By Johanna Mills

After spending the better part of three decades in prison, trying to find my way in the outside world felt like trying to fly a spaceship. The digital revolution had passed me by while I was locked up. When I was sentenced to prison in 1993, the internet was relatively niche. But when I got out in 2019, it was something that everyone needed to function in society.

Yet I didn’t grasp at first just how dramatically the world had changed. Nor did I have a basic understanding of what skills I would need to survive. In…

By Laura Peek

During Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2021, NO MORE is proud to join the National Sexual Violence Resource Center for critical discussions about online sexual harassment and abuse.

Preventing and ending sexual violence requires societal change, and much of that change is attitudinal. If we want to assess and respond to the root causes of sexual violence, we have to start with widely-held, cultural beliefs. Of all of the beliefs that reinforce violence, victim-blaming, or the assumption that survivors of assault are somehow at fault for their own abuse, is among the most damaging.

What does online victim-blaming look like?

In our society, it…

By Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan

Dick pics, revenge porn, cyberbullying — there are so many sexual ways that people can hurt each other online. For those of us who didn’t grow up with such a deep intertwining of the internet and sex, the anxiety about ‘those crazy kids these days’ is real. But we need to remind ourselves of the centuries-long history of fear about technological change and sexual danger. 200 years ago the ‘technology’ was bicycles and the concern was that riding them would, among other things, disrupt women’s menstrual cycles. Fast forward a century, and a…

By Susan Sullivan, Prevention Campaign Specialist for NSVRC
and Megan Thomas, Communication Specialist for NSVRC

Since our opening in 2000, NSVRC has served as a hub for advocates, researchers, and educators who are on the frontlines to support survivors and build communities free of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse. Twenty years later, we continue to offer the latest resources on preventing sexual violence through services like our library’s continually growing collection of 47,000 resources, free online courses on sexual assault advocacy, and our new podcast, Resource on the Go.

We know that our mission could not see progress without the…

By Susan Sullivan, Prevention Campaign Specialist for NSVRC

This year, for the first time in its nearly twenty-year history, Sexual Assault Awareness Month was observed solely in online spaces this past April. This alone would mark a significant moment in the campaign’s history, but an added layer was the unforeseeable circumstances under which it came about.

For nearly two decades, April has marked Sexual Assault Awareness Month or SAAM — a time when sexual assault advocates, survivors, and allies throughout the country spread awareness about sexual assault and share educational messages on how to prevent it. …

By Molly Boeder Harris, Founder and Executive Director of The Breathe Network

Sexual violence is a trauma to the body with immediate and ongoing physical, mental, and spiritual impacts, many of which have been magnified for survivors in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. As a survivor, an advocate, and a Somatic Experiencing (SE) Practitioner who specializes in working with sexual trauma, this current crisis is a difficult reminder of the complex and lifelong imprint trauma leaves on the body and brain. …

By Jenny Dills, MPH

The sexual assault survivors that came through the door of the Mizzou Women’s Center weren’t strangers to me. They were my college friends and classmates.

As an undergraduate volunteer I could give them hotline numbers, help set up counseling appointments, and advocate for them with the school. But I couldn’t give them what they needed: a time machine to go back to stop it from happening to keep them and their friends safe.

These experiences showed me that the problem of sexual violence is urgent — and propelled me into a career in violence prevention. Here’s…

By Ted Bunch, Chief Development Officer at A CALL TO MEN

This blog was reposted with permission from A CALL TO MEN.

As a parent, not only is it important that we share information about consent with our children, but it’s even more essential for us to put those skills into practice and model healthy manhood. Just as children and young people are on a learning journey, we are too. It is our responsibility as parents to look at ourselves and our actions as closely as we look at others in order for us to grow as role models and…