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October 5, 2025 54 mins

To become a client, visit me at catiaholm.com or leave an anonymous question for the show by calling or texting 956-249-7930. 

We open a hard, necessary conversation about sex, power, consent, and culture with educator Kelsey Benton. We share personal stories, define consent literacy, unpack coercion, discuss college “red zone” risks, and offer tools that build agency and care.

• making mental wellness accessible, compassionate and real
• consent literacy beyond slogans; context, power and identity
• nervous system responses: freeze and fawn explained
• forensic exam access and survivor agency in Texas
• social norms, media messages and decoding coercion
• the college “red zone” and why silence persists
• everyday “safety” habits vs victim-blaming myths
• shifting focus to people who cause harm and enablers
• practical scripts for check-ins and bystander moves
• parenting with open language, boundaries and repair

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Send this episode to someone who needs a little light. Remind them they're not alone.

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Show hosted by:

Catia Hernandez Holm, LMFT-A

Supervised by Susan Gonzales, LMFT-S, LPC-S


You can connect with Catia at couchtimewithcat.com

and

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Welcome to Couch Time with Cat, your safe place
for real conversation and agentle check-in.
KWVH presents Couch Time withCat.
Hi friends, and welcome to CouchTime with Cat, Mental Wellness
with a Friendly Voice.
I'm Kat, therapist, best-sellingauthor, TEDx speaker, and
endurance athlete.

(00:20):
But most of all, I'm a wife,mama, and someone who deeply
believes that people are goodand healing is possible.
Here in the hill country ofWimberley, Texas, I've built my
life and practice around onepurpose to make mental wellness
feel accessible, compassionate,and real.
This show is for those momentswhen life feels heavy, when

(00:42):
you're craving clarity, or whenyou just need to hear, you're
not alone.
Each week we'll explore theterrain of mental wellness
through stories, reflections,research, and tools you can
bring into everyday life.
Think of it as a conversationbetween friends, rooted in
science, guided by heart, andgrounded in the belief that
healing does not have to feelclinical.

(01:04):
It can feel like sitting on acouch with someone who gets it.
So whether you're driving,walking, cooking, or simply
catching your breath, you'rewelcome here.
This is your space to feel seen,supported, and reminded of your
own strength.
I'm so glad you're here.
Let's dive in.
What if we treated conversationsabout sex, power, and consent

(01:25):
not as shame to avoid, but asacts of connection, clarity, and
healing?
In today's episode, I'm talkingwith Kelsey Benton, a longtime
advocate and educator inviolence prevention, about how
we actually do this work,especially with young people in
communities and acrossidentities.
We'll lean into what'suncomfortable, what we avoid,

(01:48):
and how we begin to shiftculture from silence to care.
Friends, I need you to know thatthis episode is gonna be loaded
with uncomfortableconversations.
I need you to know that me, asyour host, I'll probably share
some really difficult personalexperiences.
I wouldn't recommend thisepisode for little ears.

(02:09):
And I'm just gonna share somehard truths.
And I've shared all these truthsin my books already, but not
everybody reads my books.
And there's something differentabout putting your difficult
experience on a page and thenbeing able to close that and
like put it on a bookshelf.
There's something very differentabout speaking it into the air.

(02:35):
And I just want you to know thatI may not have all the answers,
and our guests may not have allthe answers, but we're not here
for that necessarily.
We're here to say there are somany of us out there.

(03:02):
And my hope and my intention inthis episode is to lower the
statistics, to lower it, to makeit a safer place for our
children, for our young peopleout there, that they do not have
to experience what I haveexperienced, and they don't have

(03:26):
to do the healing work on thisstuff, and that they don't have
to live in fear, and that theyhave the tools to navigate a
moment should they ever bepresented with the moment, and
that they just kind of have umlanguage around it.

(03:48):
I think for so long these typesof topics have been hidden
because they're really hard.
They're just really hard.
And you may be thinking, what isshe talking about?
She just said three sentencesand then started on this uh
monologue about her own personalexperience.

(04:08):
So just stick with me, okay?
I was once in a circle withcollege students doing an
exercise called Boundaries inMotion.
We asked them to map out a timethey felt unsure about a
boundary.
One student shared how theyfroze mid-interaction.
Super understandable becausethey didn't have the words.

(04:30):
Another said they felt shame fornot pushing back.
Also understandable.
Those moments linger, they shapehow we show up in intimacy and
community in our own bodies.
Today's conversation is aboutleaning into that tension.

(04:51):
It's about acknowledging howreal messy and relational work
prevents violence.
Because the cost of silenceisn't just for survivors, it's
for all of us.
When we don't have language,when we don't practice consent,
when power dynamics stay hidden,we lose connection, trust, and

(05:12):
safety.
In this episode, we explore howprevention lives in
conversation, just like thisone.
Empathy, structure, and thecourage to sit with discomfort,
just like I'm doing right now.
And probably you're doing asyou're listening to this.
Good job.

(05:32):
Good job.
Stay with me.
It's okay to be uncomfortable.
Let's take a deep breath.
Let's talk about what thescience says about consent
boundaries and culture.
First, trauma and the nervoussystem.
Research shows that when weexperience stress, shame, or
fear, our brain's executivefunctioning can go offline,

(05:55):
which makes it harder to set orassert boundaries.
I teach this every day in myprivate practice.
Second, social norms deeplyinfluence our behavior.
Studies and bystanderintervention show we often take
cues from others.
If no one speaks up, we assumeit's not our place.

(06:18):
And third, our identities shapehow safe or unsafe we feel in
setting boundaries or assertingconsent.
So prevention isn't one sizefits all.
It's contextual.
It's layered.
And the stakes are real.
A 2019 national survey of over180,000 college students found

(06:40):
that about 13% reportedexperiencing non-consensual
sexual contact involving forceor incapacitation.
Among undergraduate women, thatnumber is closer to 26.4%.
For undergraduate men, around6.8 reported the same.
These numbers are not edgecases.

(07:03):
They're a reflection of what'shappening in our classrooms,
dorms, and communities.
This has happened to us, andthis is happening to our
children.
Today I'm honored to welcomeKelsey Banton to Catch Time with
Cat.
Kelsey has worked for over 20years as an advocate, educator,
and strategist in violenceprevention, especially around

(07:27):
consent boundaries and shiftingculture.
She's trained everyone fromyouth to law enforcement, and
her work is rooted intrauma-informed intersectional
approaches.
She's also a mindfulnessinstructor and believes in
creating compassionate emergentspaces where conversation around
sex, power, and agency are notonly possible but necessary.

(07:50):
Hi, Kelsey.
Hello, Katya.

SPEAKER_00 (07:54):
I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_03 (07:56):
I'm so excited you're here.
This is such a big and heavytopic.
Let me start off by saying orasking what drew you to this
work.

SPEAKER_00 (08:07):
I want to start by recognizing that the heaviness
is oftentimes can feelsoul-crushing when we are by
ourselves and when we do this byourselves.
And your uh introduction aroundthe community and conversation
around this is the mostimportant part of how we really

(08:31):
get to preventing this fromhappening in the first place.
Um so I just really thank youfor using that language and and
really kind of like welcomingthis environment for us to kind
of like dig in and get to kindof sometimes again that
uncomfortable piece, but when wedo it together, it lifts so much
of that off of our shoulders.

(08:51):
I started this work in college.
I was an individual who was verynot directed for anything.
I was a uh psychology major wheneveryone asked what I would do
for a living.
I was like, I'll be aprofessional bartender.

(09:12):
And I'm not really sure.
I had no real ambition.
I had no real understanding ofwhat my skill sets were and
where I would land.
And um, my best friend incollege was volunteering at the
Rape Crisis Center.
And she asked me, Are youvolunteering anywhere?

(09:36):
And I said no.
And she said, Do you want to tryvolunteering?
And I was like, Shh, I canprobably do that.
And I am forever grateful toCandace for that.
And she set me on a trajectorythat has made my life um more
meaningful, in my opinion, andhas given given me so many tools

(09:59):
to navigate my personal life, toraise my children, to have this
professional space that I reallyget to talk with people about
what they think about consentand cultural norms and how we
negotiate those spaces with oneanother.
And so um I started in crisisintervention.
I started as a an as an advocatein hospitals.

(10:20):
Um, after an individualexperiences sexual assault, they
now have 120 hours to go to ahospital and receive um what we
call a safe, a sexual assaultforensic examination.
Wait, say that again?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (10:34):
What?
No.

SPEAKER_00 (10:35):
Which part?

SPEAKER_03 (10:37):
If somebody has experienced sexual assault, they
can ex they can what resource dothey have?

SPEAKER_00 (10:42):
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Oh, I will stop me when I havesaid too much.
Um so um in so the body is whereall of the evidence is.
And so there is 120 hours afteran assault that a person can go
to the hospital and they can askfor a sexual assault forensic

(11:05):
examination.

SPEAKER_03 (11:06):
I see, I see, I see, I see.
My brain processed thatdifferently.

SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
Okay, so how many days is that?
That's five days.
Okay.
That's right.
And it's a great question.
No, this is a I usually say fivedays, but because we're on a
podcast, I thought it would bevery specific and professional
for you.
So You are, you are.
It's five days, and anindividual can go and get that
exam done.
Importantly, just as like aresource for individuals who are

(11:30):
listening, that exam um does notcost um the survivor anything in
Texas.
It's paid for by the crimevictims compensation fund.
And an individual does not haveto file a police report to get
that exam done.
And there's so many importantreasons for why Texas passed
that law.
We're very grateful for thosetypes of laws being passed.
Most people who are sexuallyassaulted know the person who

(11:52):
sexually assaulted them.
And to come forward and to go tothe police and report against
that person, that there's somany barriers.
And so that's that that's gone.
So um, why should somebody, I'msorry to jump in.

SPEAKER_03 (12:06):
Why should somebody go get an exam?

SPEAKER_00 (12:09):
So oftentimes an individual is trying to navigate
what to do and what those nextsteps are.
And this is one of many, manysteps that an individual could
take because it allows the veryhighly trained nurses to collect
evidence off of the body.
And so they'll start at the topof the head and they'll work all

(12:29):
the way down to the feet, andthey'll do things like they'll
comb through the hair on the topof the head or pubic hair,
looking for um hair that doesn'tbelong to the person who
experienced violence.
If there was any scratching,they'll dig underneath
fingernails.
If the perpetrator put theirmouth anywhere on the body,
they're gonna swab that.
And then if that individual isum not a minor, they are able to

(12:52):
consent um to every part of thisexam.
But in particular, if there wasany penetration, whether it was
oral, anal, or vaginal, they'lldo an examination as well to
collect evidence and swab.
They collect all of thatevidence and then they hold it
for up to two years.
And that gives the person whoexperienced violence time and

(13:13):
space to determine if they wantto move forward and press
charges.
They don't have to make thatdecision on hour 10.
They don't have to make thatdecision on hour 119.
They get a they get a step awayand really determine what's best
for them and what they want.
And so it gives them options andit gives them agency, it gives
them access to potentially aprocess through the justice

(13:35):
system.
But throughout maybe thisconversation, it's always,
always going back to what accessand agency did we give people?

SPEAKER_03 (13:44):
Wow.
Okay.
So, listeners, stay with me.
I'm gonna do like body checks onmyself while we have this
conversation, just so you knowwhat that's like.
My arms are tingly, I kind offeel my voice in my throat.
I'm feeling very uncomfortable.

(14:05):
Um, I am a grown woman.

unknown (14:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (14:08):
And I'm feeling very uncomfortable talking about
this.
I'm so going, it doesn't meanit's bad, it just means I'm not
practiced at it.
And these are hard things.
So, listener, if you're feelinglike this, you're not alone.
These are not everydayconversations, but let me tell
you why it's so valuable.

(14:30):
Because you will know somebodywho experiences something, and
God forbid, it's I don't wantyou to ever have to have this
information.
But if you ever do need it, younow know, oh, this happened to
so and so.
They have five days to go to thehospital because when this

(14:52):
happens to us, we are not fullypresent, like we're not our
brain is not completely online.
Um so having information beforeit's the fire is burning, so to
speak, like knowing where thefire extinguisher is before the

(15:12):
fire gets out of control is soimportant.
And the tools that Kelsey'stelling us today she's telling
us where the fire extinguisheris.
We hope we don't need it.
But but just in case.

SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
Yeah.
And even when we don't need it,the way in which we potentially
will know someone who needs itis such a foundational part of
this conversation because it isso prevalent.
So I I appreciate you bringingin the body check.
Something that's amazing aboutpodcasts is that you get a press

(15:45):
pause.
Right?
Yeah.
You get a press pause and youget to go do something for you.
You get to wind those shoulders.
Yes.
Uh you get a maybe never comeback to this, or you get a come
back in 45 minutes.
Um what whatever it is thatworks for you, you have the
ability to do that and please dothat for yourself.

(16:06):
You deserve, you deserve to beable to press pause and maybe
never come back to this.
And that's that's also okay.

SPEAKER_03 (16:11):
Yeah, I totally agree.
What does consent literacy mean?

SPEAKER_00 (16:20):
So consent is the way in which we are agreeing to
an activity fully, mutually,respectfully.
Consent literacy is the way inwhich we consume information
around us to be able to unpackand recognize if that is what's
happening in those spaces.

(16:41):
Can we identify what consentlooks like?
Can we suss out the context andenvironment that you were
speaking to earlier, Katya,around maybe why maybe someone
is acting a certain way, maybewhy they are what we would call
fawning.
And so they're pretending tolike something, they're

(17:03):
pretending to engage in abehavior, whether that's
flirting, whether that'skissing, whether that's sending
nudes, um, because the realityis maybe that they're very, very
afraid of what will happen ifthey don't do those things.
Um, we are able to look at theenvironment and context to
recognize and identify what isactually happening in that

(17:23):
space.
And sometimes, reallyimportantly, when we're talking
about sexual assault, sexualviolence, we have to bring in
coercion.
We have to be talking about canwe identify what coercion looks
like in especially our socialnorms.
And so coercion is the way inwhich someone is using
manipulation and pressure toforce someone to do something

(17:46):
without ever using physicalforce.
And statistically, that is howmost sexual assaults happen.
And so we have to sit with maybesome of the images maybe we've
seen in movies, right?
I can think of I'm a 90s girl,proudly.
And I was left to my own devicesuh from time to time with my TV.

(18:10):
And let me tell you, if I canget a lifetime movie, Cinemax?
Cinemax?
At my grandma's Cinemax?
Why do grandmas always haveCinemax?
Because they know what's up.
Because they know what's up.
Yes, grandma had Cinemax indeed.

SPEAKER_03 (18:24):
I Cinemax and Argos, I was like, whoa, this is some
intense.

SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
Am I learning?
And and we were learning.
Were we learning pleasure andconsent that was mutual?
No.
Were we learning performance?
Yes.
Um, and when we talk aboutconnection and we talk about how
connection, whether you'rehaving sex with someone one time

(18:51):
or a thousand times, um caringthat that person wants to be
there, caring that that personis enjoying themselves and is is
fully engaged, like that is thegame changer, right?
Um, this isn't about likehookups are bad.
This isn't that sex with oneperson is bad.
It is, do you care that thatother person wants to be there

(19:13):
and doing those things with you?
Um and do you can you can yourecognize when maybe they don't
want to be doing maybe a certainsexual activity?
Or when maybe they said theywanted to do something, but oh
nope, now we're changing ourmind because that's no longer
something we're enjoying.
And so really getting to whatwhat type of things were did we
do we consume and what are themessages it's sending us?

(19:36):
And can we unpack that together?

SPEAKER_03 (19:38):
Oh my God.
I've really never thought aboutdeep breath, everybody.
I've never thought about thetype of media I consumed as a
child or you know, a young girl,and what I was learning from

(20:01):
that.
I mean, I had broken it apart interms of, oh, I wanted to marry
a prince, right?
The like standard Disney prince.
I am the little mermaid, I needa Prince Eric.

SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
You know, this is like coming out of the water
importantly to save me?
Yes.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 (20:17):
My dad, King Triton, he's always against me and the
boys, you know, whatever.
So like I had unpacked that andthen I just checked a box.
I was like, that's okay, I knowwhat's happening.
Check.
I I really never, I never wentany, I never went past that
point.

SPEAKER_00 (20:33):
Yeah.
Wow.
It's so and when we talk about,you know, what are like action
items that we can do with likeyoung people, this is a huge
place we can settle in.
I uh I have two girls, and Icannot tell you how many times
that we are just listening tomusic together, and there is a

(20:55):
lyric in an in a somewhatbenign, right, song, and there
is a lyric or a type of way inwhich something is being
referred to, and my kids knowthat it is an immediate pause
and it is a it is a like, whatare they talking about?
What do they mean?
And it's not, you know, Katya,like this is for me a really

(21:16):
important piece of how we talkto youth, right?
It is not, don't ever consumethat.
That's not that's not gonnahappen.
That's not realistic.
It is we are consuming this.
What is it telling you?
Do you want that?
Right.
Do you want that experience?
And maybe they're like, I don'tknow, right?
Um, but maybe they're like, Ithink it's telling me that I

(21:39):
should be behaving a certain wayto get attention.
And then we get to make andsometimes that conversation
lasts for five seconds.
Right.
Uh, because they areuninterested.
Um but it sometimes it can godeeper, um, right?
What dystopian books are aboundright now, and so many of those

(22:00):
characters is the the conflict,love, hate uh between the like
the protagonist and theantagonist.
And it is the way in which likewe hate each other so much, we
must be having the best sexpossible.

SPEAKER_03 (22:12):
Uh listener, I am rolling my eyes here because
this is the stuff, these are thetopics that I unravel with
clients session after session,what healthy love looks like and
feels like versus this justcompletely inaccurate version of

(22:34):
what healthy love is.
Um, so there is this um Mexicansinger, and his name is Luis
Miguel.
And I grew up on this guy, andhe is just the king of Mexico.
And his songs are pining.
You know, he pines for his loveand desperate and loves

(22:54):
themselves.

SPEAKER_00 (22:54):
Oh and loves them so deeply that he would write all
these songs for them.

SPEAKER_03 (22:58):
Oh my god, and I can't live without you.
And I'm like, if somebody'stelling you that, you'd better
run the other way.
Like, you don't want somebody tolive, you want somebody to live
without you.
If there is a pining, that is anunhealthy dynamic.
And so, but I grew up on that.
That's something I had tounravel.

(23:18):
I thought, oh, my partner willjust want to need me like a
bottle of whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
Is that a lyric?
I would love it if it did.

SPEAKER_03 (23:29):
That's a country song.

SPEAKER_00 (23:30):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (23:30):
So it's a lyric and a country song.
I think it's a Tim McGraw song.
Like I need not Tim.
Not my first love Tim.
Oh, so it's everywhere.
It's a Mexican thing.
It's a country thing.
It's all it's in all the things.
It's in all the things.
Right.
Yes.
And so, okay.
What you're saying is like, seeit for what it is, acknowledge

(23:51):
it, but don't just dive deepinto it and think this is the
way it is.

SPEAKER_00 (23:55):
That's right.
That's right.
How do we open up theconversation, whether we're
talking to my 14-year-old orwhether we're talking to college
students, or whether we'retalking to adults, children or
no children, how do we open upthose conversations to critique
what we're actually seeing andhow that is deeply embedded in

(24:16):
sometimes our socialexpectations when we arrive in
places?
And you hit it like, I mean,Katia, it's so it permeates.
It is so deep in how we show upin our own personal spaces.
And just to be able to like seehow to undo some of that is
work.
It does not surprise me thatlike this is a component of what

(24:37):
you spend time in in sessions,because these are messages we
started receiving in five andsix, right?
And it's not importantly, it isnot one message, one time.
These do not exist in a vacuum.
And so the culmination of how wesee these from the time that
we're watching Disney cartoons,which I love.
I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a womanwho will watch a Disney movie,

(25:00):
um, but also throughout othercomponents of our media
throughout the rest of ourlives.
Like it all, it's all situatedthe same.
And so we have to be able tokind of stop and be like, hold
up, what you're saying is notactually something that when I
experienced it felt good for me.
It didn't serve me.
It made me feel responsible foranother person's behavior.

SPEAKER_03 (25:20):
I even think that is significantly further along.
Even knowing that it doesn'tfeel good for you requires a
pause and awareness that most ofus don't have.
We're like, this is just the wayit is.
Like, good for me.
Nobody's asking me if it's good.

SPEAKER_00 (25:37):
It's just yeah.
And you know, it goes back towhat do we think we're allowed
to ask?
And what do we think we'reallowed to say no to, which is
inherent to consent.
Do we believe that we get to sayno to people when we have set up
a space in which maybe it lookedlike we wanted to have sex with

(25:57):
them, or we have agreed to maybesomething sexual in the past,
but we no longer want to do thatthing anymore, right?
It's so it is so pivotal to howwe think about our own agency
and our own ability to create aboundary.
Um, that in a if it's if thereis safety, you won't get
punished for that.

(26:17):
You won't get punishedemotionally, and you won't get
punished physically.

SPEAKER_03 (26:22):
I also have two girls.

SPEAKER_00 (26:25):
Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_03 (26:26):
And they feel very comfortable saying no.
To me, especially.

SPEAKER_00 (26:32):
Always to the mamas.
Because you give space for that.

SPEAKER_03 (26:36):
I sure do.
That's right.
And even though that I pay theprice for that in some ways as a
mother, and a lot of ways as amother, I I would rather that.

SPEAKER_00 (26:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (26:52):
I didn't as a young girl, I grew up Mexican.
I mean, I'm Mexican, but I grewup Catholic and we're very
dutiful.
We're very dutiful to our men.
When I was dating my husband, mygrandma came up behind me, Maya
Wilita, and she pinched the faton my arm, and she said, uh,
sirvete a tu sirvete tu hani.

(27:15):
She called him my honey.
And what she meant was make hima plate of food.
Mm-hmm.

unknown (27:22):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (27:22):
But I married a guy from Iowa, and he doesn't expect
me to make him a plate of food.
So I was like, What?
Make him a plate of food?
It's a grown man.
He's 40 years old.
Get up and go get your own plateof food.
He wasn't even asking.
And he was that's right.
Yeah, it had nothing to do.
It was a it was a it was womanto woman.
That's right.
That's right.

(27:43):
And as progressive and brave andstrong and just incredible, I
wear her ring, I wear, I wearher on me, her spirit on me so
much.
Um that was a passing of thebaton.
I serve you serve.

(28:04):
And don't get me wrong, I thinkthere's a place for serving and
sacrifice, but but the pauseallows us to serve from a
different place of intention.
I'm happy to serve my husband aplate of food, but it's not
about that.
It's about the place where I'mcoming from.

SPEAKER_00 (28:23):
That's right.
It's not expected.

SPEAKER_03 (28:25):
Right.
Am I doing it from worth or forworth?
That's right.

SPEAKER_00 (28:28):
That's exactly right.
Wow.

SPEAKER_03 (28:31):
Listener, I want you, I'm gonna ask you, invite
you to recall a time whenboundaries felt unclear to you.
Did you get like a a a lump inyour throat?
Did your stummy start to feelweird?
Did you have to go to thebathroom right away?
So when boundaries feel unclear,it uh shows up in our body, but

(28:57):
we can only really pay attentionif we're paying attention.
We can only really only feel itif we're paying attention.
What did you say?

SPEAKER_00 (29:06):
Yeah, I think when we talk about how it how our
fear shows up in our body, it issometimes incredibly challenging
to recognize even what'shappening because of what you
were talking about earlier,Katia, of the amygdala and kind
of what happens to ourprefrontal cortex, right?

(29:27):
I'm like when we so much ofmaking sure that individuals are
supported and believed is I, inmy opinion, is understanding
trauma and understanding traumain the brain.
Like there is a physiologicalresponse that is happening to an
individual.
No one is making an a decision.
No one is saying, I'm going todo this because of this

(29:49):
logically.
There's no A B.
It is your prefrontal cortexgoes in the back seat, and our
amygdala, which is, you know,the amygdala is our smoke
detector.
Our amygdala is constantlytagging things, making sure that
we stay safe.
And when we are in a place wherewe feel like our boundaries are

(30:10):
being crossed, maybe we saidwhat our boundary was and that
person didn't care.
Maybe we didn't say what thatboundary was, but we have
stopped moving.
We have turned away.
We have stopped making eyecontact.
Um, all of those things, right,um, are happening because now,
now we're trying to stay alive.
Now we're trying to survive inthat moment.

(30:30):
And your body is doing so manywonderful things for you to
survive.
Your body releases fourdifferent chemicals.
One of them is oxytocin to makesure that if you were to
experience pain, it's gonnaalleviate that in the moment for
you.
So you're not feeling that.
Um, so it's doing all of thesebeautiful things physiologically

(30:52):
to your body.
Um, and sometimes also those canbe really confusing moments.
So I I have a I've had aphysiological response to like
arousal that also looked reallysimilar to when I was scared.
Um, and my my whole bodyshivers.
And it shivers in a way that isso uncontrollable.

(31:14):
It like it was embarrassing inthe moment in which I was like
experiencing arousal.
Um, but when I was afraid, I itmade the other person stop
because of how like tremendousthe con like like the body, my
body was just moving.
Um, and so it's also justrecognizing that like say again,
like like safety is a keycomponent here.

(31:36):
Um, and when an individual feelsit in their body, there is, in
my opinion, I have anexpectation when I have
conversations with youth or withcollege students or with adults,
I have expectations that webecome a little bit more
responsible to being able tolike watch that person and
notice when maybe we see some ofthose things happening.

SPEAKER_03 (31:57):
Thank you for sharing that personal
experience.
I think that that's gonna help alot of people.
I will add to your personalexperience with my own.
Um listener, I'm about to sharesome hard stuff, but like I
said, I've shared it in booksbefore.
I've done a lot of therapy workon it, and so I'm not sharing

(32:19):
from a place of woundedness, I'msharing from a place of resolve.
I've worked a lot on this.
So when I was in undergraduateschool, I was sexually assaulted
and I didn't tell anybody.
And um, nobody didn't tellanybody.

(32:42):
And he was a football player,not to blame anybody, but um
there were many power dynam notto not blame, what's the word?
Um pigeonhole, stereotype,anything like that.
Um I'm more explaining that interms of power dynamics.
Like I thought he was so cool.

(33:04):
And yeah.
So um he invited me to his dormroom to study.
And then uh he had other plans.
So that was my first time.
Didn't tell anybody, didn't gethelp because I didn't know, I
didn't I literally had no cluewhat to do or say.

SPEAKER_01 (33:23):
Like zero.

SPEAKER_03 (33:25):
Um then it happened again in graduate school in
another city, and this time,listener, I'm gonna share
something so personal, but Ineed you to hear it because I
think it will help a lot ofpeople.
I went into something calledfawning, and I didn't fight, and

(33:51):
I didn't say no.
And in that moment, my body madea decision.
Like the easiest way for her toget out of this is to accept it.
And so I did.
But it took me, listener, 17years to figure out that that's
what happened.

(34:13):
Seventeen years.
Not of thinking about it everyday, but of going back to it and
it not quite feeling right, andnot quite, I didn't I didn't
want to call it rape because itdidn't feel like that.
And I felt complicit and it wasjust so incredibly confusing.
Um that time, thank God, I toldmy mom and she got me the help

(34:39):
that I needed.
So, um thanks, Mom.

SPEAKER_00 (34:44):
Thanks, Mom.
Yeah, thanks, Mom.
Thanks, Mom.
Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 (34:48):
We were in Dillard's looking at earrings, and I
didn't I didn't have the courageto look at her in the eyes.
I just stared stayed looking atthe earrings and I said, Hey,
this happened.
She said, Okay.
She got me the help.
So if you're out there and ifthat has happened to you, if

(35:09):
you've gone into Fawn, it's veryconfusing.
Very confusing.
And this is part of the healingwork I do with clients all the
time.
I don't think it's anycoincidence that I do a lot of
sexual trauma work in my therapybecause I've been through it,
I've worked through it.

(35:31):
And I know how heavy andconfusing it can feel.
And I literally can't imaginewhat my life would have been
like if I would have knownsomebody like you or attended a
program like that back then.
Like I just had no language.

unknown (35:46):
That's right.

SPEAKER_03 (35:47):
No language for it.
I just kind of was like a weirdEaster egg hunt over the
decades.

SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
That's right.
Of trying to navigate acircumstance and an experience
that no one put words around.
And honestly, even beyond that,uh potentially went out of their
way not to talk about it.
The way in which the silenceassumes the shame that survivors

(36:13):
experience.
Thank you, Katia.
Thank you so much for sharingthat right now.
I I appreciate how when we'rehaving these harder
conversations and we're talkingabout it, we know that when we
uh use our own stories, we alsoare able to have people relate

(36:35):
to those experiences.
And people oftentimes willunderstand sexual assault
through people's stories.
We can give definitions.
I love a definition.
I always give a definition.
And we have to centerexperiences of what people what
people go through because thatis how people make connection to

(36:58):
maybe what happened to them orwhat maybe could happen or what
they hear happen.
When we have conversations, umlike when I have college
conversations with collegestudents, one of the ways in
which I always appreciate thoseexperiences is that we have to
be able to be comfortabletalking about the ordinary and
the way in which people havewomen are so disproportionately

(37:24):
affected by sexual assault theirfreshman year.
They actually researchersactually have a term for it.
Af advocates and educators andactivists didn't create the
term.
The researchers who do the workwere so alarmed by how
disproportionate the rate ofsexual assaults were for women
that they called it the redzone.
And it is the first eight weekswhen individuals arrive their

(37:47):
first and second semester on acollege campus.

SPEAKER_02 (37:50):
Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 (37:51):
And it is alarming.
It is it is the highest rate ofsexual assaults among a group
that exists on a college campus.

SPEAKER_02 (37:58):
Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 (37:59):
And so so much of this is unpacking this is
something that is happening to alot of individuals on college
campuses.
And there is a incredibly justanger-filled moment for me
before I do presentationssometimes of how ordinary that
can feel.
But we also have to talk aboutthe exceptional, and we also

(38:20):
have to talk about how these areexperiences that people never
ever came to campus thinkingthey would have.
And now they have to navigatethis whole new community, they
have to navigate new friendgroups, they have to navigate
their academic success aroundthis tremendously traumatic

(38:41):
experience.
And most people don't tellanyone.
That's also part of theordinary, right?
The way in which we know mostpeople don't tell anyone.
Most people don't have thelanguage to sometimes even start
those conversations.
When I sometimes sit down with acollege student who um discloses
that they've experienced sexualassault, stalking, dating,

(39:02):
violence, I anecdotally I havefound that a majority of the
sentences start off with, I feelcrazy.
Because they are trying toreconcile what happened in an
environment that maybe doesn'tfeel welcoming and they don't

(39:24):
know where to go, and they maybedon't have the information of
how to get those resources.
So it's a really, reallyincredible story for you to
share that to really helpcontextualize what that looks
like for people.
So I really appreciate yousharing.

SPEAKER_03 (39:40):
You're welcome.
Something that I feel the needto say is that this happens to
us no matter if our parents loveus or not.
No matter if they're texting usor sending us care packages, or
if we have a warm bed to go hometo.

(40:03):
So it's not about bad parenting.
It's not about not being loved.
It's not about that.
And so I think for all of uslistening, I would venture to
say everybody listening, you'rea good parent.
You're doing it.
You got this.
It's not that our love it's thatpart of our love for our

(40:29):
children needs to be havingthese conversations when they go
off to college, and I'm surebefore, but especially when
they're leaving the home.
This is part of the way that welove them.
That's right.

SPEAKER_00 (40:42):
And I and I'm I'll push that a little bit further.
We've been talking a lot aboutthe people who experience the
violence.
And sometimes what we tend to doin our culture is we don't have
conversations about the peoplewho potentially cause harm.
And so much about how we stop.
Let me let me go back.
How we stop this from happeningis we talk about the people who

(41:03):
cause harm.
When we talk about what does itlook like to objectify other
people?
What does it look like to notcare about people's boundaries?
What does it look like to notcare that that person wants to
be doing that thing sexuallywith you, or even non-sexually,
right?
When we talk about like how wetake this to like a sixth,
seventh grade conversation,let's talk about how we just
respect boundaries outside ofsex.

(41:26):
And so much of prevention isthat we've been telling
historically women how toprevent sexual assault from
happening since the 80s.
And the numbers haven't changed,Gatia.
One in four women and one insixteen men will experience an
attempted or sexual assaultbefore they graduate from their
institution.
And that number hasn't changedsince we started collecting the

(41:47):
data in the early 80s.
And to be fair, I want to saythat we also didn't start
collecting data on men until themid-90s, and that just speaks to
how like getting data around menis so challenging and there are
so many barriers.
But I just want to say that wecannot it.
That's not it.

SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
We need to fold in the rest.

SPEAKER_00 (42:06):
We have to be having and what happens, right, when
we're talking about aheterosexual like couple who are
wanting to have sex withanother, what we've essentially
done is we've said you are onopposing teams, and one of you
needs to be really scared of theother one.
And one of you needs to makesure that you don't trust the
other one at all.
And you need to show up and youneed to not give in, and you

(42:28):
need to be clear about yourboundaries, and you need to make
really good eye contact and youneed to know yourself, and that
protects you.
And that is all rooted infalsehood.
Those are all myths, right?
Most people who are sexuallyassaulted are sexually assaulted
from someone that they know.
And so they like them, they'reattracted to them, right?

(42:48):
Um we tend to talk about peoplewho abuse other people as if
they're like scary individualsin the monster, like monsters
waiting to like jump out at us.
I'll never forget, I was uh whenI was in college, um, I was a
I'm a runner.
And so when I was in college, Iwould go running at 10 30 at
night.
That was my peak workout hour,Katia.
To be young, to have time.

(43:11):
And so I would run outside and Iwould go running at 10:30.
Um, my dad and I um were runnerstogether.
It's one of our tethers to eachother.
It's a very important part ofhow we connected.
And so I would call himsometimes after my run, which
sometimes would be 11:30, 1145.
And one time he was just like,Are you are you running by

(43:31):
yourself?
And I'm like, I am.
And he's like, Do you haveheadphones in?
I was like, 100% I haveheadphones in.
I could never.
And he was so angry at me, gotdead.
He was and not only because youwere unsafe.
Uh not only the way in whichlike I put myself in a position
that he thought was bad, butit's like I raised you better

(43:52):
than that, right?
Like this real in which like Idid all of this work to keep you
safe.
And you're just with both hands,just like throwing that out the
window because you don't listento me per usual, Kelsey.
And it was such a moment of likereconciling for myself of how to
be able to move with freedom andhow to be able to not change my

(44:16):
behavior.
Wow.
So I could be just like everyoneelse I knew, right?
But importantly men who wereable to go running at 10 30 at
night and never be asked, Whatare you doing?

SPEAKER_03 (44:28):
Why are you being so dumb?
I can say with like clearcertainty, I'm not there.

SPEAKER_00 (44:32):
That's fair.

SPEAKER_03 (44:33):
I'm not even I am nowhere near that.

SPEAKER_00 (44:36):
But that's so Katya, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 (44:38):
Nowhere.
I listener, I need you to know,I still think about if I'm gonna
go somewhere, like justsomewhere, I don't know.
I'll think pants or dress.
And I will put on pants as a wayto keep myself extra safe.
That's right.

SPEAKER_00 (44:55):
I Katya, I do uh I do an exercise with students and
I ask them, have you ever wokenup in the morning, gotten
dressed, looked in the mirror,thought about your day, and
changed to ensure that you wouldbe protecting yourself from
harm.
And nine if I'm talking to uh aroom of individuals who identify
as women, like 99% of them sayyes.

(45:17):
Um the way in which like I don'tput my hair in a ponytail when I
go for a run, Kelsey.
Um I keep my thumb above the 911number on my cell phone as I'm
walking from one dark locationto another dark location.
Um the way in which I invokehaving a boyfriend when I feel
uncomfortable, because the factthat I have a boyfriend prevents

(45:39):
you.

SPEAKER_03 (45:40):
It protects you.

SPEAKER_00 (45:40):
Yeah, like my boundaries don't matter.
But if a man's boundaries forme, is that is that what do I
need to invoke a man being withme for you to respect my
boundary?
And the answer is yes for a lotof people.
And so so much of so that's likethat is a c we do that because
we protect ourselves.
And so so much of theseconversations, it's like, and
those don't protect us.

SPEAKER_03 (46:02):
Right.
And we need to do the hard workof, you know, I'm of a
generation where I'm probablygonna wear, I'm gonna think
about wearing pants.
You know, like I'm 42, I'm gonnawear pants.
But I also need to be active andproactive about changing it, not

(46:24):
just like quote unquoteprotecting myself, changing the
cultural landscape, um, which isdouble the work.
Oh, it's Katia.
I go ahead.
But also you said somethingreally interesting about the 911
and the ponytail, which I don'tdo, but I'm sure I do other
things.
So, listener, I am sure that ifyou're still with us, God bless

(46:50):
you.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate you.
I mean, my heart is racing.
But how many of these things doare just we don't even think
about anymore?
We just do because we're like,oh, this is how this is how we
keep ourselves safe.
They're just baked into our day.

(47:11):
And we're not even conscious ofthese protections.
That's right.

SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
And I and I just, you know, really quickly want to
go back to they are things thatwe do that make us responsible
if we experience harm.
So the second half of thatconversation is, well, why did
you wear that skirt, Katya?

SPEAKER_01 (47:32):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (47:33):
Right?
Why did you drink so much?
Why did you not know what yourlimits were before you knew your
limits?
The the conversation aroundalcohol and knowing your limits
for me is like I can I'll Iwon't talk all day, but I can
talk all day about like peopledon't know their limits until
they're starting to try theirlimits.
Like that's how that works,right?
And so all of thatvictim-blaming language comes in
really quickly.
And the crux of it is that thatperson could have been doing

(47:55):
everything right, quote unquoteright, and they still could have
experienced a sexual assaultbecause that is not what causes
a sexual assault to happen.
A person decided to do that toanother person.
But we require perfect victimsin our society.
We require that you be sober, noalcohol, no cannabis.

(48:15):
We require you to um be with agroup of people.
We require that you have nottalked about sex or liking sex
or enjoying sex, maybe withrandom men or people.

SPEAKER_03 (48:26):
We require full nunhood.

SPEAKER_00 (48:28):
We require purity imperfection.
And so we we just spiral very,very quickly in how we show up
for people who experienceviolence and not in a way that's
helpful for them.
Because we don't, because again,we don't talk about the people
who cause harm.
We make excuses for them, wejustify that behavior.
I did it even in this episode.

(48:49):
When?

SPEAKER_03 (48:50):
I mean, we're gonna wrap soon.
And I really didn't spend timeon that.
Oh, and so I'm gonna think aboutthat.
This is like a meta conversationhere.
I have this platform and Ithought about one side, I didn't
think about the other side.

SPEAKER_00 (49:08):
I I also I appreciate that so much because
it says that like I still get todo my job, which I'm really
happy to do.
But it's it's this, it's thiswhole other swell, Katya, that I
think that like you're right.
Like we don't spend enough timeon it.
And so every time there is afamous person who gets accused
of sexual assault, um, what Ialways look for are who were the

(49:31):
people in their lives that knewabout it and facilitated it or
excused it and laughed about itand allowed it to happen.
We should be talking about allof that as well.
Um, but what we tend to do is wetend to act like that is a bad
apple conversation.
And there were all of thesethings that this person who
experienced violence should havedone.
And so my job every day is toswitch that script.

SPEAKER_03 (49:51):
Wow.
Oh my God.
Okay, listener, let's do a bodycheck right before we wrap.
Um, I'm nervous, my heart isracing.
Um, I'm I've been uncomfortablethe whole time.
I've been uncomfortable thewhole time.
Uh listener, I need you to knowthat as a host of this show, I
take my responsibility soseriously, and I'm thinking

(50:15):
about my children, yourchildren, your heart, my heart,
our partners.
My head is hot right now.
And yet I think it's important.
You know, this isn't nearly asfar as I could push it.
But this is this was my firststep.

SPEAKER_00 (50:38):
Yeah, I was gonna say, we all we all have to start
somewhere.
And I like for me, like thetakeaway, sometimes we have
these conversations and peopleget really frustrated for a lot
of different reasons.
I haven't been thinking aboutthis, or you just gave me so
much information, and it'sactually like information
overload, which is valid andfair.

(51:00):
Um, and so for me, simpletakeaway from this conversation,
which I loved, and I just thankyou so much for having me here.
So glad you're just you're soamazing, and you did such an
amazing job.
Um, like navigating theseconversations went in
discomfort, right?
Like recognizing that like youuh as you were uncomfortable,

(51:20):
Katya, you still kept askingquestions.
And that's the takeaway.
Every person has an opinionabout this.
No one comes to the table ablank slate.
No one.
We all have opinions aboutsexual violence.
And our ability to sit acrossfrom each other and have those
conversations with a full,honest, open understanding of

(51:41):
that I want to know what youthink, and I want to know what
how you think we can moveforward.
We have to, it's done inconversation.
You cannot prevent violence fromhappening in quiet circles when
you're gonna be able to do that.
Theoretically, yeah, or at yourdesk by yourself with a with a
theoretical model, which I lovetheoretical models, but you have
to you have to be inconversation.

(52:02):
That's how we prevent violencefrom happening.
So thank you for putting it inconversation.

SPEAKER_03 (52:07):
Wow, Kelsey.
Oh my gosh.
This was amazing.
This was so amazing.
What I'm taking away from todayis prevention isn't just policy.
It's about conversation, it'sabout being personal, it's about
moving through this discomfort,giving us language, empathy,

(52:28):
structure, and boundaries andconsent are ongoing and
relational practices.
Thank you for your clarity, yourcompassion, your bravery.
Thanks for being brave with me.

SPEAKER_00 (52:44):
Yes, thank you.
I mean, brave together.
Yeah.
That's how I always have toremind my daughters that like
your bravery is not in, is notsiloed, right?
Yeah.
You other people watch and youabsorb.
And it's the way in which likeyou you hold hands even in a
non-physical way to do thingstogether.

(53:04):
So thank you.
In a consenting way.
In a consenting, can I hold yourhand?
Sometimes my daughter's like,no, it's sweaty.

SPEAKER_03 (53:13):
Listener, thank you for your bravery and for your
courage.
I know that this was a topicthat is not easy to listen to or
talk about or think about.
Um, but even if you listen to apart of it, I I just thank you.
I thank you for your opennessand your willingness to do
uncomfortable things from timeto time.

(53:36):
May you trust your voice, honoryour boundaries, and remember
you are not alone.
Take good care of yourself.
Thank you for spending this timewith me.
If something from today'sconversation resonated, or if
you're in a season where supportwould help, visit me at
gattheahhallam.com.
That's C-A-T-I-A-H-O-L-M.com.

(53:56):
You can also leave an anonymousquestion for the show by calling
or texting.
956-249-7930.
I'd love to hear what's on yourheart.
If Couch Time with Cat has beenmeaningful to you, it would mean
so much if you'd subscribe,rate, and leave a review.
It helps others find us and itgrows this community of care.
And if you know someone whoneeds a little light right now,

(54:19):
send them this episode.
Remind them they're not alone.
Until next time, be gentle withyourself.
Keep showing up and know I'mright here with you.
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