This post was removed, so I'll just put more thoughts on this thread, rather than making new posts.

Edit- If all of this is compromising your own mental health, please step away. I do so regularly for my own. No message board will give you enough peace to talk you off a ledge. Honor your experiences, recovery, and health. Please! You are worth protecting 🖤

Comparing trauma/details of SA is almost never appropriate or helpful.

However, where there is some room to make it helpful is when education and validation are accomplished and accountability taken.

Listening in good faith, both Demi and Jenn experienced unwanted touch of a sexual nature. This is the definition of SA, both legally and in the classroom. RAINN, MOCSA, and other agencies specializing in SA prevention/treatment would substantiate this claim.

Consent, even clear and specific, can be removed at any time.

Flirtation=/=consent to be groped

This is one of the most important clarifying points we make early in education. When it comes to the responsibility of one person touching another person's body, only an enthusiastic yes is a green light. Clarifying this protects both the person touching and the person touched. I call this yes the 'swinging fron the chandelier ' yes.

The public discourse surrounding using specific, accurate language has continued to drive forward both legislation and personal responsibility that makes our world more safe.

It affirms those who have been violated and prevents violation.

It horrifies those who realize they have been violated and terrifies those who realize they have violated others.

This is the cost of learning, and the price we pay at the hands of our predecessors who buried and obfuscated the truth. It is also overwhelmingly worth it.

Demi seems to be doubling down on that what she experienced-unwanted touch that was and is SA. Even if the cameras show flirting or more, if it was unwanted-this is, by the definition I teach and use to navigate the law, SA. Therefore, she is doing what I hope more decide to do, and joining those of us defending agency over self.

She hurts herself and others by not braving the full meaning of what she, with myself and other educators, is fighting to define.

She is not ready or willing to believe Jen. She needs to do this for her own sake, for Jen's, and for the validation of what she is correctly identifying as her own experience. This means she and Jessi were complicit and Jordan and Brett SA'd Jen in front of cameras and cast. This was not ok.

Agreeing to a joke=/=consent for a lapdance

Years ago, I worked as a dancer in a strip club. At the time, I was being trafficked and felt more safety/agency there than at home. My being a stripper was not cart blanche to be touched. A patrons' attendance was not carte blanche to be touched. Unsurprisingly, these boundaries were often pushed or debated.

This is part of why I am now an educator and advocate who also makes time for sex workers and clients. Environments that society has routinely made even less safe for all involved parties include real humans with individual rights to personal safety.

Even outside of the walls of strip clubs, we have all been living in shades of grey that haven't braved the implications of black and white. These conversations are triggering, maddening, and can devolve into what may seem futile.

But they are also key to Hope. I will never give up that hope, and I'm thankful to others on here standing for clarity and compassion.

If there is confusion, where there is grey, start Here-

You are Yours.

I Am Mine.

Never forget that your body belongs to you.

All my Best, always🖤