For the past 20 months, I have been working to help in the Sexual Assault space.  As someone who has personally experienced the ordeal of my oldest daughter’s sexual assault, I came into this space already educated, but there is always more to learn.  When you spend your weeks talking to other survivors, to non-profits that are trying to prevent sexual assaults or support victims, to secondary victims and to indigenous people who have a sexual assault rate that is 2.5 times any other ethnicity in the US, it expands your thinking and your education on sexual assaults, but it also adds fuel to your fire!

In case you don’t know over 93% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men, so I think it’s fair to say that men are the problem.  They are not the only problem, but they are the biggest problem!  Men are also the ones that can be part of the solution, and in my opinion, this problem will not get better without men getting involved.   Men have an opportunity to reverse this trend that is epidemic.

I get that there are a lot of bad people in the world, but what I don’t get is why so many men stay silent on this issue?   Men have (or had) mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, cousins, etc.  Do you not care about their safety when it comes to sexual assaults?   Every day, hundreds of Americans are affected by sexual violence.  Every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted and every 9 minutes, that victim is a child!  Is this acceptable?  Given these sobering statistics, it’s clear that men must be part of the solution

So how can men help?  There are a number of things that men can do:

• Get educated on this topic and then educate those around you to make sure they are aware of how common sexual assaults occur.  1 in 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime and the large majority of these were completed. Also 1 in 33 American men have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.  The more you know the more you can help.
• Hold other men accountable. Push back on the misogyny and the objectification of women.  When you hear one of those jokes, think about your wife or girlfriend or daughter and see how that makes you feel.  Be a man and use your voice!
• Learn and advocate for sexual assault prevention education, which is something we need in our schools. This is not sex education, it’s sexual assault prevention education.  Let your legislators know that we need this in our schools.
• Learn about the various tools available that can help keep your loved ones safe. For example, Nightcap.  Nightcap helps to prevent drink spiking, which is a big problem.  Nightcap is a scrunchy with a compartment inside that holds the Nightcap drink cover.  It’s easy to pull out and cover your drink.  Another example is the I’m Safe app.  This is a free application for Apple and Android devices.  It allows you to create a trusted friend list that you can allow to follow you via geo tracking.  The time range is configurable. It also has a SOS button, that will send an emergency text to all of your trusted friends.  It doesn’t have to mean you are being attacked.  It could mean you are getting a bad gut feeling and you are just making your friends aware.  As soon as the SOS button is pressed pictures are taken from the front and back of the phone and audio is recorded.  This data is encrypted and uploaded to a secure server in the cloud, so it could be used in a police investigation.   These are just a couple of examples, but there are many other tools that could also be useful to aid in the prevention of sexual assaults.

Like it or not, men hold a lot of the power.  We need men to use their power for good, not evil.   The time is now, and I am challenging men to get more involved in fighting the epidemic of sexual assaults.  Please!