Rape (again)

I posted a comment over there. But think it's important to add here. Basically a quick discussion on why rape crisis counselours need to believe the people who call them.


I think a lot of this hangs on our definition of the word “advocate” and “counselor”. I’ve been a rape crisis counselor for an anonymous hotline on a college campus. I fielded calls from women who thought that they had been raped, women who thought they had had “a bad hookup”, and once even a guy who was *terrified* that he might have raped someone. In each and every case my job was to be an advocate for that person — to help them through how they were feeling about the situation, listen to them, help them make decisions, present them with options so they could decide what they needed to do to keep themselves safe. It wasn’t my job to tell the women who had been raped that I wanted DNA evidence to continue the call, and it *equally* wasn’t my job to tell the woman who had “a bad hookup” that she had been raped, or to tell the guy that he needed to learn how to talk in bed, or his sex life would suck for a long time.

We ask lawyers to be advocates for people, to help them tell their stories in the court so that they can receive a fair trial. Rape crisis advocates should (and do) have similar standards of professionalism, that involve listening, and believing. Period.

For more about how I feel about rape, read this.