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Rape Should Never Be Viral (Fighting Sexual Assault Beyond What’s Trending)

One morning last year I woke up and was told I was trending on Facebook.

A day earlier I’d written a blog post response to the father of a college student convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on his campus. The father’s letter to the judge on his son’s behalf, crystalized everything we do wrong in our culture regarding rape: removing culpability from the assailants, ascribing blame to alcohol and promiscuity and to the victims themselves, diminishing the offenses and minimizing the damage.

In such an environment, survivors are so often rendered invisible, feeling they cannot or should not speak.

And nothing healthy ever grows in the dark.

In a matter of minutes my phone began ringing incessantly with invitations from CNN, Dr. Drew, Greta Van Susteran, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, the local news, and a dozen other print, TV, and web outlets around the world. 24 hours and 2 million viewers after publishing the piece and I was fully viral.

Having gone through a similar experience before with another post a couple of years ago, I knew the drill. These people all wanted to speak to me—now. With the 24-hour news cycle we live in, you only get a few hours to have the world’s attention and then you’re old news. The media isn’t so much interested in your story, but in capitalizing on the fact that your story is today’s particular flavor. As one producer said, “Well, tomorrow won’t work, because by that time the story will be… ‘less relevant.’ “

Translation: Now or never, because a day from now this won’t matter much.

I spent the next ten hours doing nearly a dozen interviews in person, via Skype, and by phone, staying as coherent as I could amidst the swirling flood of it all and taking advantage of the opportunity to have a few million ears for a few moments, to encourage survivors and challenge men in our culture to see the intrinsic dignity in all people.

Yet I held one heavy thought in my heart throughout it all: After today, sexual assault will still be a viral sickness.

By the end of the week, my blog post would be largely forgotten, and the news teams and talk shows and newspapers will have moved on to whatever real or manufactured crisis is garnering people’s attention that day. This is their business. This is what they do.

But we can’t afford to do it—not about this.

Whether or not it makes the news, people will be victimized. Rapists will still rape. Young men will still tend to ignore the inherent value of the women around them. College campuses and workplaces and neighborhoods will still be places of great peril. Survivors of assault will still be enduring the unthinkable, and they will likely face similar silencing, similar disregard, and similar shame unless we continue to speak.

Here’s what that could look like:

1. Center the stories of the survivors of sexual assault. Listen to them. Seek out their testimonies and be moved to move in response.

2. Support agencies and ministries doing advocacy work for victims of rape, incest, and sexual abuse. Encourage them with presence, with social media shares, and with dollars. Let survivors know the army of people who stand with them.

RAINN
National Sexual Assault Hotline
EROC (End Rape on Campus)
National Domestic Violence Hotline

Safe Horizon
INCITE (For Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans people of Color)
On Eagle’s Wings Ministries
Human Rights Campaign (LGBTQ)
NCLR Nation Center for Lesbian Rights 

Not Alone
Safe Helpline (Victim support for members of Military)

3. Work in your community, nationally, and globally to demand better protections for women, and greater, more consistent punishment for those found guilty of sexual assault against them.

ACLU AmericaN Civil Liberites Union
IJM (International Justice Mission
)
Human Rights Watch

4. Parents, teach your young men while they are still children, about recognizing the inherent value of all people. Teach them that another person’s body is not their jurisdiction. Teach them how to be people of character and integrity and wisdom. Teach them to own their poor decisions. Teach them what consent is and what it isn’t. Have these conversations all the time.

5. If you are a survivor suffering in silence—tell someone. Release yourself from whatever fear or shame you carry that prevents you from speaking. Refuse to perpetuate the damage your abuser has done to you. You are not this thing that has happened to you. You are beautiful and loved and worth fighting for. You are not alone.

This is not about my blog post. Soon this particular story, and by default, my brief moment in the public eye will be swallowed by the oncoming daily noise of whatever is around the corner.

But this particular survivor’s story will not be over, nor will the stories of millions who live with the scars of sexual assault, many still silenced and invisible. They deserve our sustained attention. They deserve our perseverance. They deserve us to be here after the lights and cameras and news teams and talk shows and bloggers are not.

The pain of sexual assault should never again be trending.

Rape should no longer be viral.

Let this be our work together for far more than 24 hours.

 

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