Friday, April 25, 2008

Rape Crisis Counseling for the 21st Century: Introducing Online Counseling

The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), the largest anti-sexual assault organization in the US, launched an online counseling service last week. According to RAINN's press release, the organization has already helped over 1.2 million victims of sexual assault through its National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-HOPE). The National Sexual Assault Online Hotline will reach a new generation of people who are often more comfortable online than on the phone. This event was covered in Ms Magazine, article here.

Related to this is news about a problematic new phrase, "grey rape" which was featured in an article in the September 2007 issue of Cosmopolitan. The phrase is problematic because it posits that sexual assault can be ambiguously "grey"... even if the word "no" is said. "No" sounds pretty clear to me, not grey. (This is one of the many reasons i am doing the Walk Against Rape tomorrow!!) This article is reported in the wonderfully progressive and sex positive blog, Doin' It Well (Thanks for pointing me towards this, Aimee!).
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

There's been this bullshit ass push lately to pull back on the little protection women DO receive. I'd have to dig up the article, but recently there was a case where a woman was too drunk to SAY no, and so, "it didn't count as rape"...

You can see how this opens the door for a ton of evil.

richard said...

boo.