Bienvenue, An Intro
"Stories are a communal currency of humanity." -Tahir Shah
Our stories, drawn from our direct experiences, are what make up who we are as human beings. They are the 90% of us beneath the water that is not visible. The uniting force amidst opposition and the deepest togetherness amongst the strongest of relationships.
The ‘by happenstance’, ‘it must be fate’, ‘coincidental’,’serendipitous’, “me too” moments.
We created this blog to provide a platform to safely speak about and hold conversations around the spectrum of sexual harassment to sexual assault, in an effort to get to the core of the problem. For sexual assault survivors, allies, the wrongfully accused, the rightfully accused, long-time advocates, researches and everyday people with opinion pieces on the issue, to share their stories.
We want to aid in discovering preventative measures to help our society shift to a ‘zero tolerance’ culture. To significantly eliminate the occurrence of sexual harassment and assault; and we believe creating a safe platform to share stories, has the power to do that.
Whether you’re reading one of these stories or pieces and have a moment of “wow I’ve done that, maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore.” Or a moment of “I am not at all alone in my feelings” then we’ve accomplished our goal.
While we will not be able to single-handedly identify the exact solution to a massive, decades long issue that supersedes all labels, we believe we can at least try.
If any one of these stories assures one person that they’re not alone in their trauma, or helps educate someone on rape culture so that they can contribute to the conversation, then we are progressing in the right direction.
WHAT TO EXPECT *TRIGGER WARNING*
- Women and men’s unfiltered, raw stories of rape and childhood molestation
- Men that have been wrongfully accused
- Men that have been rightfully accused
- Men that don’t think there is an issue at all
- Family members and partners of survivors
- Non-profit founders and associates that have been advocating for and working with survivors
- Psychologists that have worked with child predators and rapists
And much, much more.
With that said, some of these stories may be incredibly difficult to read if you’re a survivor and may even possible bring up repressed memories. We will do our best to include “Trigger Warning” at the beginning of each survivor story for your protection.
PLEASE, please be gentle with yourself and do not read on if you see that warning. If a trigger or a repressed memory surfaces, please do utilize the resources we’re providing on our resources page. You are not alone.
To keep this a safe platform and protect the privacy of all surviving contributors, we will not be using the real names of any subjects identified throughout the survivor stories specifically.
We will also only enable commenting on opinion, research and news-based pieces. We are open to RESPECTFUL and HEALTHY debate. We will not always have the same opinions, and it is those debates that will help us come closer to conclusions around preventative measures.
HOWEVER, any comments containing hate speech or derogatory terms, breaking the privacy of a contributor, attacking or threatening any contributing member and/or anything our community manager feel is not appropriate will be immediately deleted.
This is a zero tolerance community across the board.
Most importantly, you are on this journey with us, and it is your stories that will help mold the direction of this platform as we grow and expand.
In strength,
Sierra Dowd
Founder, CEO