September 17, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of 1 in 3, host Ingrid speaks with Tracy DiTomasi, CEO of Callisto and a licensed clinical social worker with over 25 years of experience in gender-based violence. Together, they confront the ways society talks—or avoids talking—about sexual assault. Too often, we use euphemisms, passive language, and subtle victim-blaming that shifts focus away from perpetrators. Tracy refuses to participate in that avoidance.
She breaks down the essential terminology of sexual violence, challenges persistent myths, and explains why sexual assault is about power and control—not sex. Tracy discusses why many survivors freeze during attacks instead of fighting back and why communities struggle to believe that respected individuals can commit sexual violence. Most critically, she reveals how our systems continue to fail survivors by placing the burden of accountability on those who’ve already been harmed.
The conversation’s most groundbreaking segment explores Callisto, a nonprofit technology platform that’s redefining how survivors can seek justice on their own terms. Using end-to-end encryption, Callisto allows users with .edu email addresses to securely record perpetrator information. If another survivor names the same person, a confidential advocate connects them to review next steps and resources—without pressure or exposure.
Whether you’re a survivor seeking resources, a supporter learning how to help, or an advocate for safer communities, this episode offers vital insights into the realities of sexual assault, the failures of traditional systems, and the innovative tools empowering survivors today.
Listen, share, and help amplify this conversation about accountability, consent, and survivor-centered change. Subscribe to 1 in 3 and leave a review to help others find support and solutions that make a difference.
Tracy’s Links:
https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/tracy-detomasi/
https://www.projectcallisto.org/
https://www.instagram.com/callisto?igsh=MTZudXJ2bHVnNjN2Yg%3D%3D
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracydetomasi/
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
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Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi Warriors, welcome to One in Three.
I'm your host, ingrid.
Sexual assault, sexual violenceand rape are topics many people
shy away from.
Let's be honest, the same isoften true of domestic violence.
These issues can run parallelto each other and, at times,
overlap.
Today's guest helps us unpackthe realities of sexual violence
(00:25):
what it is, how it's defined,its lasting impact it has on
survivors, the role ofperpetrators and, equally
important, what can and is beingdone to create change.
Please welcome Tracy LCSW andCEO of Callisto Hi.
(00:47):
Tracy, thank you for joining metoday.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So before we jump into our conversation, do you
mind giving a little bit of abackground, just so listeners
can get to know you a little?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, I would love to .
So my name is Tracy DiTomasi andI am the CEO of Callisto.
We are a national nonprofit thathas built technology to help
survivors of sexual violence,and I will get into that a
little bit later as to what wedo, but I am a licensed clinical
social worker and I have beendoing gender-based violence work
(01:20):
for 25 years now.
I actually started my career asa therapist for adolescent sex
offenders, and so I've worked alot with both offenders,
perpetrators, and victims andsurvivors.
I worked in group homes forabout 15 years with adolescents,
mostly boys, but I also workedwith victims of child victims of
(01:43):
sex trafficking, and I ran adomestic violence shelter, and
I've also helped with globalcampaigns about getting
awareness about domesticviolence and sexual assault.
So it's something that I'mreally passionate about, and
I've been doing a long time.
I you know, when Me Toohappened, I had been doing it
for 18 years, and it wasdefinitely a watershed moment
(02:04):
that changed the conversation.
But I am just really happy tobe here and to be able to talk
more about this issue that a lotof people don't want to talk
about, and to tell yourlisteners more about Callisto,
as well, loads of experience andexpertise to be talking about
this topic.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So sexual violence obviously it can be a form of
domestic violence.
It's not always a domesticviolence situation.
But could you just definesexual violence?
There's a lot of myths,misconceptions regarding that
the act, the victims, lots ofstuff there.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think that that is.
One of the problems in thisfield is that we all have
different definitions of whatthey are and there's legal
definitions of sexual assault.
Those legal definitions vary bystate and by jurisdiction and
then there's kind of a generalsocietal definition of a lot of
(03:03):
these things.
So how I define sexual violenceis really the umbrella term of
anything that happens to yourperson without consent and that
can be physical or non-physical.
So sexual violence can be theunwanted sharing of photos, of
nude photos or deep fakepornography, it can be child
(03:27):
sexual abuse material, it can berape, it can be incest, it can
be coercion, it can be a lot ofthose things.
And then sexual assault isreally an umbrella term for
anything physical, so it can begroping, it can be touching, it
can be rape, it can bemolestation.
A lot of people use sexualassault and rape interchangeably
(03:50):
and they're not.
While rape is sexual assault,sexual assault isn't always rape
, and that is because sexualassault is more of that umbrella
term, and so I'm really gladthat you started with the
definition because, again, Ithink that we use these terms
and a lot of times, you know,with creators and podcasts and
(04:10):
stuff.
We use essay or we use sexualassault because rape doesn't get
through the filters and rape isa word that is really harsh to
people, and so we have toned itdown to say sexual assault,
because people can't handle theword rape, which is why that
word isn't used as much.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I have found that quite a lot is the difficulty in
using the word rape.
Do you think that and I justthought of this question on the
fly do you think that actuallyusing the term rape, do you feel
like that gives any extra senseof empowerment, like if a
victim were to actually be ableto say I was raped, versus that
(04:51):
person sexually assaulted me?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think it can.
I don't think it does for allsurvivors, but I do know that
there are many survivors thatwhen they are finally able to
say this person raped me, it canbe really, really empowering.
Because I think the otherinteresting thing with language
is that and Jackson Katz has aprobably 10 to 15-year-old TED
Talk about this that's brilliantis we have pacified our
(05:18):
language, so I was sexuallyassaulted versus he sexually
assaulted or he raped me.
But I do think that there are alot of people who have been
assaulted that can't say theword.
They're not ready for it.
It means something different.
There's a weakness about it.
There shouldn't be, but there'sa shame about that.
(05:40):
That happens, and so I thinkthat people really struggle with
that, about that that happens,and so I think that people
really struggle with that, andso sometimes it's easier to say
I've been sexually assaulted oreven that person sexually
assaulted me, versus saying theword rape, because there's a
different connotation aroundthat.
I think that part of that isabout how we view rapists, and I
(06:00):
do a lot of talks about this,where we talk about we think
rapists are either really goodor really bad, like we think
people are really good or reallybad, and rapists are in that
really bad category, when inreality, rapists are both
they're really good people andthey're really bad people who've
done really bad things.
And so a lot of survivors,particularly if they know the
(06:22):
person which 80 to 90% ofsurvivors know who assaulted
them if they know that person,it's hard to reconcile the fact
that they're a rapist.
And so I think that us notwanting to label the perpetrator
as a rapist or even aperpetrator, changes what
victims and survivors feel like.
(06:43):
If it's their family member, ifit's their significant other,
if it's you know, somebody thatthey've admired a coach or a
teacher for a long time, andthey can't reconcile that.
And I also think that theresponse that they get from
other people if they say thisperson raped me versus this
person sexually assaulted me, alot of person like are you
(07:04):
calling them a rapist?
Well, yes, but they're morewilling to say, like they're
more willing to be empathetic ifa person says I was sexually
assaulted, rather than namingthat perpetrator.
And we need to change that.
That is really reallyproblematic and we absolutely
need to change that.
So I think that is a brilliantquestion.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I have become I've noticed for some reason
this year, specificallypersonally more sensitive, I
guess, to the use of certainwords and terminology,
especially with media, whenmedia is reporting.
So, for instance, if there is avictim who is murdered by their
(07:47):
abuser, it is an altercation orit's some sort of level of where
perhaps the victim hadsomething to do with the fact
that they were murdered, but ifit was a stranger, it's murder
in cold blood and so, likesaying I was sexually assaulted
(08:08):
or I was raped by thatindividual, it almost is taking
some sort of sense of ownershipand I don't think that that
individual necessarily is sayingit's my fault, but victim
blaming is a huge thing, it's myfault, but victim blaming is a
huge thing.
And it almost and again I don'twant to say this in a way of
(08:34):
you know, a victim is wrong, byusing whatever verbs, verbal,
like oh, my gosh, I can't talkwhatever words they want to use,
but it's almost like that opensa door of somebody being able
to say well, okay, you weresexually assaulted by that
person.
Why, what did you do to becomeassaulted?
So victim blaming is a huge,huge aspect of sexual violence
(08:56):
and rape?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Absolutely no-transcript.
So a lot of people over theyears, through a healing journey
(09:21):
, have used the word survivorsand in the past, you know,
victims is typically used in thecriminal justice system and so
there was referred to as victims.
Survivors and in the past, youknow, victims is typically used
in the criminal justice systemand so there was referred to as
victims.
But there is this movement ofcertain people that were
assaulted, that are using theword victim because it shows
what happened to them and notwho they are, or even not even
naming it as a verb.
I am not a victim.
Somebody assaulted me, heassaulted me and using that
(09:44):
person-first language to saythis is what happened to me and
I am not defined by it at alleither way.
But that is every survivor orvictim's choice.
If something's happened to youand you find power in that, that
is the word that you should useand whatever helps your healing
is exactly what you should do,and I think that in 10, 20, 30
(10:07):
years it's going to lookdifferent and that's great.
We need to evolve.
Language evolves and ourunderstanding evolves, and so
there is no judgment to anyperson who uses survivor or
victim or thriver or whatnot.
But I think that as a society,we can see how we have put the
(10:30):
we've taken often theperpetrator out of the equation.
Survivor of sexual violence,you know, battered women, you
know we are taking theperpetrator completely out of
the equation and I think we needto add that person back in.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I so agree with that, recognized in the country.
But again, you had mentioned,also this time, how states vary
in proof, what levels are neededto determine if it is
considered marital rape.
Could we just talk briefly?
I don't know how muchinformation there is on actually
(11:18):
marital rape, but just a littlebit about that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, I think a lot of people are really confused by
that of like how do you rapeyour spouse?
But I think that it happens allthe time.
And I'm not talking about likeI just wasn't really in the mood
and but you know, it's fine,I'll let him or her do it, like
that is not what we're talkingabout.
And I think that, because a lotof people have that experience,
(11:43):
that is something different.
While you should still wantyour partner to be enthusiastic
every time, we know that that'snot the case in you know, every
time when you're married, right.
But what I'm talking about andit doesn't have to be violent,
it can just be a source ofcontrol.
It can be violent, just be asource of control.
(12:08):
It can be violent, but I thinkthat that happens a lot more in
marriages and, like you said,the courts didn't recognize it
for a very long time and I don'tthink it's illegal in every
state and I think in some statesthey're probably even trying to
push those laws back.
But it's really really confusingto victims because we don't
talk about that enough to haveexperienced that and say this is
(12:29):
not okay.
But this is my partner, this ismy spouse, who loves me or
supposedly loves me, and I'mstill experiencing this thing
that I don't want to experience.
And then nobody believes mebecause they're thinking about
it as like a you know, just letit happen.
You know, you're married, weall don't want to, all the time
we're not in the mood.
(12:49):
And it's not about the thingabout sexual assault in general,
no matter how it happens.
It's not about sex.
It's about power and control,and so when sexual assault and
marital rape happen, it's aboutpower of one spouse over the
other.
That's what it's about.
It is not about getting yoursexual needs met at all.
It's about the power that youare having over your spouse.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well, and that bleeds into, like teenage sexual
violence and rape, where thereis, you know, perhaps not a lot
of education in terms of thevictim, where they truly
understand that, no, I'm notobligated to engage in any kind
of sexual activity that I don'twant to.
But then you get thrown in thewell, if you really loved me or
(13:35):
if you really cared for me, thisis what you would do.
And then there's more of a, Iguess, a coercion aspect into
engaging in whatever sexualactivity.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Absolutely.
I think that there is such aoverlap of dating violence and
we don't have good words for itbecause, you know, in the field
we say dating violence for teensand for, you know, college-age
folks, but they don't ever saythat they were a victim of
dating violence.
(14:07):
You know they might say thatthey were in a toxic
relationship or an unhealthyrelationship or that they were
just in a relationship.
They don't see it as datingviolence or anything.
Because, you're right, a lot ofit is coercion and our media
has set that up to be okay.
If you look at especially youknow I'm a Gen Xer and you look
(14:28):
at a lot of Harrison Ford movies, including Star Wars.
It was he pressured her,pressured her, pressured her.
She's against a wall when himand Princess Leia have their
first kiss and that's romanticand in the end that gets him to
get the girl.
And I think back to one of myfavorite movies as a kid in Say
(14:48):
Anything and John Cusack holdsthe, lloyd Dobler holds the
stereo above his head and I hadthat poster on my wall and it's
stalking.
If she said no, it's a no, butin the end it's like that's the
love stories that we werebrought up with, and I think
(15:09):
that there is so much pressureand I think that we have, you
know, it's the no, I don't wantto, I don't think so, I'm not
ready.
And then it's like come on,come on, come on.
If you're pressuring somebody todo that, that's a form of
assault, that is a form of rape,that is a form of sexual
assault, and I don't think thatwe're teaching.
When we teach consent, we teachpeople how to say no.
(15:33):
That is not the problem.
We're not teaching people hownot to coerce.
We're teaching them, maybe, hownot to physically be violent
against somebody, but we're notteaching them how not to coerce
somebody and to convince themthat what they're doing is okay.
And I think that startsespecially in this new
(15:53):
generation of sending nakedpictures and pressuring youth
and significant others to sendphotos that they're not ready
for.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I'm so glad you brought that up because that is
a huge thing.
And again, it's perhaps Imentioned of a lack of education
for the victim, of notnecessarily feeling comfortable
with saying no, or I'm not goingto be coerced into that.
But there is also a lack ofeducation in if they say no,
(16:30):
it's not something you need toconvince them to, or, like you
know, she didn't seem willing,but she just needed to know that
I was really going to be therefor her.
I was.
You know, that's all part of itand it is romanticized
especially I'm also Gen X, forsure.
All of that was romanticized ofwell, I don't really want to do
this, but oh, he's sopersistent, so he must really
(16:52):
care for me.
So, ok, I guess I feel OK doingthis now.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of men over the years
because I used to, I developedand ran a program that got men
involved in ending violenceagainst women, and I would
always get the question aboutlike, well, what if she's
playing hard to get and I'm like, then don't get her.
You know, like that, that's thething is that she's not worth
your time, because what ifyou're wrong and she's saying no
(17:21):
?
And she isn't playing hard toget and she's just saying no,
then that's on you, that's onyou.
So we need, as women, we needto stop playing hard to get.
We need to say what we want, andI think that you know that we
could get into a millionconversations about our
society's ability to talk aboutsex and not shame sex, and I
(17:44):
think that you know positive sexculture, um, and positive
sexuality is a big preventionfor sexual assault, because then
we know how to talk about it,we know what we like, we can
express what we like, we can saythings that like oh, I don't
like that, and we can have ourpartner also respect that and
(18:04):
know those boundaries and andknow how to talk about that
without shame, without going, oh, I just I didn't know how to
say it, but I wanted him to likeme or I wanted her to like me
and this part felt good, butthis part didn't feel good, and
I'm confused about that.
And then it got too far and Iwasn't ready about that.
And then it got too far and Iwasn't ready.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That is such and you know I haven't actually thought
of that, but it's so truebecause you know, as a woman I
guess maybe more generation I'mnot so sure about the younger
generations now but we're we'retaught to be coy and you know
(18:52):
women aren't necessarily outthere flaunting their things.
So it was sort of playing ahard to get sort of kind of
scenario.
And you're not supposed to.
A real classy woman isn't goingto necessarily say like, yeah,
I definitely want to have sex,I'm totally into that, and
you're supposed to pull back alittle bit and make that man or
woman reach a little bit more toget to that.
So, yeah, perhaps I think thereis I don't know now more of an
open conversation happeningwhere people do feel more
(19:14):
comfortable it's not quite sucha societal taboo to talk for
especially women to talk abouttheir sexuality.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
You know, what's really interesting is that every
Christmas, or like at least forthe last five to 10 years, it's
been in my world for like 20,25 years but the song Baby, it's
Cold Outside comes up and theyou know 10, 15, 20 years ago,
when I said this is a date rapesong, people are like you're
just you know, overreactingTracy, you do these things and
(19:43):
then you know it got into common, misconception or not
misconception.
But, like people started talkingabout this being a date rape
song of you know what's in mydrink.
The actual original version ofthat song, I think, was made in
the 30s or 40s and they did itthat way because it was supposed
to be really tongue-in-cheek.
(20:03):
Because she wanted to bewhat—wanted.
What happened?
She wanted to have sex, butbecause women weren't allowed to
have sex and to like sex, shehad to say, oh wait, I pretended
to say no, so then this—that Iwasn't the slut and people
wouldn't talk, you know.
And so it was seen as a songfor female empowerment of how to
(20:29):
.
This was how you got what youwant sexually.
And you know, within 50 yearsthe culture shifts and we see it
as a date rape.
But I think that that alsoshows the progression of what
we're talking about, of whatonce women had to do because
they weren't allowed to like sex, or, you know, sex was just
after marriage, all of thisstuff, even though we know that
(20:49):
so much sex was happening beforemarriage and to the point of
like, look, this is now creepy.
The same thing that wasempowering is now creepy because
our culture shifted, which isimportant, and now we need to
shift again.
Yeah, Right.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I mean, all these shifts are great, and some of
the labels are great too,because I think it just raises
awareness, it raises the need,the, however they want to define
themselves, is living with theaftermath.
(21:32):
What kind of trauma is felt?
I mean, I'm sure there's avarying degree of what happens.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I think every first of all, I want to say that every
survivor is unique.
So I think every first of all,I want to say that every
survivor is unique, so whateveryou experienced is real for you.
But I think that there are alot of commonalities over the
years that I've witnessed fromtalking to thousands of
survivors, and there's a lot ofconfusion, there's a lot of
shame, there's a lot of Ithought I would fight, but I
(22:05):
didn't.
I froze and they don'tunderstand that freeze is a
biological trauma response thatthey can't control in their body
and so they feel like, well,maybe I wanted it or maybe I
didn't do enough to stop it, andso there's a lot of confusion.
There's a lot of confusion whenyou didn't know the person or
when you sorry when you did knowthe person and you're like but
(22:29):
I trusted this person, what do Ido now?
Especially if they're asignificant other or you're you
know, if you're married or evenif you're at the beginning part
of a relationship.
So I think that where the traumaintensifies is if you disclose
to somebody that's close to youand whether or not they believe
you.
That changes your level oftrauma or can change your level
(22:53):
of trauma to be even moretraumatizing.
So if you tell your best friendand they'd be like, but he
wouldn't do that, what did youdo?
Or you tell your parent and tosay, oh, they can't hear it
because maybe they've beentraumatized.
Oh, I don't, they can't hear itbecause maybe they've been
traumatized.
You tell the police and thepolice say, well, what were you
(23:14):
wearing?
Which is still very common oryou're married.
That can't happen.
You know, whatever the case maybe, and that adds another level
of trauma because you've hadthis thing happen to you and now
nobody's believing you and soyou feel crazy, you feel like
maybe I was to blame and youlive with that and that settles
(23:34):
into your body and that settlesinto your stress and you can
have a lot of different stressreactions.
Some people laugh, some peoplejust get really giddy and they
laugh.
Some people shut down, they'redepressed, they can't function.
Some people over-function, theybecome avid runners, they
become workaholics, they becomewhatever to just like, try not
to think about it, when allthere is is, you know it's still
(23:56):
living in your body.
And I think that that trauma ofexperiencing the
re-traumatization by the systemsthat are meant to help, that
often don't help and often justre-traumatize is worse for
survivors and I hope thatchanges, but we're not there yet
by any means.
(24:18):
You can see Epstein is in thenews all of the time.
His survivors are still notexperiencing justice.
You can see that with the Diddytrial Like we have video
evidence of things and thesystems still aren't working for
survivors.
But survivors who experiencebelief when they tell somebody
(24:42):
have a different sense ofhealing.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, and I think that there's so many
contradictory expectationsplaced on victims too, of you
know you need to say something,but then if it's taken them five
years or 10 years or 15 yearsto finally speak out and say,
okay, this happened to me, thenthere's the question of, well,
(25:06):
why did it take you so long?
So almost that expectation ofmaybe you should have just
stayed silent.
If you stayed silent for thislong, then why are you saying
something now?
Is it because you want money?
Is it because you want fame?
Are you jumping on the Me Toobandwagon?
And yes, just so many differentlayers of opportunities to get
(25:27):
re-traumatized.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think you know, and somepeople go back to that person
who abused them and who rapedthem, because they're trying to
figure it out.
Our brain, when we gettraumatized, we relive it and
we're trying to master thattrauma.
We're trying to master controlof what happened to us.
And so a lot of times you goback and you have sex with that
person again, and maybe it'sconsensual this time, because
(25:51):
you want to own it and you wantto have the power in that, when
it was taken from you in thebeginning.
And so that's really common isto go back and have sex with
that same person or to have sexwith multiple people, because
you, especially if and I don'tsubscribe to the notion that
virginity is taken or thatvirginity is even necessarily a
thing, it's either you've hadsex or not, because I think that
(26:13):
that hurts our understanding ofall of this but if that was the
case and you think, well, I'mbroken now because society says
I'm broken, which is untrue thenyou go on to have sex with a
lot of different people becausethat normalizes it for you, and
that's really common too.
And so there's no wrong way toreact.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
It is a survivor's responsibility to take ownership
for their healing though, andhealing is such a you know, a
unique process as well.
I've talked to a few peoplewhere you people where the
promiscuity, I guess following asexually traumatic event
sometimes they look at that as away of having their own control
(26:59):
.
If I go ahead and consent tosex to this person, they can't
take that non-consensual piece.
They can't take thatnon-consensual piece away from
me If I say no and they forcethemselves on me anyway.
Now I've lost control.
But if I just go ahead and sayyes to that person and that
person and that person, at leastI'm having control over saying
(27:22):
yes.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yep, absolutely no-transcript, which I think is
(27:53):
a very, very small majority, butI think that that happens too,
and I don't think that thatnecessarily means that
anything's wrong with you either.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Right, and so now I'm very curious about your work
with the perpetrators.
Do you feel that?
I'm sure you heard probablyevery excuse in every way of
avoidance of accountability, butdo you think that there was
actually any true?
I didn't know that I was doinga bad thing.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
It's a great question and one to really it's
difficult to answer.
I believe that there is aspectrum of offenders, just like
there's a spectrum of victims,and I think we want to put all
victims into one category.
And I think we want to put alloffenders into one category, and
they're not.
I think that a majority ofoffenders have some level of
(28:48):
manipulation and I think that amajority of offenders think that
they've done nothing wrongbecause they have used
justification and differentcognitive distortions to prove
what they've done is right.
Look, she wanted it, she wasplaying hard to get, she
consented, she said yes, shedidn't say no, she didn't do
anything.
She said yes, she didn't say no, she didn't do anything.
(29:09):
And you know, or he had anerection, so of course he was
into it and it was feeling goodfor him.
I, you know.
So I think that a lot ofoffenders have completely
justified what they've done.
Or, you know, I knew it wasn'tgreat, but it's, they were too
little, they're not going toremember it anyway.
Or I did really love thisperson, or I really respected my
(29:33):
student and they were a star.
But it's really about how tojustify that power and what
they're getting over them andthat power dynamic, there are
some that are really calculated.
I mean, I think about BillCosby how he drugged women to
have sex with him In his fame.
He did not need to drug anybodyto have sex.
It wasn't about sex, it was thepower that he had and it was
(30:02):
the whole ritual that he hadaround all of that.
And so I think that there aresome really ritualistic
offenders that are really reallyawful.
And then I think that there areassaults that probably happen
where it was extremelytraumatizing for the survivor
and I'm not minimizing that atall and that the perpetrator
didn't have any idea what theywere doing.
I think that that's rare, but Istill think that they didn't.
(30:28):
That perpetrator didn't checkin to see that they actually had
consent.
I think that in those cases, ifyou tell that person, hey, you
did this wrong and you need todo this better, they will go oh
my goodness, I had no idea.
And be very empathetic and goyep, and this changes their
behavior forever.
Had no idea and be veryempathetic and go yep, and this
(30:51):
changes their behavior forever.
I don't think that that is youknow.
So I want to be very, very,very, very clear, because as
soon as you say that out loud,people are going to justify that
.
Oh, that's me.
That is me, because that is themyth of well, it was just a bad
night of sex, which I think isbullshit.
Um, so I think that a majorityof offenders are manipulative
(31:15):
and calculative and, um, it'sagain.
It's about power and control.
It is not about sex.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
So do you think it's those loopholes and the
misunderstanding and the lack oflaws in place, plus that
manipulation factor for sure,that contribute to how so many
perpetrators do get away withtheir acts and continue to go on
to abuse, probably later, yes,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I mean until I think it was the 90s.
Most of our rape laws said thatyou had to yell and fight back
in order for it to be consideredrape, which we know now from
trauma that that is not the case.
The majority of rapes, themajority of rapes, the victim
freezes.
I think that those laws weremade by men and I think you know
men are a majority of theperpetrators, even when the
victim is a man.
(32:07):
And I think you know men are amajority of the perpetrators
even when the victim is a man.
And I think our whole societyhas protected perpetrators.
You can see it in the fact ofHarvey Weinstein had a team of
people getting the women to thehotel.
He abused the people who andmanipulated them and hurt them
(32:29):
if they were going to go forwardwith what happened and tell
anybody what happened.
He convinced people of likewell, you know, in Hollywood,
this is what you're getting intoand if you want to roll in that
movie, you're going to have toexperience this thing with
Harvey Weinstein.
Everybody knew it.
It was an open secret andpeople just accepted that, and
so we try to accept it in a wayof like, oh well, she's just
leaving her way to the top,rather than she's being gatekept
(32:51):
from jobs unless she has sexwith somebody.
You know we need to again flipthat narrative of she was abused
to he assaulted gender binarieshere, but I think that that's
the majority of cases thathappen is where the perpetrator
(33:16):
is a man and the victim is awoman.
But there's a lot of men who'vebeen assaulted as well and I
don't want to minimize that atall.
But I think that the culture ofour movies is the case of, like
you know, I recently read thisthing where it said what's the
number one indicator of if asexual abuse allegation is going
to be believed?
And that number one indicatoris what is your impression of
(33:39):
the perpetrator.
So back in the day we didn'tbelieve Weinstein survivors, we
didn't believe Cosby survivors,we didn't believe Epstein
survivors, because these menwere these charismatic,
gregarious, did many reallygreat things.
Now somebody says I'm anEpstein survivor, weinstein
survivor, cosby survivor.
(33:59):
Of course the belief isautomatically there because now
these men have been vilified,and that's the danger of
vilifying rapists, because, yes,they do need to be, but
majority of the time they'rereally, they've done really,
really good things and so it'sall.
It's the entire culture, the,the.
The joke is connected to thebruise.
Cosby used to joke aboutputting Spanish fly into women's
(34:23):
drinks to have sex with them,and it is on his comedy albums
in the 60s and the peoplelaughed and he was probably able
to use that to say well, look,I didn't do this, they're just
using my, they're taking my jokeout of context.
Everybody laughed at this, sowhat I'm doing isn't bad.
(34:43):
You know, everybody else thinks, yeah, that's a great idea.
Like they use it to justifythat and they use everybody
around them.
So nobody called me out on that.
It's just locker room talk.
It's just this.
It's just that I'm not a badperson and I think that we have
a problem calling out peoplearound us.
I've called out many people andit doesn't always go well, but
(35:05):
I'm also trained to do it.
I'm trained to know the signs,I'm trained to not keep silent,
and so it's a lot easier for mewhen it's not easy for most
people, because most people justwant to keep the peace, whether
that's in a family, of like.
There's so many situationswhere you know somebody has been
molested by somebody in afamily and nobody else wants to
(35:26):
talk about it and you just go tothe barbecues, you know.
Or in the case of marital rapeof like, well, you know, he's
still part of the family.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Right, and it's so difficult to look at some of
these offenders, like youmentioned.
You know these high profileindividuals.
They have power, they havemoney, they're good looking.
You know the college studentswho have, you know, been accused
of rape.
They're these tremendousathletes, they're wealthy
families, they're extremelyhandsome, they're preppy, they
(36:00):
would never have to rapesomebody because they can get
any person in the world, and Ithink that's a huge
misconception because, again, itties down to power and control.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
And I think that we, you know, I remember talking to
a man probably 10 years ago, andthis was after there was a big
rape case at VanderbiltUniversity where four football
players assaulted, brutally,raped a young woman and it was
caught on.
I don't know if it was caughton.
Well, they videotaped it andthere was parts of it caught on
(36:33):
security cameras.
And I talked with the man thatsaid but yeah, but wasn't it
maybe just a bad night of sex?
Because it was her boyfriendthat initiated it, or guy that
she was dating?
And I said do you know whathappened?
Have you looked into whathappened?
And I'm not going to repeat ithere because I don't want to
trigger the audience, but it wasbrutal.
(36:55):
And I explained that to thisman and I said this was brutal,
is this something of like a badnight of sex?
He said I didn't know and I'mlike look into it before you ask
those questions, look into thedetails before you ask those
questions, because you'reworried about one thing that's
not true most of the time andwhen you dig into that, of what
(37:15):
actually happened.
You know where Bill Cosbyadmitted in a court of law in
2013, I think, that he haddrugged women to have sex with
him and it was sealed Like theyadmit it when they have to.
Weinstein had a million.
I mean that's an exaggeration,but he had so many NDAs and you
(37:37):
have an NDA for a reason and itcould be like, oh, because
they're going to defame me.
That's not the reason.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Right.
Well, and you giving thatexample is just another perfect
example of how people expectthere has to be some sort of a
brutality component for it to beconsidered an attack or an
assault.
So what do victims andsurvivors do?
How do they fight back?
Because there's been leaps andbounds over the last few decades
, but we are still stuck in thispoint of am I going to be
(38:15):
believed?
What can I do to arm myself?
What can I do to fight back?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
do to fight back.
Yeah, I think survivors need todo what, first and foremost,
makes them safe and that isgoing to look different for
every survivor in everycommunity, and it also depends
on the perpetrator and so, firstand foremost, keep yourself
safe and do what makes you feelemotionally and physically safe.
I think that there are ways,you know, for survivors to make
(38:41):
sense of what happened to themin therapy.
But if you're going intotherapy, get somebody who is
very well-versed in sexualtrauma Not all therapists are,
not all trauma therapists areand so go to somebody who really
understands sexual assault andsexual abuse.
Emdr is an excellent therapy tohelp unlock those traumas and to
(39:03):
help get out of that obsessivethinking and to be able to make
sense of it, because a lot oftimes, survivors don't tell for
decades, don't tell theirsignificant others for decades,
and it's just inside of them,and so I think that healing can
really happen.
And I think, figuring out howto speak out.
(39:25):
You know there's a lot ofpeople that I know that have
learned how to speak out andthey're speaking out publicly
and they're naming theirperpetrator.
There can be difficulty withthat, and so you know, sometimes
you need to talk to a lawyerbefore you do that, because
there is real threat ofdefamation and maybe this is a
good segue into Callisto.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I was actually thinking that exact thing.
Let's move into talking aboutCallisto.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, so one of the things that people can do,
especially so our system,callisto Vault is technology
that we built to help with a lotof the stuff that I just talked
about.
Anybody in the US and itsterritories with a edu email
address has free access, so youcan be a student, a professor,
(40:10):
an alumni whatever the case maybe, if you have that edu, you
have free access.
What you do is, if you'retrying to find out if your
perpetrator has harmed somebodyelse, you can go in, create an
account and enter into matching.
And to enter into matching, youput the state where the assault
occurred and that is becausesexual assault laws vary by
state.
You put in a unique identifierof the perpetrator so that
perpetrator's social mediahandles, email address or phone
(40:32):
number.
There's about 12 differentthings that you can put in, and
you can put in as many as youknow and as many like.
If they've got four Instagramaccounts, you put in four
Instagram accounts and then youconsent to be contacted in the
event of a match, and so whathappens is, again, it's all
encrypted and it's end-to-endencrypted, which means that
everything, all the data thatyou put into it, is encrypted
(40:53):
before it hits our server.
So it's very secure.
And if two people put in thesame Instagram handle, let's say
, there's a match.
It's not like a dating site, soyou're not notified right away.
What happens is we get notifiedbut we still don't see the
perpetrator's information or thesurvivor's information.
That's still encrypted to us.
We see the accessibility needs,we see the language needs, we
(41:14):
see the state that the assaultoccurred in and we assign that
case to a confidential advocatewho will reach out to the
survivors separately, free ofcharge.
So the survivor pays nothingfor any of this.
The survivor has a choice alongthe way.
So their first choice is tomeet with that advocate or not.
Do they want to meet with theperson?
(41:35):
Great, if they do.
They set up a Zoom call andthat's protected under
confidentiality, and they meetwith that person who talks to
them about their legal rights,their criminal.
You know what a criminal casemay look like, what a civil case
may look like, what a Title IXcase may look like, what mental
health options there are forthem and all of their options.
And then, if the survivor wantsto know and wants to disclose
(41:59):
their information to the othersurvivors who've matched, they
sign a consent to do so and thatadvocate will work at
connecting them.
The survivor never has to makethat choice, but that is a
choice that they can make, andso that advocate will connect
the survivor so they can pursuehealing and justice, whatever
that means to them.
We do not report to police, wedo not report to Title IX, we do
(42:20):
not report to HR.
We are not a reporting platform.
We also are not a database thatpeople can sort through and we
are not a warning system, and Ithink that that is something
really unique.
We are an independent, neutralthird party that will empower
survivors for them to make thebest decision for, whatever that
(42:42):
means for them.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
So can a survivor, with you know, understanding
what had happened to them andthey just sort of just want to
put it out into the universe anddon't necessarily want to
follow up on anything.
Can they just put theirinformation there and never move
forward?
Absolutely Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
And a lot of survivors.
Do you know?
We've talked to survivors whotypically in the past their
options have been to report ornot to report, and some that
have reported most don't eversee justice.
They don't see accountabilityfor that perpetrator and then
the other ones are oftentimesleft with did that perpetrator
do it to somebody else?
I'll report because I want tomake sure that they stop and
(43:28):
they get held accountable.
And so they're left with thiswonder of this person's still
out there.
I would do something if I knew Iwasn't the only one, and we can
see that in me too.
(43:49):
We can see that's why HarveyWeinstein is in jail.
But just the power of sayingI've done something that
somebody else is going to knowthere's a match, even if I don't
ever want to talk to thatadvocate, I don't ever want to
decide.
I also think that there aresurvivors who, like I'm never
going to say it, you know, ifthere's a match, like I don't
want to participate in theprocess, if there's a match, I
just want to have it livesomewhere.
(44:10):
And then they get contacted bythe advocate and they're like
well, maybe I do want to knowmore, but I'm not going to match
with, I'm not going to knowabout that person.
I'm never going to disclose myidentity.
Great.
Know about that person.
I'm never going to disclose myidentity Great.
If they end there, great.
Then they might think about itand go.
You know what I do want to dosomething, and if they want to,
(44:34):
great.
If they don't, great.
We are agnostic about any of itbecause we believe that
survivors can make the bestdecision for themselves.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
I love that because I think that's another one of the
expectations on victims andsurvivors is almost the okay,
you know something's happened toyou.
It's now your responsibility totake down that perpetrator and
make sure that he or she neveroffends anyone again and to live
with that, knowing that youhave to then go forward with all
(44:59):
of these steps and bere-traumatized, re-victimized,
re-whatever, just because youfeel this obligation that
society is putting on you, thatit's now your responsibility to
make them stop.
So I love that.
That's an option of being ableto put that out there.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
And we built it this way because it is not the
responsibility of survivors toreport.
It is not the responsibility ofsurvivors to hold somebody
accountable and if the personwho assaulted you is a serial
perpetrator and you didn'treport, you have no
responsibility for the otherpeople who have been assaulted.
That is not on you and I think alot of survivors do hold that
(45:39):
weight and it is not because Iguarantee you that there are
survivors who reported anddidn't get justice and that
person still went on to offend.
People reported Weinstein,people reported Cosby, people
reported Larry Nassar, the USAGymnastics doctor, two police,
two Title IX at Michigan StateUniversity, and nothing was done
.
So sometimes if you report ornot, it still doesn't matter and
(46:00):
there's a safety level of whathappens to you if you do report
and you're not believed and thatcan be more traumatizing to you
.
So I hope our systems aredifferent.
You know, right now we'rereally working on the phase of
because we're still new at thisof survivor empowerment and we
are going to get toaccountability, and
accountability takes time andeventually I hope we get to
policy change, because that'sthe key to preventing all of
(46:24):
this in the end anyway is thatthose systems do work, because
we have more data on serialperpetrators and we understand
how these things work and weunderstand what survivors need
for those to be held accountable.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
And thank you for clarifying that, because I don't
believe that it's a victim'sresponsibility either.
It is almost this unspoken, andsometimes it's very spoken.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
I think it's very spoken Sometimes very loudly
spoken.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
That is your responsibility to say something.
Quick question specific toCallisto those advocates that
are then contacting theseindividuals, what credentials do
they have?
Because that can be a verytraumatic experience as well.
Just to have that contact.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
We vet all of them and they're trauma-informed and
we're actually in the process ofreally securing a partnership
where one partner will work withus on that.
But they are advocates who'vebeen doing this work for a long
time and understand this workand understand how to be
trauma-informed and how to putthe survivor in the position of
(47:29):
power.
They're also protected underconfidentiality.
So, whether that's being anattorney or a licensed clinical
social worker or whatever, notall states protect all advocates
, but a survivor will know thatlimitation.
Protect all advocates, but asurvivor will know that
limitation before they ever saya word to anybody and the
(47:49):
advocates still will not sayanything.
And if we get a subpoena we'llfight it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Okay, that was going to be.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
My next question is Lili, you know if there's a
subpoena, okay, yeah Right, Imean right now we don't have
access to the information.
So if somebody were to say, canyou tell me if this person has
created an account?
No, I cannot.
There is no way for me, as theCEO, to know that.
There's no way for me to getany of that information.
The only time that anybody seesthe information unencrypted is
(48:19):
when there's a match thathappens.
So if you've not experienced amatch, there's no way we can get
any of your information, andthe only person that sees that
information once a match happensis somebody who is legally
protected under confidentiality.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Okay, perfect.
And how far is your reach withCallisto?
Speaker 2 (48:38):
You know, right now we have accounts created in 49
states.
We have about 10% of allschools.
All universities in the US haveat least one account created,
and so we are making traction.
We have accounts created atalmost 600 schools, and so we
(48:59):
are still expanding reachbecause every like over 21
million people have free access.
So, you know, anybody withthatedu email has free access,
and so we have that, thatmassive reach, and now it's just
about getting people to knowabout it, and I think that
that's a challenge and that'swhy I'm I'm super happy to have
your platform and I hope that ifall of your audience just tells
(49:22):
one person about it, it can bereally impactful, because people
don't want to follow aorganization about sexual
assault because it's triggering.
Meta blocks our ads.
Google blocks our ads becausehow do you talk about rape when
you know people you'll see it onTikTok of like people using the
(49:43):
grape icon and stuff and ourads get shut down for
inappropriate content becausewe're talking about sexual
assault and rape.
They get shut down for beingpolitical, when sexual assault
should not be a political issue.
But we've made it into apolitical issue and so it's
really challenging to spread theword, but it's important to so.
(50:04):
If you know college students,if you know professors, if you
know people, spread the word oncollege campuses, connect with
us and we have a free toolkit onour website that people can
download and they can printposters and business cards and
everything else about brochures,about how it works.
We also have a demo coming upin September or check, depending
(50:27):
on when you're listening tothis check our website to see if
we have a demo coming up thatyou can come and ask questions,
because there's a lot ofquestions about this.
You know there's a lot ofuncertainty, but we probably
have the answer for that, thosequestions.
And you know we love to partnerwith students.
We have a student ambassadorprogram where we prepare
(50:49):
students to spread the word ontheir campuses by giving them
training and giving them theresources that they need to be
able to do this work on collegecampuses.
And, of course, somebody isgoing to believe their peer more
than they're going to believemy Gen X face, you know.
So it's important that studentsknow about this and if you
don't think that it's going tohappen to your child who goes to
(51:10):
college, I hope that's the case.
But in reality, one in fourwomen who go to college
experience sexual assault.
One in five trans andnon-binary students experience
sexual assault, and one in 15boys and men experience sexual
assault while in college, and soI know a lot of people worry
about false reporting andthey're worried about their boys
(51:30):
that are going to college beingfalsely accused.
But your son is more likely tobe raped in college than they
are to be sexually sorry.
Your son is more likely to besexually assaulted while in
college than they are to befalsely accused.
And yet we're not talking aboutthe abuse and sexual assault of
(51:51):
boys and men on collegecampuses either.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Are you looking to expand beyond the educational
system for those who don't havean affiliation with an
educational system?
Speaker 2 (52:04):
We are.
We are definitely in theprocess of securing some funding
to do that.
A lot of it really comes downto funding.
Funding in the sexual assaultspace is fairly complex because
people don't want to talk aboutit and people don't like
companies don't want their nameattached to it.
(52:36):
So we are really working hardon securing funding for a pilot
to be able to expand accessbeyond EDUs If you are somebody
out there that is a26, to beable to have our plan.
But we are actively pursuingthat, and so if you're wanting
more information, subscribe toour newsletter or follow us at
Callisto on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
Okay, so let's get people connected to you.
What are your handles?
What's your website?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
So our website is projectcalistoorg.
Calisto is spelledC-A-L-L-I-S-T-O.
Our Instagram handle is atCalisto.
You can follow us on LinkedIn.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn.
We are on Facebook, but not asmuch at Calistoorg.
We are on X again, not as muchat Calisto.
(53:25):
At Callisto org, we are on Xagain, not as much at Callisto,
and so those are the, butInstagram is the main place that
we're on.
So if you want to follow usthere, but feel free to reach
out you know we respond to everyemail that we get at contact at
projectcallistoorg and we arereally looking for new and
exciting ways to spread the wordand to look for new donors and
new funders and really make surethat college students know that
(53:46):
they have access.
And one other thing that I wantto say about our system is that
it doesn't matter who theperpetrator is.
The perpetrator does not haveto be connected to the school.
It can be anybody, soperpetrators are often in
communities and may not be astudent at the school.
We know that students moveafter they've been assaulted.
We know that perpetrators moveafter being accused of assault.
(54:08):
So we have matches that onesurvivor lives on one coast, one
survivor lives on another coast, and so it doesn't matter who
the perpetrator is or if they'reaffiliated with the school or
not.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Okay, that was actually a very good point.
So, finally, I believe everystory carries strength, and what
would your strength or messagethat you want to leave be with
listeners?
Speaker 2 (54:40):
I think to the survivors out there that we
believe you, we see you.
What you're experiencing isnormal, um, and there is healing
.
That can happen, um, andhealing is is a journey, um, but
it's not your fault, it issolely on the perpetrator, and
(55:01):
there are people that arefighting every day to make sure
that we can hold perpetratorsaccountable, so that story can
change.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Thank you so much, Tracy.
That's incredible informationyou've shared.
Your time, your expertise andyour message are going to be so
powerful.
I love everything that you'redoing, your advocacy and all of
your work, and I am truly, trulyappreciative of you coming on
today.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Thank you so much for having me.
This has been great, Okaythanks.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
Thank you again, tracy, for joining me today and
thank you, warriors, forlistening.
I've included the links Tracywas referring to, as well as her
one in three profile link inthe show notes.
I will be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong andwherever you are in your journey
, always remember you are notalone.
(55:58):
Find more information, registeras a guest or leave a review by
going to the website1in3podcastcom.
That's the number1-I-N-3podcastcom.
Follow 1in3 on Instagram,facebook and Twitter at
1in3podcast.
To help me out, please rememberto rate, review and subscribe.
(56:22):
1in3 is a .5 Pinoy productionMusic written and performed by
Tim Crow.
Hi Warriors, welcome to One in Three.
I'm your host, ingrid.
Sexual assault, sexual violenceand rape are topics many people
shy away from.
Let's be honest, the same isoften true of domestic violence.
These issues can run parallelto each other and, at times,
overlap.
Today's guest helps us unpackthe realities of sexual violence
(00:25):
what it is, how it's defined,its lasting impact it has on
survivors, the role ofperpetrators and, equally
important, what can and is beingdone to create change.
Please welcome Tracy LCSW andCEO of Callisto Hi.
(00:47):
Tracy, thank you for joining metoday.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
So before we jump into our conversation, do you
mind giving a little bit of abackground, just so listeners
can get to know you a little?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, I would love to .
So my name is Tracy DiTomasi andI am the CEO of Callisto.
We are a national nonprofit thathas built technology to help
survivors of sexual violence,and I will get into that a
little bit later as to what wedo, but I am a licensed clinical
social worker and I have beendoing gender-based violence work
(01:20):
for 25 years now.
I actually started my career asa therapist for adolescent sex
offenders, and so I've worked alot with both offenders,
perpetrators, and victims andsurvivors.
I worked in group homes forabout 15 years with adolescents,
mostly boys, but I also workedwith victims of child victims of
(01:43):
sex trafficking, and I ran adomestic violence shelter, and
I've also helped with globalcampaigns about getting
awareness about domesticviolence and sexual assault.
So it's something that I'mreally passionate about, and
I've been doing a long time.
I you know, when Me Toohappened, I had been doing it
for 18 years, and it wasdefinitely a watershed moment
(02:04):
that changed the conversation.
But I am just really happy tobe here and to be able to talk
more about this issue that a lotof people don't want to talk
about, and to tell yourlisteners more about Callisto,
as well, loads of experience andexpertise to be talking about
this topic.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So sexual violence obviously it can be a form of
domestic violence.
It's not always a domesticviolence situation.
But could you just definesexual violence?
There's a lot of myths,misconceptions regarding that
the act, the victims, lots ofstuff there.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think that that is.
One of the problems in thisfield is that we all have
different definitions of whatthey are and there's legal
definitions of sexual assault.
Those legal definitions vary bystate and by jurisdiction and
then there's kind of a generalsocietal definition of a lot of
(03:03):
these things.
So how I define sexual violenceis really the umbrella term of
anything that happens to yourperson without consent and that
can be physical or non-physical.
So sexual violence can be theunwanted sharing of photos, of
nude photos or deep fakepornography, it can be child
(03:27):
sexual abuse material, it can berape, it can be incest, it can
be coercion, it can be a lot ofthose things.
And then sexual assault isreally an umbrella term for
anything physical, so it can begroping, it can be touching, it
can be rape, it can bemolestation.
A lot of people use sexualassault and rape interchangeably
(03:50):
and they're not.
While rape is sexual assault,sexual assault isn't always rape
, and that is because sexualassault is more of that umbrella
term, and so I'm really gladthat you started with the
definition because, again, Ithink that we use these terms
and a lot of times, you know,with creators and podcasts and
(04:10):
stuff.
We use essay or we use sexualassault because rape doesn't get
through the filters and rape isa word that is really harsh to
people, and so we have toned itdown to say sexual assault,
because people can't handle theword rape, which is why that
word isn't used as much.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I have found that quite a lot is the difficulty in
using the word rape.
Do you think that and I justthought of this question on the
fly do you think that actuallyusing the term rape, do you feel
like that gives any extra senseof empowerment, like if a
victim were to actually be ableto say I was raped, versus that
(04:51):
person sexually assaulted me?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think it can.
I don't think it does for allsurvivors, but I do know that
there are many survivors thatwhen they are finally able to
say this person raped me, it canbe really, really empowering.
Because I think the otherinteresting thing with language
is that and Jackson Katz has aprobably 10 to 15-year-old TED
Talk about this that's brilliantis we have pacified our
(05:18):
language, so I was sexuallyassaulted versus he sexually
assaulted or he raped me.
But I do think that there are alot of people who have been
assaulted that can't say theword.
They're not ready for it.
It means something different.
There's a weakness about it.
There shouldn't be, but there'sa shame about that.
(05:40):
That happens, and so I thinkthat people really struggle with
that, about that that happens,and so I think that people
really struggle with that, andso sometimes it's easier to say
I've been sexually assaulted oreven that person sexually
assaulted me, versus saying theword rape, because there's a
different connotation aroundthat.
I think that part of that isabout how we view rapists, and I
(06:00):
do a lot of talks about this,where we talk about we think
rapists are either really goodor really bad, like we think
people are really good or reallybad, and rapists are in that
really bad category, when inreality, rapists are both
they're really good people andthey're really bad people who've
done really bad things.
And so a lot of survivors,particularly if they know the
(06:22):
person which 80 to 90% ofsurvivors know who assaulted
them if they know that person,it's hard to reconcile the fact
that they're a rapist.
And so I think that us notwanting to label the perpetrator
as a rapist or even aperpetrator, changes what
victims and survivors feel like.
(06:43):
If it's their family member, ifit's their significant other,
if it's you know, somebody thatthey've admired a coach or a
teacher for a long time, andthey can't reconcile that.
And I also think that theresponse that they get from
other people if they say thisperson raped me versus this
person sexually assaulted me, alot of person like are you
(07:04):
calling them a rapist?
Well, yes, but they're morewilling to say, like they're
more willing to be empathetic ifa person says I was sexually
assaulted, rather than namingthat perpetrator.
And we need to change that.
That is really reallyproblematic and we absolutely
need to change that.
So I think that is a brilliantquestion.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I have become I've noticed for some reason
this year, specificallypersonally more sensitive, I
guess, to the use of certainwords and terminology,
especially with media, whenmedia is reporting.
So, for instance, if there is avictim who is murdered by their
(07:47):
abuser, it is an altercation orit's some sort of level of where
perhaps the victim hadsomething to do with the fact
that they were murdered, but ifit was a stranger, it's murder
in cold blood and so, likesaying I was sexually assaulted
(08:08):
or I was raped by thatindividual, it almost is taking
some sort of sense of ownershipand I don't think that that
individual necessarily is sayingit's my fault, but victim
blaming is a huge thing, it's myfault, but victim blaming is a
huge thing.
And it almost and again I don'twant to say this in a way of
(08:34):
you know, a victim is wrong, byusing whatever verbs, verbal,
like oh, my gosh, I can't talkwhatever words they want to use,
but it's almost like that opensa door of somebody being able
to say well, okay, you weresexually assaulted by that
person.
Why, what did you do to becomeassaulted?
So victim blaming is a huge,huge aspect of sexual violence
(08:56):
and rape?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Absolutely no-transcript.
So a lot of people over theyears, through a healing journey
(09:21):
, have used the word survivorsand in the past, you know,
victims is typically used in thecriminal justice system and so
there was referred to as victims.
Survivors and in the past, youknow, victims is typically used
in the criminal justice systemand so there was referred to as
victims.
But there is this movement ofcertain people that were
assaulted, that are using theword victim because it shows
what happened to them and notwho they are, or even not even
naming it as a verb.
I am not a victim.
Somebody assaulted me, heassaulted me and using that
(09:44):
person-first language to saythis is what happened to me and
I am not defined by it at alleither way.
But that is every survivor orvictim's choice.
If something's happened to youand you find power in that, that
is the word that you should useand whatever helps your healing
is exactly what you should do,and I think that in 10, 20, 30
(10:07):
years it's going to lookdifferent and that's great.
We need to evolve.
Language evolves and ourunderstanding evolves, and so
there is no judgment to anyperson who uses survivor or
victim or thriver or whatnot.
But I think that as a society,we can see how we have put the
(10:30):
we've taken often theperpetrator out of the equation.
Survivor of sexual violence,you know, battered women, you
know we are taking theperpetrator completely out of
the equation and I think we needto add that person back in.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I so agree with that, recognized in the country.
But again, you had mentioned,also this time, how states vary
in proof, what levels are neededto determine if it is
considered marital rape.
Could we just talk briefly?
I don't know how muchinformation there is on actually
(11:18):
marital rape, but just a littlebit about that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, I think a lot of people are really confused by
that of like how do you rapeyour spouse?
But I think that it happens allthe time.
And I'm not talking about likeI just wasn't really in the mood
and but you know, it's fine,I'll let him or her do it, like
that is not what we're talkingabout.
And I think that, because a lotof people have that experience,
(11:43):
that is something different.
While you should still wantyour partner to be enthusiastic
every time, we know that that'snot the case in you know, every
time when you're married, right.
But what I'm talking about andit doesn't have to be violent,
it can just be a source ofcontrol.
It can be violent, just be asource of control.
(12:08):
It can be violent, but I thinkthat that happens a lot more in
marriages and, like you said,the courts didn't recognize it
for a very long time and I don'tthink it's illegal in every
state and I think in some statesthey're probably even trying to
push those laws back.
But it's really really confusingto victims because we don't
talk about that enough to haveexperienced that and say this is
(12:29):
not okay.
But this is my partner, this ismy spouse, who loves me or
supposedly loves me, and I'mstill experiencing this thing
that I don't want to experience.
And then nobody believes mebecause they're thinking about
it as like a you know, just letit happen.
You know, you're married, weall don't want to, all the time
we're not in the mood.
(12:49):
And it's not about the thingabout sexual assault in general,
no matter how it happens.
It's not about sex.
It's about power and control,and so when sexual assault and
marital rape happen, it's aboutpower of one spouse over the
other.
That's what it's about.
It is not about getting yoursexual needs met at all.
It's about the power that youare having over your spouse.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well, and that bleeds into, like teenage sexual
violence and rape, where thereis, you know, perhaps not a lot
of education in terms of thevictim, where they truly
understand that, no, I'm notobligated to engage in any kind
of sexual activity that I don'twant to.
But then you get thrown in thewell, if you really loved me or
(13:35):
if you really cared for me, thisis what you would do.
And then there's more of a, Iguess, a coercion aspect into
engaging in whatever sexualactivity.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Absolutely.
I think that there is such aoverlap of dating violence and
we don't have good words for itbecause, you know, in the field
we say dating violence for teensand for, you know, college-age
folks, but they don't ever saythat they were a victim of
dating violence.
(14:07):
You know they might say thatthey were in a toxic
relationship or an unhealthyrelationship or that they were
just in a relationship.
They don't see it as datingviolence or anything.
Because, you're right, a lot ofit is coercion and our media
has set that up to be okay.
If you look at especially youknow I'm a Gen Xer and you look
(14:28):
at a lot of Harrison Ford movies, including Star Wars.
It was he pressured her,pressured her, pressured her.
She's against a wall when himand Princess Leia have their
first kiss and that's romanticand in the end that gets him to
get the girl.
And I think back to one of myfavorite movies as a kid in Say
(14:48):
Anything and John Cusack holdsthe, lloyd Dobler holds the
stereo above his head and I hadthat poster on my wall and it's
stalking.
If she said no, it's a no, butin the end it's like that's the
love stories that we werebrought up with, and I think
(15:09):
that there is so much pressureand I think that we have, you
know, it's the no, I don't wantto, I don't think so, I'm not
ready.
And then it's like come on,come on, come on.
If you're pressuring somebody todo that, that's a form of
assault, that is a form of rape,that is a form of sexual
assault, and I don't think thatwe're teaching.
When we teach consent, we teachpeople how to say no.
(15:33):
That is not the problem.
We're not teaching people hownot to coerce.
We're teaching them, maybe, hownot to physically be violent
against somebody, but we're notteaching them how not to coerce
somebody and to convince themthat what they're doing is okay.
And I think that startsespecially in this new
(15:53):
generation of sending nakedpictures and pressuring youth
and significant others to sendphotos that they're not ready
for.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I'm so glad you brought that up because that is
a huge thing.
And again, it's perhaps Imentioned of a lack of education
for the victim, of notnecessarily feeling comfortable
with saying no, or I'm not goingto be coerced into that.
But there is also a lack ofeducation in if they say no,
(16:30):
it's not something you need toconvince them to, or, like you
know, she didn't seem willing,but she just needed to know that
I was really going to be therefor her.
I was.
You know, that's all part of itand it is romanticized
especially I'm also Gen X, forsure.
All of that was romanticized ofwell, I don't really want to do
this, but oh, he's sopersistent, so he must really
(16:52):
care for me.
So, ok, I guess I feel OK doingthis now.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of men over the years
because I used to, I developedand ran a program that got men
involved in ending violenceagainst women, and I would
always get the question aboutlike, well, what if she's
playing hard to get and I'm like, then don't get her.
You know, like that, that's thething is that she's not worth
your time, because what ifyou're wrong and she's saying no
(17:21):
?
And she isn't playing hard toget and she's just saying no,
then that's on you, that's onyou.
So we need, as women, we needto stop playing hard to get.
We need to say what we want, andI think that you know that we
could get into a millionconversations about our
society's ability to talk aboutsex and not shame sex, and I
(17:44):
think that you know positive sexculture, um, and positive
sexuality is a big preventionfor sexual assault, because then
we know how to talk about it,we know what we like, we can
express what we like, we can saythings that like oh, I don't
like that, and we can have ourpartner also respect that and
(18:04):
know those boundaries and andknow how to talk about that
without shame, without going, oh, I just I didn't know how to
say it, but I wanted him to likeme or I wanted her to like me
and this part felt good, butthis part didn't feel good, and
I'm confused about that.
And then it got too far and Iwasn't ready about that.
And then it got too far and Iwasn't ready.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That is such and you know I haven't actually thought
of that, but it's so truebecause you know, as a woman I
guess maybe more generation I'mnot so sure about the younger
generations now but we're we'retaught to be coy and you know
(18:52):
women aren't necessarily outthere flaunting their things.
So it was sort of playing ahard to get sort of kind of
scenario.
And you're not supposed to.
A real classy woman isn't goingto necessarily say like, yeah,
I definitely want to have sex,I'm totally into that, and
you're supposed to pull back alittle bit and make that man or
woman reach a little bit more toget to that.
So, yeah, perhaps I think thereis I don't know now more of an
open conversation happeningwhere people do feel more
(19:14):
comfortable it's not quite sucha societal taboo to talk for
especially women to talk abouttheir sexuality.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
You know, what's really interesting is that every
Christmas, or like at least forthe last five to 10 years, it's
been in my world for like 20,25 years but the song Baby, it's
Cold Outside comes up and theyou know 10, 15, 20 years ago,
when I said this is a date rapesong, people are like you're
just you know, overreactingTracy, you do these things and
(19:43):
then you know it got into common, misconception or not
misconception.
But, like people started talkingabout this being a date rape
song of you know what's in mydrink.
The actual original version ofthat song, I think, was made in
the 30s or 40s and they did itthat way because it was supposed
to be really tongue-in-cheek.
(20:03):
Because she wanted to bewhat—wanted.
What happened?
She wanted to have sex, butbecause women weren't allowed to
have sex and to like sex, shehad to say, oh wait, I pretended
to say no, so then this—that Iwasn't the slut and people
wouldn't talk, you know.
And so it was seen as a songfor female empowerment of how to
(20:29):
.
This was how you got what youwant sexually.
And you know, within 50 yearsthe culture shifts and we see it
as a date rape.
But I think that that alsoshows the progression of what
we're talking about, of whatonce women had to do because
they weren't allowed to like sex, or, you know, sex was just
after marriage, all of thisstuff, even though we know that
(20:49):
so much sex was happening beforemarriage and to the point of
like, look, this is now creepy.
The same thing that wasempowering is now creepy because
our culture shifted, which isimportant, and now we need to
shift again.
Yeah, Right.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I mean, all these shifts are great, and some of
the labels are great too,because I think it just raises
awareness, it raises the need,the, however they want to define
themselves, is living with theaftermath.
(21:32):
What kind of trauma is felt?
I mean, I'm sure there's avarying degree of what happens.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I think every first of all, I want to say that every
survivor is unique.
So I think every first of all,I want to say that every
survivor is unique, so whateveryou experienced is real for you.
But I think that there are alot of commonalities over the
years that I've witnessed fromtalking to thousands of
survivors, and there's a lot ofconfusion, there's a lot of
shame, there's a lot of Ithought I would fight, but I
(22:05):
didn't.
I froze and they don'tunderstand that freeze is a
biological trauma response thatthey can't control in their body
and so they feel like, well,maybe I wanted it or maybe I
didn't do enough to stop it, andso there's a lot of confusion.
There's a lot of confusion whenyou didn't know the person or
when you sorry when you did knowthe person and you're like but
(22:29):
I trusted this person, what do Ido now?
Especially if they're asignificant other or you're you
know, if you're married or evenif you're at the beginning part
of a relationship.
So I think that where the traumaintensifies is if you disclose
to somebody that's close to youand whether or not they believe
you.
That changes your level oftrauma or can change your level
(22:53):
of trauma to be even moretraumatizing.
So if you tell your best friendand they'd be like, but he
wouldn't do that, what did youdo?
Or you tell your parent and tosay, oh, they can't hear it
because maybe they've beentraumatized.
Oh, I don't, they can't hear itbecause maybe they've been
traumatized.
You tell the police and thepolice say, well, what were you
(23:14):
wearing?
Which is still very common oryou're married.
That can't happen.
You know, whatever the case maybe, and that adds another level
of trauma because you've hadthis thing happen to you and now
nobody's believing you and soyou feel crazy, you feel like
maybe I was to blame and youlive with that and that settles
(23:34):
into your body and that settlesinto your stress and you can
have a lot of different stressreactions.
Some people laugh, some peoplejust get really giddy and they
laugh.
Some people shut down, they'redepressed, they can't function.
Some people over-function, theybecome avid runners, they
become workaholics, they becomewhatever to just like, try not
to think about it, when allthere is is, you know it's still
(23:56):
living in your body.
And I think that that trauma ofexperiencing the
re-traumatization by the systemsthat are meant to help, that
often don't help and often justre-traumatize is worse for
survivors and I hope thatchanges, but we're not there yet
by any means.
(24:18):
You can see Epstein is in thenews all of the time.
His survivors are still notexperiencing justice.
You can see that with the Diddytrial Like we have video
evidence of things and thesystems still aren't working for
survivors.
But survivors who experiencebelief when they tell somebody
(24:42):
have a different sense ofhealing.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, and I think that there's so many
contradictory expectationsplaced on victims too, of you
know you need to say something,but then if it's taken them five
years or 10 years or 15 yearsto finally speak out and say,
okay, this happened to me, thenthere's the question of, well,
(25:06):
why did it take you so long?
So almost that expectation ofmaybe you should have just
stayed silent.
If you stayed silent for thislong, then why are you saying
something now?
Is it because you want money?
Is it because you want fame?
Are you jumping on the Me Toobandwagon?
And yes, just so many differentlayers of opportunities to get
(25:27):
re-traumatized.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think you know, and somepeople go back to that person
who abused them and who rapedthem, because they're trying to
figure it out.
Our brain, when we gettraumatized, we relive it and
we're trying to master thattrauma.
We're trying to master controlof what happened to us.
And so a lot of times you goback and you have sex with that
person again, and maybe it'sconsensual this time, because
(25:51):
you want to own it and you wantto have the power in that, when
it was taken from you in thebeginning.
And so that's really common isto go back and have sex with
that same person or to have sexwith multiple people, because
you, especially if and I don'tsubscribe to the notion that
virginity is taken or thatvirginity is even necessarily a
thing, it's either you've hadsex or not, because I think that
(26:13):
that hurts our understanding ofall of this but if that was the
case and you think, well, I'mbroken now because society says
I'm broken, which is untrue thenyou go on to have sex with a
lot of different people becausethat normalizes it for you, and
that's really common too.
And so there's no wrong way toreact.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
It is a survivor's responsibility to take ownership
for their healing though, andhealing is such a you know, a
unique process as well.
I've talked to a few peoplewhere you people where the
promiscuity, I guess following asexually traumatic event
sometimes they look at that as away of having their own control
(26:59):
.
If I go ahead and consent tosex to this person, they can't
take that non-consensual piece.
They can't take thatnon-consensual piece away from
me If I say no and they forcethemselves on me anyway.
Now I've lost control.
But if I just go ahead and sayyes to that person and that
person and that person, at leastI'm having control over saying
(27:22):
yes.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yep, absolutely no-transcript, which I think is
(27:53):
a very, very small majority, butI think that that happens too,
and I don't think that thatnecessarily means that
anything's wrong with you either.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Right, and so now I'm very curious about your work
with the perpetrators.
Do you feel that?
I'm sure you heard probablyevery excuse in every way of
avoidance of accountability, butdo you think that there was
actually any true?
I didn't know that I was doinga bad thing.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
It's a great question and one to really it's
difficult to answer.
I believe that there is aspectrum of offenders, just like
there's a spectrum of victims,and I think we want to put all
victims into one category.
And I think we want to put alloffenders into one category, and
they're not.
I think that a majority ofoffenders have some level of
(28:48):
manipulation and I think that amajority of offenders think that
they've done nothing wrongbecause they have used
justification and differentcognitive distortions to prove
what they've done is right.
Look, she wanted it, she wasplaying hard to get, she
consented, she said yes, shedidn't say no, she didn't do
anything.
She said yes, she didn't say no, she didn't do anything.
(29:09):
And you know, or he had anerection, so of course he was
into it and it was feeling goodfor him.
I, you know.
So I think that a lot ofoffenders have completely
justified what they've done.
Or, you know, I knew it wasn'tgreat, but it's, they were too
little, they're not going toremember it anyway.
Or I did really love thisperson, or I really respected my
(29:33):
student and they were a star.
But it's really about how tojustify that power and what
they're getting over them andthat power dynamic, there are
some that are really calculated.
I mean, I think about BillCosby how he drugged women to
have sex with him In his fame.
He did not need to drug anybodyto have sex.
It wasn't about sex, it was thepower that he had and it was
(30:02):
the whole ritual that he hadaround all of that.
And so I think that there aresome really ritualistic
offenders that are really reallyawful.
And then I think that there areassaults that probably happen
where it was extremelytraumatizing for the survivor
and I'm not minimizing that atall and that the perpetrator
didn't have any idea what theywere doing.
I think that that's rare, but Istill think that they didn't.
(30:28):
That perpetrator didn't checkin to see that they actually had
consent.
I think that in those cases, ifyou tell that person, hey, you
did this wrong and you need todo this better, they will go oh
my goodness, I had no idea.
And be very empathetic and goyep, and this changes their
behavior forever.
Had no idea and be veryempathetic and go yep, and this
(30:51):
changes their behavior forever.
I don't think that that is youknow.
So I want to be very, very,very, very clear, because as
soon as you say that out loud,people are going to justify that
.
Oh, that's me.
That is me, because that is themyth of well, it was just a bad
night of sex, which I think isbullshit.
Um, so I think that a majorityof offenders are manipulative
(31:15):
and calculative and, um, it'sagain.
It's about power and control.
It is not about sex.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
So do you think it's those loopholes and the
misunderstanding and the lack oflaws in place, plus that
manipulation factor for sure,that contribute to how so many
perpetrators do get away withtheir acts and continue to go on
to abuse, probably later, yes,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I mean until I think it was the 90s.
Most of our rape laws said thatyou had to yell and fight back
in order for it to be consideredrape, which we know now from
trauma that that is not the case.
The majority of rapes, themajority of rapes, the victim
freezes.
I think that those laws weremade by men and I think you know
men are a majority of theperpetrators, even when the
victim is a man.
(32:07):
And I think you know men are amajority of the perpetrators
even when the victim is a man.
And I think our whole societyhas protected perpetrators.
You can see it in the fact ofHarvey Weinstein had a team of
people getting the women to thehotel.
He abused the people who andmanipulated them and hurt them
(32:29):
if they were going to go forwardwith what happened and tell
anybody what happened.
He convinced people of likewell, you know, in Hollywood,
this is what you're getting intoand if you want to roll in that
movie, you're going to have toexperience this thing with
Harvey Weinstein.
Everybody knew it.
It was an open secret andpeople just accepted that, and
so we try to accept it in a wayof like, oh well, she's just
leaving her way to the top,rather than she's being gatekept
(32:51):
from jobs unless she has sexwith somebody.
You know we need to again flipthat narrative of she was abused
to he assaulted gender binarieshere, but I think that that's
the majority of cases thathappen is where the perpetrator
(33:16):
is a man and the victim is awoman.
But there's a lot of men who'vebeen assaulted as well and I
don't want to minimize that atall.
But I think that the culture ofour movies is the case of, like
you know, I recently read thisthing where it said what's the
number one indicator of if asexual abuse allegation is going
to be believed?
And that number one indicatoris what is your impression of
(33:39):
the perpetrator.
So back in the day we didn'tbelieve Weinstein survivors, we
didn't believe Cosby survivors,we didn't believe Epstein
survivors, because these menwere these charismatic,
gregarious, did many reallygreat things.
Now somebody says I'm anEpstein survivor, weinstein
survivor, cosby survivor.
(33:59):
Of course the belief isautomatically there because now
these men have been vilified,and that's the danger of
vilifying rapists, because, yes,they do need to be, but
majority of the time they'rereally, they've done really,
really good things and so it'sall.
It's the entire culture, the,the.
The joke is connected to thebruise.
Cosby used to joke aboutputting Spanish fly into women's
(34:23):
drinks to have sex with them,and it is on his comedy albums
in the 60s and the peoplelaughed and he was probably able
to use that to say well, look,I didn't do this, they're just
using my, they're taking my jokeout of context.
Everybody laughed at this, sowhat I'm doing isn't bad.
(34:43):
You know, everybody else thinks, yeah, that's a great idea.
Like they use it to justifythat and they use everybody
around them.
So nobody called me out on that.
It's just locker room talk.
It's just this.
It's just that I'm not a badperson and I think that we have
a problem calling out peoplearound us.
I've called out many people andit doesn't always go well, but
(35:05):
I'm also trained to do it.
I'm trained to know the signs,I'm trained to not keep silent,
and so it's a lot easier for mewhen it's not easy for most
people, because most people justwant to keep the peace, whether
that's in a family, of like.
There's so many situationswhere you know somebody has been
molested by somebody in afamily and nobody else wants to
(35:26):
talk about it and you just go tothe barbecues, you know.
Or in the case of marital rapeof like, well, you know, he's
still part of the family.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Right, and it's so difficult to look at some of
these offenders, like youmentioned.
You know these high profileindividuals.
They have power, they havemoney, they're good looking.
You know the college studentswho have, you know, been accused
of rape.
They're these tremendousathletes, they're wealthy
families, they're extremelyhandsome, they're preppy, they
(36:00):
would never have to rapesomebody because they can get
any person in the world, and Ithink that's a huge
misconception because, again, itties down to power and control.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
And I think that we, you know, I remember talking to
a man probably 10 years ago, andthis was after there was a big
rape case at VanderbiltUniversity where four football
players assaulted, brutally,raped a young woman and it was
caught on.
I don't know if it was caughton.
Well, they videotaped it andthere was parts of it caught on
(36:33):
security cameras.
And I talked with the man thatsaid but yeah, but wasn't it
maybe just a bad night of sex?
Because it was her boyfriendthat initiated it, or guy that
she was dating?
And I said do you know whathappened?
Have you looked into whathappened?
And I'm not going to repeat ithere because I don't want to
trigger the audience, but it wasbrutal.
(36:55):
And I explained that to thisman and I said this was brutal,
is this something of like a badnight of sex?
He said I didn't know and I'mlike look into it before you ask
those questions, look into thedetails before you ask those
questions, because you'reworried about one thing that's
not true most of the time andwhen you dig into that, of what
(37:15):
actually happened.
You know where Bill Cosbyadmitted in a court of law in
2013, I think, that he haddrugged women to have sex with
him and it was sealed Like theyadmit it when they have to.
Weinstein had a million.
I mean that's an exaggeration,but he had so many NDAs and you
(37:37):
have an NDA for a reason and itcould be like, oh, because
they're going to defame me.
That's not the reason.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Right.
Well, and you giving thatexample is just another perfect
example of how people expectthere has to be some sort of a
brutality component for it to beconsidered an attack or an
assault.
So what do victims andsurvivors do?
How do they fight back?
Because there's been leaps andbounds over the last few decades
, but we are still stuck in thispoint of am I going to be
(38:15):
believed?
What can I do to arm myself?
What can I do to fight back?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
do to fight back.
Yeah, I think survivors need todo what, first and foremost,
makes them safe and that isgoing to look different for
every survivor in everycommunity, and it also depends
on the perpetrator and so, firstand foremost, keep yourself
safe and do what makes you feelemotionally and physically safe.
I think that there are ways,you know, for survivors to make
(38:41):
sense of what happened to themin therapy.
But if you're going intotherapy, get somebody who is
very well-versed in sexualtrauma Not all therapists are,
not all trauma therapists areand so go to somebody who really
understands sexual assault andsexual abuse.
Emdr is an excellent therapy tohelp unlock those traumas and to
(39:03):
help get out of that obsessivethinking and to be able to make
sense of it, because a lot oftimes, survivors don't tell for
decades, don't tell theirsignificant others for decades,
and it's just inside of them,and so I think that healing can
really happen.
And I think, figuring out howto speak out.
(39:25):
You know there's a lot ofpeople that I know that have
learned how to speak out andthey're speaking out publicly
and they're naming theirperpetrator.
There can be difficulty withthat, and so you know, sometimes
you need to talk to a lawyerbefore you do that, because
there is real threat ofdefamation and maybe this is a
good segue into Callisto.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I was actually thinking that exact thing.
Let's move into talking aboutCallisto.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, so one of the things that people can do,
especially so our system,callisto Vault is technology
that we built to help with a lotof the stuff that I just talked
about.
Anybody in the US and itsterritories with a edu email
address has free access, so youcan be a student, a professor,
(40:10):
an alumni whatever the case maybe, if you have that edu, you
have free access.
What you do is, if you'retrying to find out if your
perpetrator has harmed somebodyelse, you can go in, create an
account and enter into matching.
And to enter into matching, youput the state where the assault
occurred and that is becausesexual assault laws vary by
state.
You put in a unique identifierof the perpetrator so that
perpetrator's social mediahandles, email address or phone
(40:32):
number.
There's about 12 differentthings that you can put in, and
you can put in as many as youknow and as many like.
If they've got four Instagramaccounts, you put in four
Instagram accounts and then youconsent to be contacted in the
event of a match, and so whathappens is, again, it's all
encrypted and it's end-to-endencrypted, which means that
everything, all the data thatyou put into it, is encrypted
(40:53):
before it hits our server.
So it's very secure.
And if two people put in thesame Instagram handle, let's say
, there's a match.
It's not like a dating site, soyou're not notified right away.
What happens is we get notifiedbut we still don't see the
perpetrator's information or thesurvivor's information.
That's still encrypted to us.
We see the accessibility needs,we see the language needs, we
(41:14):
see the state that the assaultoccurred in and we assign that
case to a confidential advocatewho will reach out to the
survivors separately, free ofcharge.
So the survivor pays nothingfor any of this.
The survivor has a choice alongthe way.
So their first choice is tomeet with that advocate or not.
Do they want to meet with theperson?
(41:35):
Great, if they do.
They set up a Zoom call andthat's protected under
confidentiality, and they meetwith that person who talks to
them about their legal rights,their criminal.
You know what a criminal casemay look like, what a civil case
may look like, what a Title IXcase may look like, what mental
health options there are forthem and all of their options.
And then, if the survivor wantsto know and wants to disclose
(41:59):
their information to the othersurvivors who've matched, they
sign a consent to do so and thatadvocate will work at
connecting them.
The survivor never has to makethat choice, but that is a
choice that they can make, andso that advocate will connect
the survivor so they can pursuehealing and justice, whatever
that means to them.
We do not report to police, wedo not report to Title IX, we do
(42:20):
not report to HR.
We are not a reporting platform.
We also are not a database thatpeople can sort through and we
are not a warning system, and Ithink that that is something
really unique.
We are an independent, neutralthird party that will empower
survivors for them to make thebest decision for, whatever that
(42:42):
means for them.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
So can a survivor, with you know, understanding
what had happened to them andthey just sort of just want to
put it out into the universe anddon't necessarily want to
follow up on anything.
Can they just put theirinformation there and never move
forward?
Absolutely Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
And a lot of survivors.
Do you know?
We've talked to survivors whotypically in the past their
options have been to report ornot to report, and some that
have reported most don't eversee justice.
They don't see accountabilityfor that perpetrator and then
the other ones are oftentimesleft with did that perpetrator
do it to somebody else?
I'll report because I want tomake sure that they stop and
(43:28):
they get held accountable.
And so they're left with thiswonder of this person's still
out there.
I would do something if I knew Iwasn't the only one, and we can
see that in me too.
(43:49):
We can see that's why HarveyWeinstein is in jail.
But just the power of sayingI've done something that
somebody else is going to knowthere's a match, even if I don't
ever want to talk to thatadvocate, I don't ever want to
decide.
I also think that there aresurvivors who, like I'm never
going to say it, you know, ifthere's a match, like I don't
want to participate in theprocess, if there's a match, I
just want to have it livesomewhere.
(44:10):
And then they get contacted bythe advocate and they're like
well, maybe I do want to knowmore, but I'm not going to match
with, I'm not going to knowabout that person.
I'm never going to disclose myidentity.
Great.
Know about that person.
I'm never going to disclose myidentity Great.
If they end there, great.
Then they might think about itand go.
You know what I do want to dosomething, and if they want to,
(44:34):
great.
If they don't, great.
We are agnostic about any of itbecause we believe that
survivors can make the bestdecision for themselves.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
I love that because I think that's another one of the
expectations on victims andsurvivors is almost the okay,
you know something's happened toyou.
It's now your responsibility totake down that perpetrator and
make sure that he or she neveroffends anyone again and to live
with that, knowing that youhave to then go forward with all
(44:59):
of these steps and bere-traumatized, re-victimized,
re-whatever, just because youfeel this obligation that
society is putting on you, thatit's now your responsibility to
make them stop.
So I love that.
That's an option of being ableto put that out there.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
And we built it this way because it is not the
responsibility of survivors toreport.
It is not the responsibility ofsurvivors to hold somebody
accountable and if the personwho assaulted you is a serial
perpetrator and you didn'treport, you have no
responsibility for the otherpeople who have been assaulted.
That is not on you and I think alot of survivors do hold that
(45:39):
weight and it is not because Iguarantee you that there are
survivors who reported anddidn't get justice and that
person still went on to offend.
People reported Weinstein,people reported Cosby, people
reported Larry Nassar, the USAGymnastics doctor, two police,
two Title IX at Michigan StateUniversity, and nothing was done
.
So sometimes if you report ornot, it still doesn't matter and
(46:00):
there's a safety level of whathappens to you if you do report
and you're not believed and thatcan be more traumatizing to you
.
So I hope our systems aredifferent.
You know, right now we'rereally working on the phase of
because we're still new at thisof survivor empowerment and we
are going to get toaccountability, and
accountability takes time andeventually I hope we get to
policy change, because that'sthe key to preventing all of
(46:24):
this in the end anyway is thatthose systems do work, because
we have more data on serialperpetrators and we understand
how these things work and weunderstand what survivors need
for those to be held accountable.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
And thank you for clarifying that, because I don't
believe that it's a victim'sresponsibility either.
It is almost this unspoken, andsometimes it's very spoken.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
I think it's very spoken Sometimes very loudly
spoken.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
That is your responsibility to say something.
Quick question specific toCallisto those advocates that
are then contacting theseindividuals, what credentials do
they have?
Because that can be a verytraumatic experience as well.
Just to have that contact.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
We vet all of them and they're trauma-informed and
we're actually in the process ofreally securing a partnership
where one partner will work withus on that.
But they are advocates who'vebeen doing this work for a long
time and understand this workand understand how to be
trauma-informed and how to putthe survivor in the position of
(47:29):
power.
They're also protected underconfidentiality.
So, whether that's being anattorney or a licensed clinical
social worker or whatever, notall states protect all advocates
, but a survivor will know thatlimitation.
Protect all advocates, but asurvivor will know that
limitation before they ever saya word to anybody and the
(47:49):
advocates still will not sayanything.
And if we get a subpoena we'llfight it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Okay, that was going to be.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
My next question is Lili, you know if there's a
subpoena, okay, yeah Right, Imean right now we don't have
access to the information.
So if somebody were to say, canyou tell me if this person has
created an account?
No, I cannot.
There is no way for me, as theCEO, to know that.
There's no way for me to getany of that information.
The only time that anybody seesthe information unencrypted is
(48:19):
when there's a match thathappens.
So if you've not experienced amatch, there's no way we can get
any of your information, andthe only person that sees that
information once a match happensis somebody who is legally
protected under confidentiality.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Okay, perfect.
And how far is your reach withCallisto?
Speaker 2 (48:38):
You know, right now we have accounts created in 49
states.
We have about 10% of allschools.
All universities in the US haveat least one account created,
and so we are making traction.
We have accounts created atalmost 600 schools, and so we
(48:59):
are still expanding reachbecause every like over 21
million people have free access.
So, you know, anybody withthatedu email has free access,
and so we have that, thatmassive reach, and now it's just
about getting people to knowabout it, and I think that
that's a challenge and that'swhy I'm I'm super happy to have
your platform and I hope that ifall of your audience just tells
(49:22):
one person about it, it can bereally impactful, because people
don't want to follow aorganization about sexual
assault because it's triggering.
Meta blocks our ads.
Google blocks our ads becausehow do you talk about rape when
you know people you'll see it onTikTok of like people using the
(49:43):
grape icon and stuff and ourads get shut down for
inappropriate content becausewe're talking about sexual
assault and rape.
They get shut down for beingpolitical, when sexual assault
should not be a political issue.
But we've made it into apolitical issue and so it's
really challenging to spread theword, but it's important to so.
(50:04):
If you know college students,if you know professors, if you
know people, spread the word oncollege campuses, connect with
us and we have a free toolkit onour website that people can
download and they can printposters and business cards and
everything else about brochures,about how it works.
We also have a demo coming upin September or check, depending
(50:27):
on when you're listening tothis check our website to see if
we have a demo coming up thatyou can come and ask questions,
because there's a lot ofquestions about this.
You know there's a lot ofuncertainty, but we probably
have the answer for that, thosequestions.
And you know we love to partnerwith students.
We have a student ambassadorprogram where we prepare
(50:49):
students to spread the word ontheir campuses by giving them
training and giving them theresources that they need to be
able to do this work on collegecampuses.
And, of course, somebody isgoing to believe their peer more
than they're going to believemy Gen X face, you know.
So it's important that studentsknow about this and if you
don't think that it's going tohappen to your child who goes to
(51:10):
college, I hope that's the case.
But in reality, one in fourwomen who go to college
experience sexual assault.
One in five trans andnon-binary students experience
sexual assault, and one in 15boys and men experience sexual
assault while in college, and soI know a lot of people worry
about false reporting andthey're worried about their boys
(51:30):
that are going to college beingfalsely accused.
But your son is more likely tobe raped in college than they
are to be sexually sorry.
Your son is more likely to besexually assaulted while in
college than they are to befalsely accused.
And yet we're not talking aboutthe abuse and sexual assault of
(51:51):
boys and men on collegecampuses either.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Are you looking to expand beyond the educational
system for those who don't havean affiliation with an
educational system?
Speaker 2 (52:04):
We are.
We are definitely in theprocess of securing some funding
to do that.
A lot of it really comes downto funding.
Funding in the sexual assaultspace is fairly complex because
people don't want to talk aboutit and people don't like
companies don't want their nameattached to it.
(52:36):
So we are really working hardon securing funding for a pilot
to be able to expand accessbeyond EDUs If you are somebody
out there that is a26, to beable to have our plan.
But we are actively pursuingthat, and so if you're wanting
more information, subscribe toour newsletter or follow us at
Callisto on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
Okay, so let's get people connected to you.
What are your handles?
What's your website?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
So our website is projectcalistoorg.
Calisto is spelledC-A-L-L-I-S-T-O.
Our Instagram handle is atCalisto.
You can follow us on LinkedIn.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn.
We are on Facebook, but not asmuch at Calistoorg.
We are on X again, not as muchat Calisto.
(53:25):
At Callisto org, we are on Xagain, not as much at Callisto,
and so those are the, butInstagram is the main place that
we're on.
So if you want to follow usthere, but feel free to reach
out you know we respond to everyemail that we get at contact at
projectcallistoorg and we arereally looking for new and
exciting ways to spread the wordand to look for new donors and
new funders and really make surethat college students know that
(53:46):
they have access.
And one other thing that I wantto say about our system is that
it doesn't matter who theperpetrator is.
The perpetrator does not haveto be connected to the school.
It can be anybody, soperpetrators are often in
communities and may not be astudent at the school.
We know that students moveafter they've been assaulted.
We know that perpetrators moveafter being accused of assault.
(54:08):
So we have matches that onesurvivor lives on one coast, one
survivor lives on another coast, and so it doesn't matter who
the perpetrator is or if they'reaffiliated with the school or
not.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Okay, that was actually a very good point.
So, finally, I believe everystory carries strength, and what
would your strength or messagethat you want to leave be with
listeners?
Speaker 2 (54:40):
I think to the survivors out there that we
believe you, we see you.
What you're experiencing isnormal, um, and there is healing
.
That can happen, um, andhealing is is a journey, um, but
it's not your fault, it issolely on the perpetrator, and
(55:01):
there are people that arefighting every day to make sure
that we can hold perpetratorsaccountable, so that story can
change.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Thank you so much, Tracy.
That's incredible informationyou've shared.
Your time, your expertise andyour message are going to be so
powerful.
I love everything that you'redoing, your advocacy and all of
your work, and I am truly, trulyappreciative of you coming on
today.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Thank you so much for having me.
This has been great, Okaythanks.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
Thank you again, tracy, for joining me today and
thank you, warriors, forlistening.
I've included the links Tracywas referring to, as well as her
one in three profile link inthe show notes.
I will be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong andwherever you are in your journey
, always remember you are notalone.
(55:58):
Find more information, registeras a guest or leave a review by
going to the website1in3podcastcom.
That's the number1-I-N-3podcastcom.
Follow 1in3 on Instagram,facebook and Twitter at
1in3podcast.
To help me out, please rememberto rate, review and subscribe.
(56:22):
1in3 is a .5 Pinoy productionMusic written and performed by
Tim Crow.
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