Friday Question: Awareness

The Friday Question: How it works

Every Friday we will pose a question for you all to discuss or privately consider. You can engage with it publicly here on the RFAS blog, or you can join our forum (details below) for a more private discussion. You can write it down to think about later, journal about it, or bring it in to a therapy session with you.

If you would like to volunteer to become a moderator and host future Questions, please email us at volunteer@asexualsurvivors.org—or join our forum and post in the moderator volunteer thread. If you just have an idea for a future Question that you want to share, we have a brainstorming topic on our forum.

Something to Ponder Today

April is sexual assault awareness month (SAAM) in the US, so sometimes more light is shed on traumatic issues during this time. This is great for awareness, to let people know that assault is a real and pervasive happening and to provide support for survivors. The flip side to this exposure includes triggers and the potential for backlash. Some people don’t talk about sensitive issues in the most sensitive ways. When you anticipate that something will be talked about for an entire month, it can seem like too much attention or not enough.

How do you feel when the public/media/people focus on sexual assault?

• Do you find that there is a period of time in your life (SAAM or otherwise) during which sexual assault is talked about a lot?
• Can you prepare for this? How?
• How can you limit your exposure to these topics if there is too much for you? How can you seek out more exposure if you do not get enough?
• Is this a good or bad focus for you, primarily? How do other people talk about it, and how does it make you feel?
• What do you wish people might say instead of what they do say?
• How would you like to see awareness raised about sexual assault?

You don’t have to answer every (or any!) question, of course. These are just different ways to approach the topic which might be helpful to consider. You can share as much or as little as you like.

On the Forum

• You can discuss this question privately after registering at the forum
• Here are instructions for how to join the forum
• Here’s the invite request form
• You can also still discuss previous questions as well. There is no time limit for joining the discussion.
• Please abide by our rules in both comments and forum posts.

Please note that we are still working things out in the forum, especially technical issues. We are gradually letting people in now who are not moderators or volunteers, but it can basically be considered “in beta” for now. So if you do join, please excuse our forum being a bit of a mess while we get everything tested. There may also be a little bit of a wait time for sending out invites.

Here are a couple of things you should know about posting to the forum:

• All posts are private, and can only be viewed by members
• It is against forum rules to discuss any personal stories shared on the forum with anyone who is not a member without permission of the person who shared it
• You can post as anonymous, once you are a member

The Spoiler Tag

You can hide especially triggering details behind a spoiler tag—which also works in blog comments. Here’s an example:

[spoiler title=’Triggering stuff’ collapse_link=’true’]Explicit/triggering material would go here.[/spoiler]

To make one, just type…

[ spoiler ] ... [ /spoiler ]

…without the spaces. I hope that this helps everyone safely navigate this conversation.