly-on-the-wall book about real sorority life before. I wanted to write a work of investigative journalism that felt like a fast-paced beach read, and I discovered that sororities had the kinds of fascinating stories to accomplish that goal.

Q: How did readers initially respond to your book?

A: Some sororities boycotted the book and penalized sisters caught reading it. While the vast majority of the feedback I received was positive, a small but extremely vocal, vicious minority of readers responded by trying to shame me online and personally attacking me merely for reporting on the topic in the first place.

Q: In your latest investigation of Pledged, what surprised you the most?

A: I was surprised that sororities seem to have gotten worse for sisters. The focus on image, girls’ appearances, dependence on fraternities for validation and group self-esteem – all of those things are emphasized even more than they were during my first investigation. These organizations could be such amazing forces for women, and yet some of them are too busy requiring their girls to wear Spanx and makeup and pushing them to spend large amounts of time in fraternity houses.

Q: Sexual violence is not a new issue to college campuses but how has sexual violence in the Greek community changed since your 2004 investigation?

A: What’s changed has been a slew of research showing that fraternities are significantly high-risk – and that sorority sisters are more likely to be victims of sexual violence than non-Greek college women. Given the evidence, it’s surprising that sororities haven’t changed their emphasis on fraternity interaction – and that schools continue to expand their Greek systems, even on campuses where rape in the Greek system specifically has been proven to be a staggering problem.

Q: In what ways could the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), the umbrella organization for national sororities, help address the issue of sexual assault & dating violence on campuses and better protect their members?

A: The NPC needs to overhaul its system, from the shallow recruitment process, which isn’t fair to sisters or potential recruits, to the emphasis on fraternities. If the NPC instead encouraged sisters to focus on the values on which these groups were founded – service, scholarship, leadership, and friendship – then there wouldn’t be as strong a reason to pressure them to couple with fraternity brothers. It’s pretty simple, really. An easy way to protect their members would be to quit sending them into the freaking fraternity houses over and over again.

Q: Do you have any advice for sorority members looking to create change? Incoming freshman who are considering pledging? Parents of prospective new sorority members?

A: Sororities are notoriously resistant to change. It’s hard to create change as a new member because you’re outnumbered by sisters who are higher in the pecking order. The hierarchical system in these organizations can be a problem – arbitrary and intimidating. But if enough sisters are willing to stand up for themselves, there’s a chance they can begin to alter the system, chapter by chapter.

My advice for incoming freshmen:

1) Understand that there is not a lot of adult supervision in these houses. At the sorority house I got kicked out of, the advisor knew about a major drug problem in the house but laughed it off and looked the other way.

2) Do your homework: Do the best you can to get to know the girls and the sorority before recruitment, because during rush, you’re not going to see the sorority as it really is.  At one pre-rush meeting I attended, the adviser and officers blatantly instructed sisters to lie to recruits to make them want to be in the house. That’s not unusual.

3) If the sorority you’re pledging makes you feel uncomfortable, leave.  There are some wonderful chapters out there, and as long as you get out of a sorority before initiation, you’re allowed to pledge another group.

My advice for parents:

These organizations are secretive by nature. One set of bylaws I acquired even said that any girl who talks about certain chapter business to any non-members (which would include parents) could be kicked out of the group. That’s insane. Parents should make sure to keep an open line of communication so that their daughters feel comfortable telling them about their sorority lives and so that parents can continue to guide their children through a program that can become dangerous.

alex robbins sororities pledged rape cultureAlexandra Robbins, who has written five New York Times bestsellers, is the author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities, which she has updated for 2015. An investigative reporter and the 2014 recipient of the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism, Robbins’ books include The Overachievers, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and People magazine Critics’ Choice, and The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, which was voted Best Nonfiction Book of the Year in the Goodreads Choice Awards, the only people’s choice awards for books.

Robbins has written for several publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. She has appeared on dozens of national television shows such as 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Oprah, The View, and The Colbert Report.

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Bill Cosby is having a very bad week. On July 24th, prominent Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote an op-ed calling for President Obama to revoke Cosby’s Presidential Medal of Freedom. Taking issue with the President’s statement that there is no precedent for revoking the medal, Marcus urges Obama to follow in the footsteps of the U.S. Navy, which last year revoked Cosby’s honorary rank of chief petty officer. For his part, when asked about Cosby  on July 15th, the President stated, “If you give a woman, or a man for that matter, a drug and then you have sex without their consent, that’s rape.”

Perhaps the biggest blow to the Cosby team’s denial that the comedian is guilty of the mounting claims of sexual assault and rape against him is the testimony of 35 of the women who have accused him, published last night on New York Magazine’s website. The women, all of whom sat for photographs for the magazine, shared remarkably similar stories of being drugged and attacked by a man they thought they could trust. Many also discussed decades of feeling powerless to speak up, afraid of being called liars, or facing disbelief from friends and family.

In 2005, 14 women came forward and accused Cosby of rape after Andrea Constand, a former Temple University basketball star, pressed charges. In a deposition from that case, published earlier this month by the New York Times, Cosby admitted to preying on young women and using Quaaludes to get them to have sex with him. Still, the women who came forward at the time were largely met with skepticism and disbelief.

Barbara Bowman speaks to this in her account, “I felt like a prisoner; I felt I was kidnapped and hiding in plan sight […] who the hell would have believed me? Nobody, nobody.” And her fear of not being believed was a legitimate one – when she spoke to a lawyer soon after the alleged attacks, she was accused of lying. Her agent did nothing, either. Years later, Andrea Constand accused Cosby of rape and Bowman was asked to speak in court, but the case was quietly settled.

The accusers’ stories began getting traction in 2014, but only after comedian Hannibal Buress called Cosby a rapist in his stand-up routine, which went viral. This week, with their stories and photographs published together for the first time along with one empty chair, Cosby’s alleged victims and survivors everywhere are finally getting the attention and validation they deserve. As one of the women, the former model and actress Beverly Johnson, said in her testimony, “The part of it I wasn’t prepared for was the onslaught of women that have been assaulted and them telling me their story because I told mine.”

But there’s the #TheEmptyChair symbolizing the untold stories of real men and women who have also been sexually assaulted and suffered in silence, shame, and disbelief.

Why Accusations About Celebrities Aren’t Believed

Cosby isn’t the first icon to be accused of sexual assault or domestic violence, and yet the question persists: Why aren’t these accusers heard or given any credence—not just Cosby’s alleged victims, but the countless other men and women who have dared to challenge a celebrity?

The answer lies in the American conflation of celebrity and security, says Ulester Douglas, executive director of Men Stopping Violence. “We are a celebrity culture. Seeing someone we idolize, revere, and idealize being accused of horrific crimes makes us wonder: Who are we? It makes us realize that our own families could be capable of it, too,” he says. It’s unsettling and even terrifying to associate an idol with evil, particularly because there are so many celebrities who are good people, capable of powerful, positive influence.

Dissonance Perpetuates Silence

David Adams is a psychologist and co-director of Emerge, a Boston-based abusers’ intervention and counseling program. He sees a difference in how we respond to a stereotypical criminal and a celebrity accused of bad behavior due to our preconceptions about abusers, who can be male or female. “We tend to think of an abuser as someone who is easily detectable: someone who is crude, sexist, and boorish. A quarter of men who abuse women do fit this stereotype, and since that’s a substantial subgroup, we tend to spot those guys and not the ones who are more likable. If we don’t know what to do with bad information about someone we adore, it creates dissonance, and we sometimes choose to disbelieve or to ignore it,” he says.

“When we see someone likable accused of a crime, we have a choice to believe something bad about them or to discount it because it doesn’t fit our experience. In some ways it’s easier to do that than to think, oh God, the world really is unknowable—I might as well give up on knowing people,” he says. “If we don’t know what to do with information about someone we worship, we put it aside.”

Why Celebrities Feel Immune

Of course, Cosby is hardly the first famous person to be accused of rape or assault. When we think about any celebrity facing serious allegations, though, it’s difficult to believe that an image-conscious idol would be willing to engage in hugely risky behavior, throwing away the very image they need. What’s going through their mind?

“Any consequence is overridden by the high of the conquest,” Douglas says. And, on a purely logistical level, “They do it because they can. They truly think they can get away with it, based on the very fact that they have a certain image. They will be believed; the accusers will be laughed out of the room.”

Absorbing The Narcissism Factor

In many celebrity cases, narcissism also plays a starring role. “A hallmark of narcissism is exceptionality. You literally think you will not get caught. This personality takes chances, acts reckless, and even associates the behavior with success, because they’ve always been rewarded,” Adams says.

“We think narcissists are people nobody would like. But, in fact, they’re quite charismatic, with good social and image-maintenance skills”— which often allow them to get away with bad behavior, even more so when there’s a PR team on call. Narcissists are also skilled at compartmentalization, Adams says, and they choose to focus on the “part of their life that everybody adores. They don’t focus on other parts of their lives, and if they do something wrong, they think, ‘Gee, everybody loves me. What’s the problem?’” he says. “It’s a lack of character development.”

“Narcissists can engage in all sorts of psychological gymnastics not to feel empathy,” says Douglas.

The Changing Tide

Adams says that it’s easy to categorize personalities as good versus bad. “We don’t think good and evil can co-exist in the same person,” he says. “But look at the Mafia—these guys who do horrible things but are notoriously good to their mothers. And along comes a show like The Sopranos to paint them in a more nuanced light. There’s now less focus on ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys,’” he says. Understanding the complexities of personalities—refusing to glorify a celebrity as all good, all the time—could help to close the dissonance gap.

“We can also go a long way toward preventing male sexual and domestic violence against women by stopping the pervasive and pernicious victim-blaming,” Douglas says. “The media, for example, should quit asking the toxic, ‘Why did you go back to your abuser?’ and ‘Why didn’t you leave?’ A reporter could say instead, ‘As you know, there are some who question your credibility because of some of the choices you made. What, if anything, would you want to say to them?’ That is respectful journalism. The [accuser] should never be made to feel like she has to justify the choices she made or makes.”

Finally, in his own work with Men Stopping Violence, Douglas sees firsthand the power of healing through sharing. “I see survivors who are finding peace through coming forward and telling their stories. One of the most powerful things that survivors can do is tell their own stories, on their own terms,” he says.

Portions of this post were originally published on November 19, 2014.

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The summer is heating up! So should your support for the amazing organizations working to end domestic violence and sexual assault! Here are eight ways to stay involved and show your support for the NO MORE mission this summer…

Help make the first-ever NO MORE license plate a reality.

Order the new CA says NO MORE license plate! California is the first state in the nation to establish a specialized NO MORE license plate to fund local programs in the fight against domestic violence and sexual assault. Plus, they look awesome. Order your specialty license plate here!

Order your CA says NO MORE license plate

Host a summer bake sale.

Host a bake sale/lemonade stand for your local service provider. Bake doughnuts and use blue frosting to mirror the NO MORE symbol, or serve up refreshing NO MORE blue raspberry lemonade to beat the heat. Donate the proceeds go to a local crisis center or organization.  Download free signage in our free Toolkit. Take photos and share on social media with the hashtag #NOMORE and tag @NOMOREorg so we can share with our network as well!

Join us at an event.

Register for the annual National Sexual Assault Conference in Washington D.C., August 31 – September 2. Check out the workshops for victim advocates and other professionals in the field here.NoMore Summit Postcard5Front-HQ-1

Join NWCAVE and YWCA Clark County for their NO MORE Summit 2017 in Vancouver, WA! The Anti-Violence Summit will be held January 12 & 13, 2017 at the Hilton Vancouver Hotel and will include speakers including advocate, Brenda Tracy. Register here!

To find more events near you, click here.

Show us your NO MORE & NO MÁS!

Where you are this summer sharing #NOMORE this summer? Tag @NOMOREorg and @WeSayNoMas and include your city and state your so we can give you a shoutout!

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A photo posted by @madebyhayz on

Make a statement.Untitled design

You can join the global fun of soccer this summer with the We Say NO MÁS soccer ball or get a baseball hat, some backpack pins, a tote bag, a tank and more at the NO MORE store!  Or, you can use the image files and usage guidelines in our Tool Kit to make them yourself!

SHOP NO MORE

 

Help Safe Horizon #PutTheNailinIt by painting your ring SUMMER BLOG inline graphicfingernails purple!

Join Safe Horizon, the largest victim services organization in the country, and #PutTheNailinIt! Make a donation of any size to to Safe Horizon and paint your ring fingernails purple. Share it on social media with the hashtag #PutTheNailinIt to inspire your network of friends to do the same. And make sure you check out the awesome #PutTheNailinIt PSA featuring celebrities like Kyra Sedgewick and Alan Cumming.

Have more ideas for our Summer Guide? Email info@nomore.org so we can expand our Guide!

 

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When Dating Abuse Goes Digital: Revenge Porn

Last September, a slew of sexually explicit photos of female celebrities surfaced on the online forums Reddit and 4chan. The women photographed did not leak the photos, rather, they were stolen and published without their consent. This is revenge porn – and unfortunately this form of abuse is neither new nor uncommon.

Here’s what you need to know about revenge porn from this week’s guest blogger, Alexis Morse, a rising sophomore and student-activist at Occidental College.

So what is revenge porn?

Revenge porn is the posting, sharing, or publishing of nude and/or sexually explicit pictures/videos of a person on the internet without their consent, often accompanied by personal or identifying information. The name comes from the fact that perpetrators of revenge porn are often ex-partners or friends looking to get revenge by harming victims via the Internet and social media.

This goes back decades! In the 1980’s, the magazine Hustler started a section called Beaver Hunt, which consisted of user-submitted sexually explicit photos of women, often with information on the women like their sexual fantasies and their names.  It turned out that many of these user submissions were sent in without the consent of the person being photographed, and Hustler was subject to multiple lawsuits as a result.

It is no surprise that non-consensual pornography has grown with the rise of social media. It is yet another consequence of cultural norms that trivialize, normalize, and condone sexual violence — otherwise known as rape culture. When rape culture exists, many people believe it is fair and okay to post, share or consume sexually explicit photos without someone’s consent. Even worse, it is so ubiquitous that it goes unnoticed. Ending revenge porn will involve legislative action, but also serious pushback against rape culture in our society.

Terrifyingly, perpetrators can now find many online outlets specifically for revenge porn where they can be shielded by the anonymity of the internet, and because social media is relatively new, there is not a collection of legislation regulating abuse in this form.

Is revenge porn sexual assault?

Revenge porn is digital sexual assault. Although it may not explicitly involve physical assault, it violates a person’s privacy, exposes them sexually, and brings immense harm to the victim. While photographs or videos may originally be privately shared or taken with the consent of the victim, the use of them later to violate a person’s privacy, safety or dignity is incredibly damaging.

Annmarie Chiarini was first made a victim of revenge porn in 2010. Her ex-boyfriend collected nude photos of her they had taken while in a relationship and put them up for auction on eBay, along with her name and the college where she taught. This launched Annmarie into years of distress. She suffered from PTSD, almost lost her job, and attempted suicide. The photos were even posted onto a porn website with a solicitation for sex and a title that would make it easy for her students to accidentally find the photos when Googling her. She says she called the police many times, consulted attorneys, and no one was able to help her. She either received an answer of “no crime was committed,” or “you shouldn’t have let him take those pictures of you.”

Her story displays the classic systemic and societal problems surrounding sexual assault. With revenge porn, the conversation is wrought with victim blaming (just don’t take naked pictures!), lack of legislation and protections, and incredible harm to the mental health, reputation, and lives of victims.

The lack of effort to stop revenge porn is yet another facet of rape culture. In a recent segment, John Oliver compiled a montage that demonstrates how most media discussion of revenge porn concludes that not taking sexually explicit pictures/video is the solution. This solution, put into context with any other crime, is absurd—if you didn’t want to be stolen from you shouldn’t have bought a house. The fact that victims are blamed for these actions is an extension of rape culture. People should be allowed to make decisions about what they do within their intimate relationships, and be protected if someone chooses to violate the terms of consent.

Is it illegal?

On a federal level, no—there is no law explicitly forbidding revenge porn, and only 24 states have revenge porn laws.  In states without any revenge porn laws (and states with privacy laws that may apply, but no laws that apply explicitly to revenge porn), it can be almost impossible to get the photos/videos taken down, let alone prosecute the perpetrator.

Even with state laws, it is not enough to give victims full power to pursue their case and have the content removed entirely. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act allows for sites that publish revenge porn to hide behind language that protects platforms from being punished for what users choose to do with that platform.

Recently, some companies have begun to take steps against revenge porn. In March of this year, Twitter changed its Terms of Service to explicitly ban “intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject’s consent.” Even bigger, Google updated its search policy this month, allowing victims of revenge porn to submit a form to remove the website containing the revenge porn from Google’s search results. While this will not remove revenge porn from existence or help prosecute offenders, it will make revenge porn much harder to find and help protect victims from further harm in their personal and professional lives. However, it will take major federal action to give victims the full breadth of defense that these cyber assaults warrant.

Learn more about technology safety from our friends at NNEDV and learn how you can help end revenge porn, check out EndRevengePorn.org.

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11062777_10155668375265624_305158492003437425_oDomestic violence and sexual assault are two of the most widespread problems in our communities.

The numbers are staggering. 24 people are physically abused, raped or stalked by their partners every minute. Yet, vital, lifesaving domestic violence and sexual assault programs remain severely under-resourced and under-funded.

California Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez has decided to do something about it. He authored and successfully passed a bill making California the first state in the nation to establish a specialized NO MORE license plate, and this first of its kind NO MORE license plate will help fund domestic violence and sexual assault awareness and prevention efforts throughout California.

Today marks the kick-off of the year-long campaign, and we need your help to make the California Says NO MORE license plate a reality. In order to begin product of the plate, we need to reach our goal of at least 7,500 orders.

Support life-saving programs in California by ordering your NO MORE license plate today.

 

For more information or assistance, please contact:

California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services – Victim Services Division
3650 Schriever Avenue Mather, CA 95655
NoMorePlate@caloes.ca.gov

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Gabriella Lock remembers the last time that she was abused by her ex-boyfriend. She had woken up to find him in a rage, and when she tried to leave, he pushed her so hard that she hit her head on the floor, momentarily blacking out.

Gabriella, or “Rella,” as her friends call her, was able to call 911, but not before her ex-boyfriend pushed her down the stairs as she was fleeing. The paramedics who arrived at Rella’s apartment that day may have saved her life, but she still suffered physical and psychological effects of the abuse.

“I felt ashamed, embarrassed and heart-broken. I didn’t want anyone to know, not even my parents,” Rella says. “I had to spend 3 days in the hospital before I was released.”

Rella, 23, who was recently crowned Miss Illinois United Continents, is part of an age group with shocking statistics around dating violence: girls and young women between the ages of 16 and 24 are three times as likely to be involved in a violent relationship. Rella’s platform as Miss Illinois is to raise awareness about domestic violence and “to show victims that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I felt ashamed, embarrassed and heart-broken. I didn’t want anyone to know, not even my parents” – Gabriella Lock

Luckily, Rella is not alone. A new city-wide initiative in Rella’s hometown, Chicago Says NO MORE, also seeks to change the statistics around domestic violence and sexual assault. The initiative, launched earlier this year by a coalition of business and non-profit leaders in the Chicago area, seeks to leverage funds and resources to combat domestic violence and sexual assault in the communities they serve.

Visitors to the campaign’s website will see a quote from Kristie Paskvan, CFO of Mesirow Financial and Founder of Chicago Says NO MORE:

Everybody gets a wake-up call. Mine was the shooting tragedy at Nordstrom on Michigan Avenue in Chicago last November when 22-year-old University of Chicago student Nadia Ezaldein was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. Not just a murder, but the tragic end to an abusive relationship—I was shocked to recognize that this, too, was domestic violence. 

The result of Paskvan’s wake-up call, Chicago Says NO MORE works to raise awareness and funds in an effort to prevent more stories like Nadia Ezaldein’s and Rella Lock’s.

Rella says, “Too many men and women don’t get out of situations like mine […] If I knew more about domestic violence, I might have been able to catch the warning signs before the abuse began.”

Join Kristie Paskvan, Gabriella Lock, and other Chicagoans in saying ‘No More’ to the silence and misinformation surrounding domestic violence and sexual assault by signing the pledge at chicagosaysnomore.org and watching the new Chicago Says NO MORE Public Service Announcements:

Sign the pledge

Need help?

To get help or information on domestic violence services, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or live chat.
For dating abuse help and resources, visit loveisrespect.org, call 1-866-331-9474, or text “loveis” to 22522.
For sexual assault counseling and services, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or live chat.

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Certain problems in this world can be solved, but remain unchallenged. Human nature often compels us to ignore the elephant in the room instead of addressing the issue; over time this willful apathy creates social norms.

I define this particular aspect of human nature because I, too, have been guilty of allowing certain problems, like domestic violence and sexual assault, to go undiscussed and unexamined.

As an 8-year-old, I started helping out at the East Texas Crisis Center, a non-profit where my mother works as a family violence program coordinator. At the time, I was shielded from the victims that came in seeking the safety, shelter, and education that the center provides for those experiencing family violence, sexual assault, and other violent crimes.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to help more in the public spaces within the Crisis Center, allowing me to hear far too many awful stories of abuse, and to see the large number of women that enter the facility daily seeking refuge. I have also learned that my own family, as well as multiple friends’ families, has been affected by domestic violence.

” I soon realized that by staying silent, I was contributing to the problem. Not that I was committing the horrendous acts against these people, I was witnessing such terrible injustice on a local level and and choosing not to  take action.”

These things disturbed me, but until now I continued my volunteering duty in silence and chose not to speak out about the crises that families in this shelter were facing.  I soon realized that by staying silent, I was contributing to the problem. Not that I was committing the horrendous acts against these people, but I was witnessing such terrible injustice on a local level and and choosing not to  take action.

While deliberating on how to confront these issues in a more impactful way, I saw a NO MORE commercial on television. Athletes were challenging the audience and their fellow athletes to speak out and get others involved to end domestic violence and sexual assault.

The commercial stood out to me for two reasons:  1) I am an athlete, affording me an elevated platform from which to speak in my community, 2) “speaking out” is what I had yet to do. Upon visiting nomore.org, I learned “The NO MORE symbol is not owned by any one organization. Rather it belongs to and is available for use by all those (organizations or individuals) who are committed to help end domestic violence and sexual assault.”

After learning it was possible for the East Texas Crisis Center to adopt the NO MORE logo and slogan, I realized this would be a great platform for me to speak out and raise awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault within my community.

And because I had been volunteering at the Crisis Center for much of my life, I felt I had credibility in speaking about these issues. My mother, of course, was ecstatic about launching the campaign, and a few weeks ago we launched our East Texas Says NO MORE Initiative.

I believe that young people are the future of this movement, and that by starting in schools, we can change and shape attitudes in East Texas.

My goal for this campaign is to challenge high school coaches in East Texas to be proactive in raising awareness around domestic violence and sexual assault. I want them to realize that many of the kids they are coaching and love so much have likely been affected by some form of domestic or sexual violence. I want them to realize someone in their family is probably a survivor. I want them to understand that possibly one out of every three students they see walking around campus each day has either been in an abusive relationship, or has witnessed one.

Educating the coaches and Athletic Directors will cause a trickle-down effect beginning with them educating student athletes, who are already leaders in their communities. Ultimately, we can reach the entire student body, and finally breach each individual’s household. I believe that young people are the future of this movement, and that by starting in schools, we can change and shape attitudes in East Texas.

I challenge student athletes across the country to be leaders in their communities and say ‘NO MORE’ to domestic violence and sexual assault.

Want to say ‘NO MORE’ in your community? Download the free Tools to Say NO MORE and start using the tools to raise awareness in your community or to create your own local initiative.

no more kltv image

Jaired Maddox is a graduating senior at All Saints Episcopal School in Tyler, Texas. A member of the All Saints basketball team since 8th grade, Jaired plans to study Business and Sports Management at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, this Fall. He plans to continue raising awareness around sexual assault and domestic violence on campus. To get involved with his local campaign in East Texas, please contact the East Crisis Texas Center.

 

Need help?

To get help or information on domestic violence services, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or live chat.

For dating abuse help and resources, visit loveisrespect.org, call 1-866-331-9474, or text “loveis” to 22522.

For sexual assault counseling and services, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or live chat.

Additional Resources

For more information on how you can get involved, check out  A Call to Men, Men Can Stop Rape, and Futures Without Violence’s Coaching Boys Into Men program.

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Warning: Elements of this story may be triggering.

How I Survived Domestic Chaos

Ask any author and they will tell you that their characters are like family. We talk about them as if they are our children, as if they are actually walking around in our reality. In fact, characters can be worse than petulant children, and for good reason: they are manifestations of the writer’s subconscious, and as such, will fight tooth and nail with us in the hope that we will write the story that needs to be written, not necessarily the story that we we want to write.

Sometimes, a character is born out of necessity. This is the case with Taris, the protagonist in my upcoming novel, Chaos and Moonlight.

Taris is an unlikely hero born out of my own domestic abuse.

Rewind the clock to 2000. I was young and head over heels in love with a boy. He was dark and mysterious and said all of the right things to a girl who had just enough of a rebellious streak to buy into it. It wasn’t long before we were married, one day after work, by a justice of the peace. We went to dinner that night, and he announced to everyone in the restaurant that I was his brand-new bride and he was thrilled to have me. Not to be married to me or to share in this experience called life with me, but to have me. I didn’t see it then. I thought that his need to be near me all of the time was a romantic gesture, like something out of a novel. I equated it to him needing me like people need oxygen. It was exciting and scintillating…and horrifyingly incorrect.

The first time he hit me was two weeks after the wedding.

Prior to saying ‘I Do’, I had never seen that side of him. He had always been accommodating, loving, and kind. But once the ink had dried on our marriage license, he turned into a different person. Angry and vindictive, he blamed me for everything. If I made dinner and he didn’t like it, the verbal abuse began.  If I came home from work even five minutes late, he gave me the third degree, called me horrible names, and slapped me. He belittled my intelligence and told me that I was lucky to have him because no one else would want a woman so stupid. It’s hard to verbalize even now, but I was raped by my ex-husband. Frequently. (Allow me to take this moment to say that no means no, regardless of whether there is a ring on your finger.)

Ours was a private war, waged behind closed doors. To the outside world, we were a perfect couple. In private, he regulated what I ate to keep me the size he wanted, and consistently made me dye my hair the color he thought it should be. But in public, he doted on me. He wore such a convincing mask, no one had any idea. I certainly didn’t tell them. I was afraid to let anyone know what a horrible mistake I had made. I made my bed, and I was going to lie in it. At the same time, part of me secretly wished that someone would see him for the monster he truly was…

And then one night as I lay on the couch, I found my most unlikely of saviors: Taris.

The scene played in my head like a movie: a tall, dark, and terrifying being rose up from the corner of the room, casually strolled over to my husband, and with one hand lifted him up, and threw him out of the house. I must have replayed this in my mind about a million times.  At first I felt insane, for creating this thing. I didn’t know what he was, but I knew he was my protector, my confidant, and exactly the kind of hero I needed to step up and help me escape.

And so, I made him a promise: if he helped me get out of my situation, I would tell his story.

Did I realize Taris was my subconscious? Yes. It didn’t matter, though, because to me, he was real. When I learned he was a vampire, I wasn’t at all surprised. He was inherently tortured, and there was an undercurrent of pain to his character that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Taris was broken, but only because he loved too hard and fought to save those closest to him, despite the odds stacked against him. The oldest of his kind, he waged a daily war against a silent battle of extinction that saw him as the protector of his people and the savoir of their race. His narrative was allegorical in that his greatest enemies were people that he once loved, people that allowed the violence of their existence to lay waste to all that was good and decent in his life.

And so, I made him a promise: if he helped me get out of my situation, I would tell his story. It sounds insane, but at the time, he was all I could cling to. I would jot down little scenes in a notebook that I kept at work, because I couldn’t risk my husband finding out. All the while, Taris was prodding me to make a move, to save myself, but I was still scared.

Until I found out I was pregnant.

In an instant, the flickering hope of saving myself turned into an immediate, raging necessity, and I knew that when I had my chance, I would take it. I was willing to do things for my child what I was too terrified to do for myself. While I was pregnant, the abuse stopped; rather, the physical abuse stopped. Because of the stress, I was bed-ridden for most of my pregnancy. Once my child was born, I thought I would have to bide my time, but my doctor told me to go. In his voice, I could hear my Taris screaming, “Run. Don’t look back.”

I left in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on my back, a baby in the car seat, and a fictional character cheering me on, telling me to keep driving.

I left in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on my back, a baby in the car seat, and a fictional character cheering me on, telling me to keep driving, to push the pedal harder.  When I got where I was going, I ditched my car, hopped in a new one with my mother, and never looked back.

The people that saved me were my mother, my mini-me, and my monster. He spurred me on and kept his promise. Now I needed to keep mine.

Fast forward several years. I met and married a wonderful man who loves me and my child in ways that I never dreamed possible. I never forgot Taris, but thinking about him was painful. The memory was so fresh and his story was so parallel that I didn’t feel like I could actually put it on paper. I had pushed what happened to me deep into the darker parts of my soul. Rather than telling anyone what happened, I put on a happy face and pretended that it was all a bad dream, but the only way I could recover and heal was to let it bleed out onto paper. With this in mind, I kept my promise to my monster.

I’d agonized over Taris’ tale, and when all was said and done, it became an almost 100K word behemoth: Chaos and Moonlight.

Love should not hurt, and no human being has the right to harm another. Find your Taris. Seek your rock: in someone else, but most importantly, in you.

For me, Chaos serves a greater purpose: It’s hero was an anchor for me in my darkest days, and the story of Taris’ redemption was catharsis after years of pain and abuse. Domestic violence is a heavy theme in Chaos, though it might not seem so to the unaware reader. For those never affected by domestic violence, this book may not be reminiscent of abuse at all. Or, to any survivor or victim, it could be a trigger.  But it is my hope that for anyone who is trapped in an abusive situation and yearning to break free, this story could perhaps be the final push that they need to leave.

I’m open now about my battle with domestic violence; the make-up covered scratches and bruises, the subtle twinge of pain that I tried to hide when I moved to do even the simplest tasks; the sexually coerced things I did because he told me to in order to “keep the peace” that sometimes still make me feel filthy, even fifteen years later.

Domestic violence is an atrocity that will only be eradicated if we chose to end our silence, which is what I have attempted to do by my decision to publish Chaos. It is my clarion call, my battle cry. It is my way of speaking up and reaching out. Love should not hurt, and no human being has the right to harm another. Find your Taris. Seek your rock: in someone else, but most importantly, in you.

IMG_20150511_104313A.D. Marrow is a writer living in North Carolina. Her new novel, Chaos and Moonlight, was inspired by her own experiences with domestic violence.

 

 

 

Need help?

To get help or information on domestic violence services, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or live chat.

For dating abuse help and resources, visit loveisrespect.org, call 1-866-331-9474, or text “loveis” to 22522.

For sexual assault counseling and services, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or live chat.

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