A Huge Leap Forward

Much stress around the office.  Lots of outreach/community education with the start of the school year.  Still waiting for a grantor to honor their contract with us.  

But, still a tad bit "work high" from a new development this week.  Years ago, I attended a wonderful workshop at the national conference about a new program to train nurses to gather forensic evidence in sexual violence cases . . . document it . . . and teach them to testify.  It was hugely successful in the communities where it was going on.  

I immediately met with the director of our Emergency Department about this cool new idea.  I had grand plans . . . a room equipped with everything we would need to perform truly excellent forensic examinations, nurses trained and available.  It was going to be cool.  Except that the hospital had plans for expanding and renovating the ED and a forensic examination room wasn't in their plans.

That was years ago.  Since then, I've tried to convince individual nurses to take the training.  But, even the few who did were frustrated by the hospital's lack of cooperation and found higher paying jobs elsewhere.

Until this week.  This week, we had a certified forensic nurse examiner perform an evidence kit . . . and she had a nurse in training with her.  I learned that there are 7 nurses in our ED who have taken the 50 hours of classroom training and are working through their 50 hours of clinicals.  The trainee nurse told me that she is hoping that in a year's time . . . they will have all kits performed by a forensic nurse examiner and possibly our exam room set up.

For those of you not aware of the forensic nurse examiner program . . . the program is open to nurses with several years of ED or women's health nursing experience.  There is extensive classroom training for everything from evidence preservation to being cross examined.  

Most clients won't necessarily realize the difference . . . except that the forensic nurses work harder to build a relationship with the victim . . . to make the evidence gathering process as much of a joint venture as possible.  And, I noticed that the nurse was a lot more patient with examining for internal trauma when usually doctors only notice it if there is blood or it is unmistakable.  

It took years and much patience, but oh my goodness is this a huge leap forward for us.

Bravo

I just read an article about a 48 Hours Mystery show that is upcoming. The show features an interview with one of the boys abducted and abused by Micheal Devlin in Missouri.

I'm pretty impressed with how this case is being handled. It seems that there was a fairly quick resolution within the court system. And, from reading the young man's comments, it appears that he has had some pretty good counseling. And, it appears that it is on-going.

I was also impressed to see that his parents are stepping up and advocating for his interests. I cannot say how much I'm pleased to see that and only wish other parents were as good at protecting their children's interests.

Bravo!

Progress?

Yesterday, the topic of conversation around the water pitcher was an article I believe was on Yahoo.  The article was about a young RNC delegate who was victimized by a person they met in a bar while attending the RNC convention recently.  The delegate is an attorney, donor to the GOP, and 29 years old.  The delegate was flattered by the attentions of an attractive person.  The delegate invited their new friend up to their hotel room.  There, the new friend mixed another round of drinks, and the next thing the delegate knew, the friend was gone and so was about $50,000 worth of cash and property.

The police in the Twin Cities says he has no doubt this crime happened . . . the delegate is being very cooperative with investigators.  They believe that the delegate was slipped a "date rape" drug in the drinks mixed in the room.

Oh yeah, the delegate is male and the offender is female.  The article closes with a quote from the delegate explaining that as a single guy, he was flattered by the attentions of this attractive woman . . . and that if anything has made this humiliation worthwhile was letting people know that date rape drugs can be used on men too.

There is no mention if the victim believes he were sexually assaulted, if he is bothered by the idea he may or may not have been sexually assaulted, or if he even thinks that if sex happened (with or without his consent and/or participation) that it's even a crime.

I see cases like this all the time, but with the genders reversed.  In fact, the last ER call I personally took, the victim was a young college student who had attended her first college party and didn't realize what was in the punch.  She woke up with her underpants on inside-out and backwards and believes she was raped.  As I walked into the ER, the triage nurse asked me if it were even a rape if she doesn't know for sure she was raped?  Law enforcement has taken her statement, but isn't really concerned about finding the unknown perpetrator.

But yet, it's sexist of us to question the candidacy of Sarah Palin when she thinks rape victims ought to pay for the forensic examination and gathering of evidence in the process of reporting the crime to law enforcement?

It's what we do. . .

Remembering back 7 years ago . . . I was attending a meeting of the executive committee of a state organization I with which I work. We were in a hotel in a small town not known for being a tourist attraction. The hotel was one that catered to business travelers. We were sitting in the hotel's "lounge" which doubled as a breakfast room in the mornings. We were eating breakfast. The big screen tv in the corner was turned to a network morning news program, and I was reading the paper. I remember wondering aloud if Micheal Jordan would find a way to make another comeback when the tv switched to the twin towers. The guy said that they couldn't confirm it, but they'd received a report that a plane had flown into one of the towers. We all looked up . . . when I saw a plane come into the picture I honestly thought it was a plane sent to check out the damage . . . since it was so high up. I was horrified and shocked to see it fly into the building too.

There were people in our group who had family, loved ones in that area of the world. We all shared cell phones to help them get in touch with people. I remember calling my husband and learned that the people in his office were already tuned in. I called my family and told my grandmother to turn on the tv because we were under attack.

We watched the coverage for a while . . . and then decided that we should try to meet until we needed to break for other reasons. (Also, we thought it would be good to help those who had not yet reached family focus on something else.) We started the meeting . . . and someone told us that the pentagon had been hit. There was a woman in our group whose husband had a meeting at the pentagon that day . . . and she was having trouble getting in touch with him. The towers came down . . . and we couldn't bring ourselves to continue the meeting.

We gathered back in the lounge to watch the endless loops of coverage. Those of us who didn't have loved ones in immediate danger took care of the others. There were people in the lounge who weren't part of our group . . . and we took care of them too. We brought them tissues and coffee . . . and sat with them. We made sure they could safely return home. I remember one man asking me how I could so easily be taking care of others, people I didn't know . . . and I remember saying "it's what we do. . ."

When we decided to leave the hotel for homes . . . we arranged for one of our group to drive the woman whose husband was at the pentagon home . . . and someone else would follow her and drive her home afterwards. We set up a phone tree to check in as people were able to reach their homes. I drove to my husband's office because, even though I knew he was safe, I still needed to be with him.

I regret that I watched the media loops over and over. After I went to bed, my husband got me up and said there was a new angle . . . it was video of the plane actually going into the building (rather than flying behind it, and not coming back out). I really regret that I saw that view because to this day, that scene still appears in my nightmares from time to time. But, that's what we do too . . . we absorb the nightmares of others. I have a loving and supportive family, and I know it's just bad memory . . . so I can withstand it. I know others gave up more . . . and still need support and understanding.

Miffed

Every time I think of Governor Palin's flip remarks, I get angry. I get angry because there is no easy way to describe every thing I, and those like me . . . on both sides of the conservative/liberal coin . . . do every single day. I do everything from recruit, screen, train, and supervise volunteers to representing my agency and my cause to my local community, to my state, and across the nation. I take out the trash and clean up when our office floods again. I get out of bed in the middle of the night to help people who have been victimized. I fill out endless paper work documenting that I documented the documentation for the tiny bits of money the government thinks victims of crime are worth.

I do this work because I believe in it. I do this work because I think it matters. I go largely unnoticed and unthanked. I get paid peanuts and most years don't get a raise. Heck, most years I have to hold my breath to see if I'm gonna get paid every month because the government takes their sweet time getting our funds to us. They expect the work to happen but don't bother to insure that the rent or phone bill is paid on time.

And she has the gall to belittle and be glib and flip about community organizers? How about this . . . if what I've chosen to dedicate my life to is so worthless or meaningless, how about she give me her blackberry number, and the next time I get a call at 3am because a 13 year old girl has been raped by her grandfather or a young woman woke up to find a stranger holding a knife to her throat . . . I'll call her to handle it while I stay warm and cozy in my bed?

Choice

Biology works, even when we don't want it to, when we aren't prepared for it, and even when it's not fair. Years ago, I heard that a state legislator announced that there was no need to be concerned about the abortion issue and incest or rape . . . because he was a doctor and he could say with medical expertise that it was not biologically possible to get pregnant when the sex was forced or unwanted.

Well, knock me over. Later I learned that the good doctor was actually a dentist . . . and had fallen in with that weird group of people who seem to think that humans really do have control over biology. These are the same people who think that if it were really a rape, then the woman's vagina would be torn up due to lack of lubrication. They have this weird theory that if the body responds the way it is biologically programmed to . . . then the woman must have secretly wanted the sex. I think these are the same weirdos who think that all women secretly want to be raped and so rape isn't really that bad a crime.

But, I've kinda veered off subject. The subject is choice. I absolutely believe that women should have the choice to decide when they become mothers. Our society demands that women be more responsible for children than men. Biologically, women must bear the possible outcomes of sexual intercourse more than men. When and with whom a woman has sex must be an issue of her decision. Use of birth control, although ideally should be a joint decision and endeavor, ultimately is a woman's choice. And, the decision to carry any pregnancy . . . intended or not . . . should be ultimately the woman's choice.

I think that all too often, people equate folks who are "pro-choice" as being "pro-abortion" and that abortion is the only issue at stake. Choice is about personal independence. Choice is about contraception. Choice is about knowing the options and making educated decisions. And, sometimes choice is about carrying or aborting an unintended pregnancy. I'm all for women carrying surprise pregnancies. If not for the SURPRISE! pregnancy, most of us . . . myself included . . . wouldn't be here. But, people who make an informed and educated decision to carry that surprise to delivery are a whole lot less likely to abandon that child in a trash can . . . are less likely to abuse that child . . . and hopefully will have spent the time between discovering the pregnancy and delivery preparing to welcome that child.

The problem with making choice a political issue is that when you refuse to give women the information they need to make good decisions . . . or you tell them that they don't have a choice . . . you are reinforcing just how second-class they are in our society. Because, choice as an issue is always aimed at women. Where are the purity rings for boys? Why don't churches have mother son nights during which sons pledge to their moms that they won't have sex, won't put a girl in the position of a surprise pregnancy until they are married? When have we seen media messages shame boys for pre-marital sex that might have resulted in an abortion?

Trauma

Very bad behavior is a crime. We understand that and we punish accordingly. We, as a people, disapprove of stealing and hurting and other forms of misbehavior. But, over the past couple of decades, we are starting to understand that misbehavior is more than just taking that which we don't have a right to . . . it has lasting impact. Trauma doesn't go away so easily.

As I was reminded of the lasting effects of trauma yesterday when a man who works with another agency in my community was visiting our office. He said that he'd had a rough morning. When he arrived at his work place, he heard that there had been a tornado that touched down in his town a few miles away. He described calling people to verify the story and see what damages could be reported. He mentioned that he'd lived in the same town 20 some odd years ago when the town was nearly destroyed by tornadoes. Even though a life time has passed since those tornadoes . . . clearly the trauma of it still plays in his mind when the weather turns foul.

Trauma can make people react more strongly than you might expect. Trauma can lead to faulty logic and funny decisions. Trauma inflicted by people is harder to recover from than forces of nature. And, the long term trauma of being victimized sexually or physically is worthy of our society's patience.

Just something to think about.

That's what you do . . .

There is a link to the article in the title of this post.

The article is about a couple in San Antonio who tried to sell sexual access to the woman's five year old child in exchange for an apartment, a car, and day care for a 10 month old child. The article states that the mother of the 5 year old believed that the sexual abuse would be a "positive" experience for the child and she'd receive sexual gratification from watching. It also mentions that the couple, of which the male was married to another person, had plans to inflict their crazy on the 10 month old at a later date and even inflict violent crazy on a teenager.

But, keep reading. The wife of the male in this "couple" filed for a protective order to protect her 14 month old child from her husband . . . and filed for divorce. THAT'S what you do when you find out your husband is a scary, twisted, horrible person.

I'm sure there are more women or men who find themselves in similar situations . . . and we never hear about the ones who act swiftly to protect themselves and their children. I hate that this woman had to discover that the person she was building a life with could betray her in such horrible ways. . . but I applaud her for having a good moral compass.

All that Glitters?

This week, my staff and I have been following the twisted path aging rocker Gary Glitter has been taking back home.

He was convicted in Vietnam of sexually abusing 2 "pre-pubescent" girls. He spent three years in prison and was released this week. Since he is a foreign national, and a convict, Vietnam showed him the door. Mr. Glitter tried to move his road show over to Thailand but they just said no to the sex offender. He tried to avoid returning to England by first claiming that his little ears hurt, and then later faking a heart attack. (Oh, PUL-EEZE) He then boarded a flight to Hong Kong (Folks in Thailand told him that if he over stayed the 12 stay in the airport, they would jail him for immigration violations.) But, Hong Kong said they had no room for an foreign sex offender and sent him back to Thailand.

Finally, he is back in London.

Mr. Glitter says that he did not want to return to England because he would be disrespected because of his sex offender ways. Folks in England are forcing him to register as a sex offender.

Of course, I'm cynical. I don't believe that the young children he was caught sexually abusing were the first children he ever used for his own sexual gratification. Men in their 60s don't wake up one morning and decide that the one sexual experience they've never thought of before but must have before they die is sex with a young child. People who sexually offend against young children escalate their actions from fantasy, to pornography, to engaging with children for their own masturbatory uses, to abusing children. I doubt that it was by accident that Mr Glitter found himself wanting to have sex with children and JUST BY CHANCE finding himself in a country in which the sex trade makes finding a child to have sex with fairly easy. (Vietnam, Atlanta, you name it . . . the sex trade is everywhere)

I was pleased to see that even his money and/or celebrity status did not convince those other countries to take a chance on allowing him near their children. I'm glad to see that they didn't buy the logic that he'd "done his time and now deserved a second chance." When it comes to people who sexually abuse children, a second chance could mean more children's lives destroyed. Our society absolutely needs to monitor, closely, sex offenders . . . because once convicted, they are no longer innocent . . . the children in our society at least deserve that we will do what we can to control the offenders we already know about.

Deep, dark secret

I don't know what other folks imagine when they think of medical personnel. Sympathetic types who went into medicine to heal people? People who are selfless and giving? Money hungry misfits?

I think there is a little of all of those in most medical types. I think that it's often true that the passion that brings you to a profession very often is killed off by the reality of that profession.

One aspect of the work I do is how amazed I am at how easily medical people can be good or bad . . . without really even trying. When people who have experienced violation and abuse seek medical help, they are terribly needy . . . rightfully so. They need not only good medical response, but they need hand holding and care and compassion. Some days, it's too much to ask for a nurse or a doctor to let someone else's pain in so that the needs are met.

However, one thing I notice that always annoys me is when a doctor doesn't want to do their job and make clients suffer because they put it off thinking someone else will fill in.

Case in point . . . lately, my agency has responded to several ER calls involving child or young teen victims. And, it has been a struggle to get doctors to perform the pelvic exam necessary to complete the evidence gathering and/or medical treatment needed.

Most doctors who work in our ER are not specially trained for ER work. Most take a shift or two each month, and there are a few who work more consistently. Most ER doctors have little desire to perform gyno exams on any patient . . . less so on a child. The problem is, the longer they delay or hope they can outlast the shift and another doctor have to do it . . . the longer the child and her/his family have to wait . . . the longer law enforcement have to wait . . . and the more time the perpetrator has to come up with their cover story or leave town or harass the victim and their family.

But, this isn't confined to just ER doctors. I've had mothers tell me that when they have taken their children to their regular pediatricians, they were told that they didn't do "that kind" of exam. I'm blown away at the thought that pediatricians try to avoid going genital exams on children. Um, were all the test child dolls in medical school sans genitals?

It's just one of the frustrations of this work.

A step backwards

I've been mulling a blog post in my brain for a while now, but haven't managed to put fingers to keyboard yet. However, today, a news article caught my attention that has me wanting to fire off a quick post.

A news story from Ohio says that the catholic church there has issued new guidelines to their priests as to what behavior is and is not appropriate with children. Forbidden now is hugging, kissing, wrestling, lap sitting, etc. Permitted still are handshakes, high fives, and pats on the back.

Now, I'm all for creating clear understanding of what is and isn't appropriate behaviors. And, I am all for protecting children and especially can see the long reaching harm from sexual abuse from within a church.

However, I think we as humans have stepped backwards in our development if we can no longer distinguish between sexualized touch and affection, human support, or appropriate touching.

I don't think I've ever been handed a friend's baby to hold during which I have been able to resist kissing its' little noggin. Last week, while a co-worker and I were working with a local group of camp kids . . . one child spontaneously hugged my co-worker . . . which quickly turned into a group hug. The child initiated it . . . nothing inappropriate happened, and it probably was the right amount of physical contact to help the children feel safe, secure, and cared for in their world.

I would hate to see children lose that aspect of church and spiritual development. I know that members of a church, and ministers develop an often deep, intimate relationship with their spiritual leaders. I'd like to think that in a church, especially one in which there is so much screening, education, and training for the spiritual leaders, would be able to have a more meaningful dialog with their employees. I'd like to think that rather than making children feel unloved and alienated, the church could offer more meaningful supervision and guidance to their leaders.

But, that's me, clearly.

Cheated

We respond to a lot of young teen victims. I actually feel a particular affinity for these clients. Perhaps because I remember pretty well the frustration of wanting to be grown up and at the same time having rules I didn't understand holding me back, as well as a healthy dose of being totally clueless.

With so many of these, mostly girls, I see kids who may or may not have adequate supervision from their parents . . . or I see that they have, already at such young ages, been asked to absorb so many problems well beyond their own levels of maturity. And, I see girls who want to be grown up and men who will tell them whatever they want to hear for a bit of action.

When I talk to girls, I try to convey . . . and as I get older, I suspect I'm less convincing . . . that jumping straight from meeting a guy, flirting a bit, to having sex is skipping over a lot of fun stuff. It's fun to have a crush . . . to wait for the phone call . . . to walk on cloud 9 because he did call . . . to have him hold your hand . . . that first nervous kiss. Being a teen is hard enough without cheating yourself out of the stuff that makes being a teen fun.

I also try to address my idea that decent guys wouldn't ask you to break rules, get in trouble with parents (or police/DSS), ask you to risk getting pregnant or an STD. I try to convince girls that one of the reasons 22 year old guys are interested in 13 year old girls is because girls their own age expect them to be adults and 13 year olds don't expect much. I point out that if I'm a 20 year old girl dating a 20 year old boy, I expect him to have a job, to be in school, to call when he says he is . . . to show up on time . . . and to be honest, reliable, etc. Whereas, if I'm a 13 year old girl dating a 20 year old guy . . . any attention he pays is enough . . . even if he's selling drugs or not working or disrespectful of me, my family, and friends.

I'm not really advocating a return to "past values." I'm really not. There are all kinds of problems with the power dynamic created by the "traditional" dating. But, I'm thinking some mutual respect and shared power in a relationship has to be better than 13 year olds being labeled "problem" children and arrested for "running away" when they were lured by men who should know better. I'm also frustrated by the trend I see in these cases, where we assign more responsibility and blame to the kid who got caught up in feeling grown up than the adult who manipulated and acted criminally.

"Cherry Picking"

Yeah, I like crime TV. Although, my husband refuses to watch any fictional work that includes a sexual assault because I always end up pointing out the errors or inconsistencies. I find it a bit maddening that rarely are Rape Victim Advocates included in story lines . . . and when they are, it is always as an obstruction or potential victim.

Tonight, The Closer fell back on a favorite story line for rape cases. The group of white, upper-middle class boys who rape girls as part of a bet or competition. Most crime shows eventually use this story line. Generally, this story line can make the boys out to be unsympathetic creatures while appealing to adults who see victims as either wholly innocent or "asking for it." And, there is usually some power dynamic involved, some extra layer of entitlement to really add to the story line.

The Closer got a few details right . . . in the real world, there is a small subset of men who rape . . . but they have multiple victims. Also, in the real world, surrounding the group of rapists are "facilitators" who assist the perps in gaining access to victims and/or help them get away with it. Surrounding the facilitators are bystanders . . . they may be vaguely aware of what is going on . . . or not . . . and they have power to reinforce a group norm or not.

The fact of the matter is, rarely are perpetrators wholly evil and rarely are victims wholly innocent or "asking for it." When we as a society can have a more realistic grasp on what the real issues around rape are . . . perhaps we can create real responses and preventions.

For more information about the realities about young, middle class folks involved in rape culture, check out this video/research.

Woman Centered

I'm kinda an "old school" feminist. I had early childhood experiences in the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1970s. I told my father he was a male chauvinist pig for the first time when I was 8 years old (because he wanted me to dry dishes while he and my brothers watched tv). I remember seeing my mom's belly dancing group perform in parks on Saturdays.

I appreciate the woman centered experience.

Today I read a blog entry from a crew member of the Anthony Bourdain show No Reservations. The producer is a woman, her chief assistant is a woman, and their recent televised show was filmed in Saudia Arabia . . . and was largely led by a couple of Saudi women. You can read the entry here.

This is what I appreciate about the blog entry . . . and the fact of the conditions described. Here is a society that is uber male oriented/dominated. And, yet, the women have found a way to create woman centered times/intimacy in the midst of it. I have to appreciate that.

Irony

Being in a small, southern town, I sometimes am a bit behind when it comes to learning of the scandalous news stories. I read the NY Times when I can, I read several blogs . . . some feminist, others for pure fun. I've seen the site Jezebel . . . but was off put by the sordid sex details.

So, today, I see in a blog I read that there has been quite the uproar over two of the Jezebel writers who made a drunken appearance on Lizz Winstead's show "Thinking and Drinking."

I've always liked Lizz Winstead . . . she is smart and funny and I'm willing to believe her version of the events. You can see her reaction to the show and clips from the show here.

The women ramble on about the issue of rape. I think they went off the rails by over personalizing rather than speaking about the issue. One woman, who is a self proclaimed "slut" says that she has never been raped. But, I suspect that she is really declaring that she has never had an experience that she felt terrified her sufficiently to define it as rape. I found her statement that she may have never been raped because she's "smart" particularly offensive. The other woman talks of her own rape experiences . . . she is obviously saddened by the stories, but then trivializes them by saying that she didn't want the hassle of reporting the rapist and she had important things like drinking to do.

This became the topic of conversation in our office. I believe the consensus was that as women who make their livelihood from writing about feminist issues, they do, indeed, have a responsibility to choose their words more carefully. The two dangers I see in their attitudes are a) that a victim viewing this will feel even more shamed by their cavalier attitudes and be even less inclined to seek comfort and support and b) they give fuel to the people who think that rape is exaggerated and that women are just whining when it's really not so bad.

We also came to the conclusion that we don't embrace the brand of feminism that seems to say "if you can't fix it, join it." I have seen young women behave in ways that can only be described as mimicking what they imagine to be men's behavior. They shut down their own sense of boundaries, and seem to believe that being a "slut" is an expression of their feminism. I'm all for people choosing the lifestyle they believe fulfills them as people . . . but too often I see the young women continue to be unhappy with their relationships and themselves. Living a sexually "open" lifestyle takes work and a very highly developed sense of boundaries. Acting as if you should be sexually available to anyone without regard for your own wants, needs, and feelings isn't choosing a lifestyle . . . it's giving up.

But, back to the Jezebel women . . . one of the young women who was in the audience wrote about the performance and her disappointment in her "feminist heroes" in her personal blog. One of the Jezebel women left a comment on her blog, and the young woman backed down in her criticism. Their excuse for their socially irresponsible behavior? They were drunk.