'He pushed open the door, and I saw that he was pulling something out of a bag he was carrying. It was a gun - a sawn-off shotgun.' Featured on ITV's Lorraine with Michael Sheen and Rachel Williams. Darren was funny and attractive, and 21-year-old Rachel fell head-over-heels for him; it wasn't long before they moved in together, and she fell pregnant with his child. But his inner demons soon surfaced... Weakened and alone, Rachel was beaten and tormented by him for 18 years, until one day, Darren turned up at her place of work with a shotgun and left her for dead. But her ordeal wasn't over... Devastating yet inspiring, Rachel's story of hope tells of how you can always find the light, even in the very darkest of times. 'Incredibly poignant and powerful.' - Victoria Derbyshire 'Transformative. Life changing.' - Michael Sheen

Sexual assault prevention and response policies and programs in the Armed Forces are the most comprehensive and the most aggressive in the United States, yet after years of fighting this problem, we are still in the exact same place. Sexual assault in the military is still pervasive. It is still hurting military readiness. It is still causing thousands of service members to suffer. The trends and numbers are going in the wrong direction. This book examines the policies and results of sexual assault in the military.

Intimate Partner Violence: Clinical Interventions with Women, Men, and their Children brings into focus an ecological and clinical frame for addressing the resulting psychological effects of intimate partner violence (IPV). Aymer presents a perspective that is often omitted from social work textbooks which are geared to generalist practice, tending to expose students to macro-systemic ideas (including criminal justice policies and procedures) relative to IPV. However, this book expands clinical social work pedagogy by reinforcing the need for students to go beyond macro issues in order to deliver competent clinically-based interventions that help women, children, and men work though the consequential effects of partner violence. Designed for graduate social work students, it expands the discourse- arguing that IPV is a complex psycho-social-political-relational problem that must be understood from a multi-theoretical perspective. Through case studies, theory, research, and the author's clinical practice wisdom, this text will: increase understanding of how to work clinically with women affected by IPV, increase knowledge of how to work with abusive men, heighten knowledge of how IPV affects children and adolescents, expand knowledge of social cultural notions, and explore men's role in terms of advocating against gender-based violence.

The Victim's Voice in the Sexual Misconduct Crisis investigates how a victim's voice, identity, credibility, and proof are challenged or established in the current sexual misconduct crisis. Using communication and rhetorical analysis, gender studies, and law and society perspectives, Mary Schuster examines concerns such as victim impact statements offered in sentencing hearings of convicted offenders, due process and Title IX requirements in campus sexual assault investigations, and laws and Title VII standards governing workplace sexual harassment complaints. Schuster also analyzes the testimony offered in the 1991 and 1998 U.S. Senate Judiciary Hearings regarding the Supreme Court nominations of Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, social movements such as #Me Too, and global activists' efforts to challenge gender stereotypes and hierarchies. This book argues that we cannot outlaw or legislate away sexual misconduct, but must instead focus on cultural, social, and systemic changes in order to change the current climate. Moreover, the author argues for zero tolerance for sexual misconduct, but recommends a gradation of punishment or sanctions for offenders, offering examples of successful educational and therapeutic efforts to alter misconceptions regarding sexual misconduct. Scholars of gender studies, communication, legal studies, and rhetoric will find this book particularly useful.

Outcry Response is a book about sexual abuse for educators and administrators of all private and public learning institutions, organizations, and nontraditional settings. How to listen, respond, report, and recognize the often-disturbing signs of sexual abuse are noted for the purpose of building confidence as a mandated reporter. Survivors need responses of compassion, support, empathy, and recognition for their courage since the sexual assault was not their fault. Many survivors, past offenders, educators, and related agency personnel have assisted in describing the aftermath of sexual abuse and how educators can help. Compassion fatigue and exhaustion can lead a listener to inadvertently react with shock, shaming, repulsion, or silence. The solution is self-care with definitions and options provided in Outcry Response Trauma informed research and practices have made mandatory reporting, open communication, and safer campuses much more manageable. This wonderful book provides a variety of examples of trauma informed responses within educationally based scenarios of sexual abuse. The Department of Education websites for all fifty states and community programs enumerated within Outcry Response provide our educators and administrators with numerous resources about sexual abuse to use in their primary role of compassionately educating students of all ages.

Challenging widespread assumptions that persons who are preferentially attracted to minors-often referred to as "pedophiles"-are necessarily also predators and sex offenders, this book takes readers into the lives of non-offending minor-attracted persons (MAPs). There is little research into non-offending MAPs, a group whose experiences offer valuable insights into the prevention of child abuse. Navigating guilt, shame, and fear, this universally maligned group demonstrates remarkable resilience and commitment to living without offending and to supporting and educating others. Using data from interview-based research, A Long, Dark Shadow offers a crucial account of the lived experiences of this hidden population.

In November 2019, Deon Wiggett’s sensational weekly podcasts held South Africa in thrall as he hunted down the paedophile who raped him as a schoolboy. Now, in My Only Story, he completes his exposé of Willem Breytenbach, the once brilliant teacher and later media luminary who led a predatory life.

Deon’s mission to expose his abuser takes him from Breytenbach’s high-school years at an agricultural school in South Africa’s hinterland to the famous Grey College in Bloemfontein and the media titan Naspers. But his quest reveals so much more. As he traces systemic failures through schools great and small, he uncovers a culture of complicity that poses a clear and present danger to the country’s children. While investigating men who prey on boys and girls, Deon devises a model that anyone can use to identify paedophiles in their midst. In his own words: ‘It’s pleasant to pretend that men don’t rape children, but once you accept that they do, it becomes surprisingly easy to recognise their trickery. Once you match a universal pattern to a specific man’s profile, you can spot the deceit before it is too late.’

My Only Story is a riveting, thoughtful and often irreverent account of one man’s determination to overcome childhood trauma; to help others face their demons; and to extract some beauty from the boyhood he lost.

Steady yourself to rethink desire, and then watch Louise Orwin smash it all to pieces. Oh Yes Oh No invites you on a surreal joyride through femme sexuality and violence. Made with the candid input of survivors of sexual trauma, this is a show about having sexual fantasies that don't align with your politics. Join Louise as she interrogates identity, consent and power play. How can you reclaim your voice and your body when they have been stripped from you? And how do you navigate a landscape of hyper-sexuality and increasing sex positivity when asking for what you want can be the hardest thing?

Rethinking Rufus is the first book-length study of sexual violence against enslaved men. Scholars have extensively documented the widespread sexual exploitation and abuse suffered by enslaved women, with comparatively little attention paid to the stories of men. However, a careful reading of extant sources reveals that sexual assault of enslaved men also occurred systematically and in a wide variety of forms, including physical assault, sexual coercion, and other intimate violations. To tell the story of men such as Rufus?who was coerced into a sexual union with an enslaved woman, Rose, whose resistance of this union is widely celebrated?historian Thomas A. Foster interrogates a range of sources on slavery: early American newspapers, court records, enslavers' journals, abolitionist literature, the testimony of formerly enslaved people collected in autobiographies and in interviews, and various forms of artistic representation. Foster's sustained examination of how black men were sexually violated by both white men and white women makes an important contribution to our understanding of masculinity, sexuality, the lived experience of enslaved men, and the general power dynamics fostered by the institution of slavery. Rethinking Rufus illuminates how the conditions of slavery gave rise to a variety of forms of sexual assault and exploitation that affected all members of the community.

Edited and with an introduction by Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling and deeply beloved author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, this anthology of first-person essays tackles rape, assault, and harassment head-on. Vogue, 10 of the Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2018 Harper's Bazaar, 10 New Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2018 Elle, 21 Books We're Most Excited to Read in 2018 Boston Globe, 25 books we can't wait to read in 2018 Huffington Post, 60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 Buzzfeed, 33 Most Exciting New Books of 2018 In this valuable and timely anthology, cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence and aggression they face, and where sexual-abuse survivors are 'routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied' for speaking out. Highlighting the stories of well-known actors, writers and experts, as well as new voices being published for the first time, Not That Bad covers a wide range of topics and experiences, from an exploration of the rape epidemic embedded in the refugee crisis to first-person accounts of child molestation and street harrassment. Often deeply personal and always unflinchingly honest, this provocative collection both reflects the world we live in and offers a call to arms insisting that 'not that bad' must no longer be good enough.