April 16, 2025 • 23 mins
The #MeToo Movement is not about headlines or hashtags - it’s about giving a voice to what it actually feels like to live in a body that’s been harmed, in a world that prefers you stay quiet. It starts with stories – often whispered, sometimes shouted – from women who finally found the words, the courage and the space, to talk about what had happened to them.
In this deeply personal solo episode of Unapologetically Yours, Ashley Logan shares her story and experience with sexual violence. She shares what it’s like to carry trauma in your nervous system for decades, to leave your body just to survive, and to realize years later that your body never really forgets.
This isn’t an easy episode. But it’s a necessary one. Because if one in five women are survivors, then we need to stop centering the shame – and start demanding a world where women feel safe, supported, and seen.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- Ashley’s personal story of surviving sexual assault & why she’s speaking up about it
- The truth about how society responds to survivors—and why that silence is its own kind of violence
- How somatic therapy helped Ashley reconnect with her body after years of disassociation
- How assault shapes your sense of safety, identity, and self-worth
- How men can take meaningful steps toward creating a safer world for women
If you’ve experienced sexual violence, know this: you are not alone. You are not broken. And you deserve to feel safe in your body again.
Resources Mentioned:
The National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-656-4673. Help is always available.
Connect with Ashley:
Instagram @ashleydlogan
Website https://aqshleydlogan.com/
Have a topic or guest you’d love to see featured on the Unapologetically Yours podcast? Send us an email: podcast@unapologeticallyyours.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I have some fear around sharing this.
I've recorded this podcast a couple of different times and debated how do I want to tellthis story because I don't want to be viewed as damaged.
I don't want to be viewed as anything but resilient.
But resilience doesn't mean just pushing through and pretending like those experiencesdidn't cause harm.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Unapologetically Yours podcast.
I'm your host, Ashley Logan, and I'm so happy to have you here today.
Unapologetically Yours is a podcast where we go deep on everything from spirituality torelationship and connection to business and belief systems.
Because in a world when we've been taught to play by the rules, it's time to liveunapologetically.
(00:47):
And I want to start off with a trigger warning.
This episode does talk about sexual assault at length.
And so keep that in mind before moving forward.
I also want to say that this episode is for both men and women, though it does focus onthe experience of being female.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ashley.
(01:07):
I'm an entrepreneur.
I'm a mother of three.
And I am also a person who's been on a deep journey of, let's say reclamation.
I've been working to get back to an aligned life, which required a huge amount of soulsearching.
required a lot of work and a lot of time and attention digging deep on all of the thingsthat I was carrying in my life.
(01:29):
What was mine?
What I could set down?
What wasn't mine?
And examining how my experiences were impacting my life in adulthood.
And I want to start off by saying that I am no stranger to sexual violence.
Even starting in like seventh grade.
I remember I was groped on the bus at school and I actually, it's funny because I wasreading
(01:51):
my diary from that time.
And I read all about the experience and how angry I was, but I didn't really have thevocabulary to explain that that was assault.
And nor were the tools available for me for like addressing that and how serious it is toprotect your body from those kinds of behaviors.
(02:13):
And I knew it was wrong.
And I also want to say that I have a lot of grace.
for the experiences that we have in our youth as we're trying to figure out what works forus, what doesn't, and exploring the boundaries and all of those things.
Like that's a normal part of growing up.
And a big part of the puzzle that was missing, I think, was the education around consentand assault and what it means to safely and with respect approach physical relationships.
(02:42):
And this was sort of reinforced.
Even my freshman year in high school, was still like had braces, was so naive.
And I had a sister who was a senior and she was gorgeous and everyone knew who she was andall of these things.
so I don't know if it was a prank.
I don't know where it came from.
And I still don't know to this day who did it, but someone started putting notes in mylocker and they were really profane and explicit sexually.
(03:10):
And I never knew when they were going to come.
And they were anonymous and they talked about what they wanted to do to my body, commentsabout my body and made me feel so unsafe in school that every time I would open my locker,
I would hold my breath, wondering if a note was going to drop to the floor.
And my mom was a really helpful advocate for me at the time.
(03:31):
And we went to the school administrators and the reality is, is that they didn't do muchto help me or support me.
there.
And I think that those were some of the early lessons around, you know, what kind of helpis available when you do speak up about feeling unsafe in your body.
And some of the earliest experiences of my life where I started to question my worth andquestion if I was worth being protected by someone and also just screaming into the echo
(03:58):
chamber of help.
Can someone see this?
anyone else see this?
And then with the response, just feeling like it didn't matter and my experiences didn'tmatter.
And I think that's something that a lot of people who've experienced sexual violence canrelate to.
And this trend sort of, you know, it continued.
And in terms of...
(04:20):
you know, the company that I kept or just experiencing high school and how people talkedabout sex and bodies and what was okay and what wasn't okay.
And learning that my body was going to be looked at, judged, evaluated, and that I wasgoing to be judged as a person for how I showed up in those situations.
And that really started a trend of me putting on a lot of armor early on and acting likethings were okay when they really weren't.
(04:45):
And so
At my first job out of college, I was harassed by some prominent figures in the field.
And that was really confusing and traumatic and like, is this okay?
People really believe it's okay to talk to people this way.
And then going on into when I worked in commercial real estate, I worked at a company thatwas really by and large the wild west.
(05:08):
There was even a lawsuit that was filed by a woman who worked there and she asked me toparticipate.
By then I had learned that the path.
to sharing these stories would be really met with silence, resistance, and lack of action,and that the pain of going through that with the trauma that I'd already experienced in my
life was too much, and I opted out, even though I had very good reason to opt in.
(05:31):
I could literally list dozens of scenarios and experiences, and I would say that for manywomen, those experiences are universal.
And for a long time, I blamed myself for every single one of those experiences, and I'mgonna share even.
and a deeper level.
the truth is, that society sort of blames women for the experiences, saying things like,did you scream and yell?
(05:54):
Did you tell someone?
What did you do?
What were you wearing?
Did you ask for it?
Were you drinking too much?
Were you doing this and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
And the list goes on and on.
And that is really hard.
And that's the space in our culture that I really want to examine.
And according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women willexperience rape or attempted rape in their lifetime.
(06:15):
And I know that number to be much higher from the women in my life and the stories thatthey share and whispers and the stories that they share when they feel safe to do so.
I have been raped three times.
That doesn't count times when I was pressured into unwanted sexual experiences, groped,harassed, stalked, raped.
(06:38):
Three times, three different men.
And I have some fear around sharing this.
I've recorded this podcast a couple of different times and debated how do I want to tellthis story?
Because I don't want to be viewed as damaged.
I don't want to be viewed as anything but resilient.
But resilience doesn't mean just pushing through and pretending like those experiencesdidn't cause harm because they did cause harm.
(07:05):
And I'm talking about this today because I know that I'm not alone and I have a plea forus to change the tide and to offer some insight about how we can maybe work together to
change the conditions for women out there.
And I thought about sharing the circumstances behind each of these experiences.
(07:29):
And I decided that I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I will say this.
Two of the men I knew.
One experience was in college, one in my mid twenties and the other later in life.
The other one was a stranger.
Each time it was brushed under the rug by peers and, and the police, when the police wereinvolved, they were not brushed under the rug by the women in my life.
(07:53):
And some of those experiences I didn't have the courage or ability to talk about foryears, but.
my body remembered.
And each time what was equally as traumatic as the experience itself was the lack ofsupport I received that was desperately needed to get through those situations.
(08:15):
And during each of those experiences, my body froze.
In fact, I left my body.
And realistically, took me a long time after those experiences.
for me to feel safe enough to come back to my body to fully feel like myself again.
And the wild thing about it, and this is why it's so important for us to share ourstories, is that I wasn't even fully aware of the depth of the trauma that I was carrying
(08:43):
until the Me Too movement, when I found the words to articulate how wrong some of thethings that I faced were.
And we can all agree that rape is wrong.
And there was many other instances there of experiencing pressure and or being groped orall of those other scenarios that were in sexual harassment, all of which created an
(09:05):
environment where women were fundamentally unsafe.
And addressing that trauma for me was not just about talk therapy, it was about deepsomatic.
work to release the experiences from my cells.
And that's part of the reason why I'm so passionate about the work I'm doing now.
And what sort of led me to somatic therapy in recent years, and I'm talking like some ofthese things that I just dove into the healing process in the last few years.
(09:34):
So years after these experiences happened, 20 years for the first one.
And what happened was a really good friend of mine and a healer that I work with.
we were standing in her kitchen and her son walked into the room and she watched me likemy body tense up and flinch.
And she was like, my God, does that happen to you every time a man walks into the room?
(09:58):
And I was like, holy shit, I think it does.
And I thought that even about that week, how a FedEx man had showed up at my door and howI instantly went into state of fight or flight and how much my body was carrying the
residual
effect of the mistrust and the experiences.
And I think that part of that knowing is is help available.
(10:21):
And so going into the somatic work, I was able to address some of those things.
And what I also wanted to share is that the scars of these experiences run deep.
And even reading back my seventh grade journal and knowing then like, my gosh, had I hadthe words to articulate what I was feeling then.
Wow, the path of my life been totally different when I have known how to advocate formyself in a different way?
(10:44):
So the Me Too movement was wildly significant for the one in five women who've experiencedsexual assault.
And it was also wildly significant for women who don't feel safe walking into a parkinggarage.
It's wildly significant for women who've experienced some level of harassment and wildlysignificant for women who have been objectified, all of us, and judged for our bodies, all
(11:07):
of us.
And it created a more level playing field where at least we could use the words to supportone another if the male population maybe wasn't going to.
And here's what I know about this is that women have carried the burden of sexual assaultand their experiences for centuries with men and women questioning us.
(11:30):
What were you wearing?
What were you doing?
How did you invite this to make us question if we are even worthy of protection?
It's a mindset that's ingrained in our culture.
And I am tired of screaming into the echo chamber about how important it is to change theculture for women, for our daughters.
But here's the part that people want to avoid.
(11:53):
If one in five women have experienced sexual assault, what is the figure for assailants?
Can we safely say that one in five men have committed an act of sexual violence against awoman?
And as I say those words, we know that it's true that these men are our neighbors, thatthese men are living among us, they're our friends.
(12:18):
And it's hard for me to just, I don't even want to say justify, it really bothers me thatwe as women are the ones who are carrying the burden of the trauma while men are.
sort of let off the hook and like, he fucked up or she was drunk or she was a slut or thisor that.
And the common thing that I want us all to know is that yes, mistakes happen.
(12:42):
And every time we allow those behaviors from men, we are creating a world that is lesssafe for our daughters.
So the men listening here, they know too, they know the way that women are talked about inlocker rooms, behind closed doors and group chats.
They know about the way they experience bachelor parties or nights out at the bar and thatobjectification of women and how it's justified.
(13:09):
And the truth is, is that we are all one.
So if it's okay for one woman to be treated that way, then it makes it okay for all womento be treated that way.
And it's not okay.
So the other thing that is really interesting to me about this is that
You know, there are very few men, and this is sad, that I would trust alone with mydaughter.
(13:33):
And part of this comes from the fact that I haven't seen men have the courage, the gusto,the balls to stand up and say enough is enough.
Because if you have friends who can demean women and you accept it, and you aren't awarethat one woman's experience is all women's experience, then you are part of the problem.
(13:54):
So...
One of the things that I've noticed that's really interesting right now is that we'reliving in an era where men, fathers of daughters, have really latched onto the anti-trans
movement as a mechanism for protecting their daughters, pointing to men in women's sportsas the primary source of harm for women.
And I want to say that this topic is nuanced and complicated in itself.
(14:18):
Biologically, there are a few women who could compete against a man successfully,particularly in areas like swimming and track.
And I get that that can create disappointment for hardworking female athletes and thatneeds to be handled with care.
All of those things can be true.
I also know that 0.01 % of collegiate athletes are trans.
It's far, far smaller number than the number around assault.
(14:42):
And I've noticed this, like recently saw a Facebook post where a man was screaming aboutthe
The left is so obsessed with trans rights and I'm going to protect my daughter from thisbecause I'm a father of a daughter and latching onto this like absolute minute issue, this
minute population of people.
And so I want to say this for the men out there who are screaming about this issue in thename of their daughters, I implore you to dig deeper at the real cause, the root cause of
(15:13):
female endangerment.
And that's you.
You are.
For allowing men.
to talk about women disparately in your presence, for commenting on women's bodies, forlooking the other way when your pals treat women like prey, because this is the root cause
of a deeply damaging systemic issue.
(15:35):
Because statistically speaking, if you aren't one of the assailants, you're hanging outwith them.
And if the harm it causes women, your daughters, your sisters, your wives, your coworkers,
That harm is significant.
The pain of sexual violence lives in the cells of all women.
The fear we care from having to live with our guard raised high is significant.
(15:59):
And it causes men harm too.
Don't get me started on what porn does for connection.
And porn is a big part of the problem.
I'm not going to go into that in this episode.
But the point is, is that as trivialized as the MeToo movement has become, we're electingofficials.
who are guilty of sexual violence.
(16:19):
We're celebrating them in our culture and turning the other cheek to the damage thiscauses women while focusing efforts on a minute statistic in the name of chivalry, in the
name of protecting women.
And that is bullshit.
For those who are survivors of sexual assault, this feels exactly like sitting in a policestation.
(16:45):
where you are asked again and again and again the same question about your assault untilyou take it all back and leave.
Screaming into the echo chamber of looking for help and it not being available is what itfeels like being a woman survivor right now in a time where there is no accountability
(17:05):
around sexual violence.
And we must, we must reconcile the difference.
One in five women has experienced sexual violence, which means the perpetrators are amongus now, today.
And I'd like for the movement of reconciliation to begin right now through accountabilityto start healing this damaged, broken culture.
(17:30):
If you are a man who advocates for women's rights, for women's safety, please, please lookto your circle and start to think about
how those behaviors impact the safety of your daughter.
If you would want your daughter hanging around with your friends and sort of speak up.
(17:50):
And if you were a man who has caused harm to another woman intentionally, knowingly ornot, I'm quite certain that you don't self-identify as a rapist, even though by
definition, if you have pursued sexual activity without consent, you are one.
But regardless of if it happened in high school or college or when you were drunk or shewas dressed slutty or was asking for it or whatever, that needs to be reconciled.
(18:16):
So if you can't start with the hard truth, start by identifying as a human who hurtanother human and pick up the phone and apologize to them.
Do it because only by taking ownership and accountability by the way your actionsperpetuated a belief system that puts women at risk.
Can we actually create a culture that is safe for women?
(18:39):
Show them what we will tolerate and show them what we will not.
Do it for your wives, do it for your sisters, do it for your daughters, do it for yourmothers and do it for your friends.
The trauma of sexual violence is something that lives on in ourselves.
It is something that women carry.
It is also passed down from generation to generation.
It is keeping women small and we need the men.
(19:02):
to start to show up in a way that creates a safer world for women.
And again, it starts with our behaviors.
It starts with you.
You can make the difference.
So if you are someone who is screaming from the rooftops about how we need to make thisworld safer for women, think about where that starts.
Think about the root cause of where women feel unsafe and begin.
(19:25):
And if you are a woman who has experienced sexual violence, I see you, I feel you, I amyou.
I cannot recommend enough using somatic work to help you move forward and release thattrauma from your body.
Being able to come back from living, I would say like my brain was, my spirit, my soul wasdisconnected from my body for a lot of years.
(19:50):
And when I finally started somatic work that allowed me to get deep into my body throughbreath work, sound healing, creativity, I was able to reconnect.
I was able to move forward and
reclaim aspects of myself that had been traumatized.
It's worth it.
It's worth it to go there.
It's worth it to do the work, especially if you can find people who can really supportyou.
(20:12):
And I'm so happy to say that on our next episode, we'll have a woman who is a somatictherapist and she can talk more about the importance of somatic therapy and how it's
different from regular therapy so that you can start to heal those parts of you that maybeyou didn't even know needed healing because you had to bury them so deep.
This is not easy to talk about and there are probably people in my life who are hearingthese stories from me for the first time.
(20:38):
And I am really grateful to have a platform to share this.
And I am really grateful that I have people in my life who I can talk about this with, whosee me, who understand me, who've experienced it.
And that now hopefully for anyone else who has experienced sexual violence, that they knowthat I too am a safe place for you to go.
and for you to share your story and know that you are safe, you are held, you matter.
(21:02):
And that while maybe screaming into the echo chamber of the abyss wasn't effective,turning to women who see you, who support you makes all of the difference.
We went deep today and thank you for listening.
This is so important.
It is so important that we create a world that is safe for our daughters.
There was something going around on social late last year around
(21:27):
if you would feel more safe as a woman in the woods with a bear or with a man.
And people chose the bear because sexual violence is so harmful and it runs so rampant.
it is something that some men don't even know that they're making a woman feeluncomfortable by giving them a hug when they weren't expecting it or by walking into a
(21:50):
room and they weren't invited or more...
And those things, like obviously those are trauma responsive for people who've experiencedsexual violence, but then also knowing that maybe at some point down the line, you were a
cause of this.
And it's important to reconcile that and take accountability and be fearless and start toright those wrongs so that we can all move forward together and create a safer place.
(22:16):
I also want to share that help is available.
The National Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-4673.
Help is available 24 hours a day so that you can get the support that you need.
And I hope that one day we live in a place that values women so deeply that we protectthem from sexual assault and sexual violence and sexual harassment at all costs because it
(22:43):
will lift up all of humanity.
Thank you again for tuning in.
I'm Ashley Logan and I am
Unapologetically, yours.
I have some fear around sharing this.
I've recorded this podcast a couple of different times and debated how do I want to tellthis story because I don't want to be viewed as damaged.
I don't want to be viewed as anything but resilient.
But resilience doesn't mean just pushing through and pretending like those experiencesdidn't cause harm.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Unapologetically Yours podcast.
I'm your host, Ashley Logan, and I'm so happy to have you here today.
Unapologetically Yours is a podcast where we go deep on everything from spirituality torelationship and connection to business and belief systems.
Because in a world when we've been taught to play by the rules, it's time to liveunapologetically.
(00:47):
And I want to start off with a trigger warning.
This episode does talk about sexual assault at length.
And so keep that in mind before moving forward.
I also want to say that this episode is for both men and women, though it does focus onthe experience of being female.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ashley.
(01:07):
I'm an entrepreneur.
I'm a mother of three.
And I am also a person who's been on a deep journey of, let's say reclamation.
I've been working to get back to an aligned life, which required a huge amount of soulsearching.
required a lot of work and a lot of time and attention digging deep on all of the thingsthat I was carrying in my life.
(01:29):
What was mine?
What I could set down?
What wasn't mine?
And examining how my experiences were impacting my life in adulthood.
And I want to start off by saying that I am no stranger to sexual violence.
Even starting in like seventh grade.
I remember I was groped on the bus at school and I actually, it's funny because I wasreading
(01:51):
my diary from that time.
And I read all about the experience and how angry I was, but I didn't really have thevocabulary to explain that that was assault.
And nor were the tools available for me for like addressing that and how serious it is toprotect your body from those kinds of behaviors.
(02:13):
And I knew it was wrong.
And I also want to say that I have a lot of grace.
for the experiences that we have in our youth as we're trying to figure out what works forus, what doesn't, and exploring the boundaries and all of those things.
Like that's a normal part of growing up.
And a big part of the puzzle that was missing, I think, was the education around consentand assault and what it means to safely and with respect approach physical relationships.
(02:42):
And this was sort of reinforced.
Even my freshman year in high school, was still like had braces, was so naive.
And I had a sister who was a senior and she was gorgeous and everyone knew who she was andall of these things.
so I don't know if it was a prank.
I don't know where it came from.
And I still don't know to this day who did it, but someone started putting notes in mylocker and they were really profane and explicit sexually.
(03:10):
And I never knew when they were going to come.
And they were anonymous and they talked about what they wanted to do to my body, commentsabout my body and made me feel so unsafe in school that every time I would open my locker,
I would hold my breath, wondering if a note was going to drop to the floor.
And my mom was a really helpful advocate for me at the time.
(03:31):
And we went to the school administrators and the reality is, is that they didn't do muchto help me or support me.
there.
And I think that those were some of the early lessons around, you know, what kind of helpis available when you do speak up about feeling unsafe in your body.
And some of the earliest experiences of my life where I started to question my worth andquestion if I was worth being protected by someone and also just screaming into the echo
(03:58):
chamber of help.
Can someone see this?
anyone else see this?
And then with the response, just feeling like it didn't matter and my experiences didn'tmatter.
And I think that's something that a lot of people who've experienced sexual violence canrelate to.
And this trend sort of, you know, it continued.
And in terms of...
(04:20):
you know, the company that I kept or just experiencing high school and how people talkedabout sex and bodies and what was okay and what wasn't okay.
And learning that my body was going to be looked at, judged, evaluated, and that I wasgoing to be judged as a person for how I showed up in those situations.
And that really started a trend of me putting on a lot of armor early on and acting likethings were okay when they really weren't.
(04:45):
And so
At my first job out of college, I was harassed by some prominent figures in the field.
And that was really confusing and traumatic and like, is this okay?
People really believe it's okay to talk to people this way.
And then going on into when I worked in commercial real estate, I worked at a company thatwas really by and large the wild west.
(05:08):
There was even a lawsuit that was filed by a woman who worked there and she asked me toparticipate.
By then I had learned that the path.
to sharing these stories would be really met with silence, resistance, and lack of action,and that the pain of going through that with the trauma that I'd already experienced in my
life was too much, and I opted out, even though I had very good reason to opt in.
(05:31):
I could literally list dozens of scenarios and experiences, and I would say that for manywomen, those experiences are universal.
And for a long time, I blamed myself for every single one of those experiences, and I'mgonna share even.
and a deeper level.
the truth is, that society sort of blames women for the experiences, saying things like,did you scream and yell?
(05:54):
Did you tell someone?
What did you do?
What were you wearing?
Did you ask for it?
Were you drinking too much?
Were you doing this and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
And the list goes on and on.
And that is really hard.
And that's the space in our culture that I really want to examine.
And according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women willexperience rape or attempted rape in their lifetime.
(06:15):
And I know that number to be much higher from the women in my life and the stories thatthey share and whispers and the stories that they share when they feel safe to do so.
I have been raped three times.
That doesn't count times when I was pressured into unwanted sexual experiences, groped,harassed, stalked, raped.
(06:38):
Three times, three different men.
And I have some fear around sharing this.
I've recorded this podcast a couple of different times and debated how do I want to tellthis story?
Because I don't want to be viewed as damaged.
I don't want to be viewed as anything but resilient.
But resilience doesn't mean just pushing through and pretending like those experiencesdidn't cause harm because they did cause harm.
(07:05):
And I'm talking about this today because I know that I'm not alone and I have a plea forus to change the tide and to offer some insight about how we can maybe work together to
change the conditions for women out there.
And I thought about sharing the circumstances behind each of these experiences.
(07:29):
And I decided that I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I will say this.
Two of the men I knew.
One experience was in college, one in my mid twenties and the other later in life.
The other one was a stranger.
Each time it was brushed under the rug by peers and, and the police, when the police wereinvolved, they were not brushed under the rug by the women in my life.
(07:53):
And some of those experiences I didn't have the courage or ability to talk about foryears, but.
my body remembered.
And each time what was equally as traumatic as the experience itself was the lack ofsupport I received that was desperately needed to get through those situations.
(08:15):
And during each of those experiences, my body froze.
In fact, I left my body.
And realistically, took me a long time after those experiences.
for me to feel safe enough to come back to my body to fully feel like myself again.
And the wild thing about it, and this is why it's so important for us to share ourstories, is that I wasn't even fully aware of the depth of the trauma that I was carrying
(08:43):
until the Me Too movement, when I found the words to articulate how wrong some of thethings that I faced were.
And we can all agree that rape is wrong.
And there was many other instances there of experiencing pressure and or being groped orall of those other scenarios that were in sexual harassment, all of which created an
(09:05):
environment where women were fundamentally unsafe.
And addressing that trauma for me was not just about talk therapy, it was about deepsomatic.
work to release the experiences from my cells.
And that's part of the reason why I'm so passionate about the work I'm doing now.
And what sort of led me to somatic therapy in recent years, and I'm talking like some ofthese things that I just dove into the healing process in the last few years.
(09:34):
So years after these experiences happened, 20 years for the first one.
And what happened was a really good friend of mine and a healer that I work with.
we were standing in her kitchen and her son walked into the room and she watched me likemy body tense up and flinch.
And she was like, my God, does that happen to you every time a man walks into the room?
(09:58):
And I was like, holy shit, I think it does.
And I thought that even about that week, how a FedEx man had showed up at my door and howI instantly went into state of fight or flight and how much my body was carrying the
residual
effect of the mistrust and the experiences.
And I think that part of that knowing is is help available.
(10:21):
And so going into the somatic work, I was able to address some of those things.
And what I also wanted to share is that the scars of these experiences run deep.
And even reading back my seventh grade journal and knowing then like, my gosh, had I hadthe words to articulate what I was feeling then.
Wow, the path of my life been totally different when I have known how to advocate formyself in a different way?
(10:44):
So the Me Too movement was wildly significant for the one in five women who've experiencedsexual assault.
And it was also wildly significant for women who don't feel safe walking into a parkinggarage.
It's wildly significant for women who've experienced some level of harassment and wildlysignificant for women who have been objectified, all of us, and judged for our bodies, all
(11:07):
of us.
And it created a more level playing field where at least we could use the words to supportone another if the male population maybe wasn't going to.
And here's what I know about this is that women have carried the burden of sexual assaultand their experiences for centuries with men and women questioning us.
(11:30):
What were you wearing?
What were you doing?
How did you invite this to make us question if we are even worthy of protection?
It's a mindset that's ingrained in our culture.
And I am tired of screaming into the echo chamber about how important it is to change theculture for women, for our daughters.
But here's the part that people want to avoid.
(11:53):
If one in five women have experienced sexual assault, what is the figure for assailants?
Can we safely say that one in five men have committed an act of sexual violence against awoman?
And as I say those words, we know that it's true that these men are our neighbors, thatthese men are living among us, they're our friends.
(12:18):
And it's hard for me to just, I don't even want to say justify, it really bothers me thatwe as women are the ones who are carrying the burden of the trauma while men are.
sort of let off the hook and like, he fucked up or she was drunk or she was a slut or thisor that.
And the common thing that I want us all to know is that yes, mistakes happen.
(12:42):
And every time we allow those behaviors from men, we are creating a world that is lesssafe for our daughters.
So the men listening here, they know too, they know the way that women are talked about inlocker rooms, behind closed doors and group chats.
They know about the way they experience bachelor parties or nights out at the bar and thatobjectification of women and how it's justified.
(13:09):
And the truth is, is that we are all one.
So if it's okay for one woman to be treated that way, then it makes it okay for all womento be treated that way.
And it's not okay.
So the other thing that is really interesting to me about this is that
You know, there are very few men, and this is sad, that I would trust alone with mydaughter.
(13:33):
And part of this comes from the fact that I haven't seen men have the courage, the gusto,the balls to stand up and say enough is enough.
Because if you have friends who can demean women and you accept it, and you aren't awarethat one woman's experience is all women's experience, then you are part of the problem.
(13:54):
So...
One of the things that I've noticed that's really interesting right now is that we'reliving in an era where men, fathers of daughters, have really latched onto the anti-trans
movement as a mechanism for protecting their daughters, pointing to men in women's sportsas the primary source of harm for women.
And I want to say that this topic is nuanced and complicated in itself.
(14:18):
Biologically, there are a few women who could compete against a man successfully,particularly in areas like swimming and track.
And I get that that can create disappointment for hardworking female athletes and thatneeds to be handled with care.
All of those things can be true.
I also know that 0.01 % of collegiate athletes are trans.
It's far, far smaller number than the number around assault.
(14:42):
And I've noticed this, like recently saw a Facebook post where a man was screaming aboutthe
The left is so obsessed with trans rights and I'm going to protect my daughter from thisbecause I'm a father of a daughter and latching onto this like absolute minute issue, this
minute population of people.
And so I want to say this for the men out there who are screaming about this issue in thename of their daughters, I implore you to dig deeper at the real cause, the root cause of
(15:13):
female endangerment.
And that's you.
You are.
For allowing men.
to talk about women disparately in your presence, for commenting on women's bodies, forlooking the other way when your pals treat women like prey, because this is the root cause
of a deeply damaging systemic issue.
(15:35):
Because statistically speaking, if you aren't one of the assailants, you're hanging outwith them.
And if the harm it causes women, your daughters, your sisters, your wives, your coworkers,
That harm is significant.
The pain of sexual violence lives in the cells of all women.
The fear we care from having to live with our guard raised high is significant.
(15:59):
And it causes men harm too.
Don't get me started on what porn does for connection.
And porn is a big part of the problem.
I'm not going to go into that in this episode.
But the point is, is that as trivialized as the MeToo movement has become, we're electingofficials.
who are guilty of sexual violence.
(16:19):
We're celebrating them in our culture and turning the other cheek to the damage thiscauses women while focusing efforts on a minute statistic in the name of chivalry, in the
name of protecting women.
And that is bullshit.
For those who are survivors of sexual assault, this feels exactly like sitting in a policestation.
(16:45):
where you are asked again and again and again the same question about your assault untilyou take it all back and leave.
Screaming into the echo chamber of looking for help and it not being available is what itfeels like being a woman survivor right now in a time where there is no accountability
(17:05):
around sexual violence.
And we must, we must reconcile the difference.
One in five women has experienced sexual violence, which means the perpetrators are amongus now, today.
And I'd like for the movement of reconciliation to begin right now through accountabilityto start healing this damaged, broken culture.
(17:30):
If you are a man who advocates for women's rights, for women's safety, please, please lookto your circle and start to think about
how those behaviors impact the safety of your daughter.
If you would want your daughter hanging around with your friends and sort of speak up.
(17:50):
And if you were a man who has caused harm to another woman intentionally, knowingly ornot, I'm quite certain that you don't self-identify as a rapist, even though by
definition, if you have pursued sexual activity without consent, you are one.
But regardless of if it happened in high school or college or when you were drunk or shewas dressed slutty or was asking for it or whatever, that needs to be reconciled.
(18:16):
So if you can't start with the hard truth, start by identifying as a human who hurtanother human and pick up the phone and apologize to them.
Do it because only by taking ownership and accountability by the way your actionsperpetuated a belief system that puts women at risk.
Can we actually create a culture that is safe for women?
(18:39):
Show them what we will tolerate and show them what we will not.
Do it for your wives, do it for your sisters, do it for your daughters, do it for yourmothers and do it for your friends.
The trauma of sexual violence is something that lives on in ourselves.
It is something that women carry.
It is also passed down from generation to generation.
It is keeping women small and we need the men.
(19:02):
to start to show up in a way that creates a safer world for women.
And again, it starts with our behaviors.
It starts with you.
You can make the difference.
So if you are someone who is screaming from the rooftops about how we need to make thisworld safer for women, think about where that starts.
Think about the root cause of where women feel unsafe and begin.
(19:25):
And if you are a woman who has experienced sexual violence, I see you, I feel you, I amyou.
I cannot recommend enough using somatic work to help you move forward and release thattrauma from your body.
Being able to come back from living, I would say like my brain was, my spirit, my soul wasdisconnected from my body for a lot of years.
(19:50):
And when I finally started somatic work that allowed me to get deep into my body throughbreath work, sound healing, creativity, I was able to reconnect.
I was able to move forward and
reclaim aspects of myself that had been traumatized.
It's worth it.
It's worth it to go there.
It's worth it to do the work, especially if you can find people who can really supportyou.
(20:12):
And I'm so happy to say that on our next episode, we'll have a woman who is a somatictherapist and she can talk more about the importance of somatic therapy and how it's
different from regular therapy so that you can start to heal those parts of you that maybeyou didn't even know needed healing because you had to bury them so deep.
This is not easy to talk about and there are probably people in my life who are hearingthese stories from me for the first time.
(20:38):
And I am really grateful to have a platform to share this.
And I am really grateful that I have people in my life who I can talk about this with, whosee me, who understand me, who've experienced it.
And that now hopefully for anyone else who has experienced sexual violence, that they knowthat I too am a safe place for you to go.
and for you to share your story and know that you are safe, you are held, you matter.
(21:02):
And that while maybe screaming into the echo chamber of the abyss wasn't effective,turning to women who see you, who support you makes all of the difference.
We went deep today and thank you for listening.
This is so important.
It is so important that we create a world that is safe for our daughters.
There was something going around on social late last year around
(21:27):
if you would feel more safe as a woman in the woods with a bear or with a man.
And people chose the bear because sexual violence is so harmful and it runs so rampant.
it is something that some men don't even know that they're making a woman feeluncomfortable by giving them a hug when they weren't expecting it or by walking into a
(21:50):
room and they weren't invited or more...
And those things, like obviously those are trauma responsive for people who've experiencedsexual violence, but then also knowing that maybe at some point down the line, you were a
cause of this.
And it's important to reconcile that and take accountability and be fearless and start toright those wrongs so that we can all move forward together and create a safer place.
(22:16):
I also want to share that help is available.
The National Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-4673.
Help is available 24 hours a day so that you can get the support that you need.
And I hope that one day we live in a place that values women so deeply that we protectthem from sexual assault and sexual violence and sexual harassment at all costs because it
(22:43):
will lift up all of humanity.
Thank you again for tuning in.
I'm Ashley Logan and I am
Unapologetically, yours.
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