0:00:00.2 Louie Marven: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. My name is Louie Marven, and I am the training specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This podcast is part of our male survivor series. Today, Vanessa Sapien joins me to talk about working with male survivors in detention and some considerations for advocates on communication. Vanessa is the mental health program director at Just Detention International, or JDI.

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0:00:50.6 LM: Vanessa, thanks for being on the podcast. Could you introduce yourself and your work with JDI? 

0:00:55.3 Vanessa Sapien: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. I'm really, really excited to be here and to be speaking with you today. So yeah, my name is Vanessa Sapien, I am mental health program director with Just Detention International. I've been working with JDI for going on about four years now, I can't believe it's already been that long, time flies. But prior to my work with JDI, I've actually spent about the past 15 years in the SADV movement. So before coming to JDI, worked at a rape crisis center for about 15 years, starting out first as an advocate, responding to hospitals and doing the accompaniments to police stations and the hospitals and so on and so forth, and all of that great stuff. And then when I went to graduate school and got my clinical degree, because I do have a background in mental health, I went back to rape crisis and started doing some PREA work and started working as one of their counselors at the rape crisis center.

0:01:52.0 VS: And I was there for about a year, and what kinda drew me to working with incarcerated survivors and transitioning from the rape crisis center to JDI was that, here I was, I had done this work for over 10 years, really kind of feeling like I knew everything there was to know about DV and SA. And when I finished graduate school the director of the rape crisis center that I had been affiliated with for a really long time said, "You know, I know this is work that you might wanna try to get away from, I know you might wanna try to maybe explore some other things", and she was like, "But I have this interesting proposition for you doing PREA work."

0:02:31.0 VS: And so I was intrigued and I thought, "Okay, what's PREA? I've never heard of PREA before." And so she went on to explain what the Prison Rape Elimination Act was, and that it was all around supporting incarcerated survivors of sexual abuse, and that was a really big eye-opening experience for me, because it made me realize that I, like most other people who do this work, hadn't considered survivors in detention. And so I have been dedicating the last four years of my life to doing just that and making sure that we truly are inclusive of supporting all survivors, which of course includes folks in detention.

0:03:07.9 VS: And so yeah, I worked at rape crisis centers, worked at DV centers, for about 15 years. This is totally a second career for me, I was an actress before that, and I dedicated my life to that for about 20 years, and now I'm also sort of an ambassador and in activist for people with disabilities as well in my spare time.

0:03:29.9 LM: Thanks so much for that introduction, Vanessa. I really appreciate you sharing your journey around already working with survivors in the sexual assault movement, and your journey of saying, "Wow, I wasn't even thinking about survivors who are incarcerated." I really think that that is probably the case for lots of listeners, so I really appreciate you giving listeners an example of your own journey that perhaps some are also about to go on. So, I know that we're talking about communication today and communicating with and about male survivors in detention, and you've done a lot of thinking around helpful aspects of style that advocates can keep in mind when they're communicating with and about male survivors, whether in a one-on-one setting or in a group, but what are some considerations that you want advocates to know about related to their communication style? 

0:04:31.9 VS: Yeah, absolutely, and all of this is deriving from a lot of different places. So, in my work at JDI, I both work individually with folks as clients, and then I also do a lot of group work in different capacities. So I lead art workshops, I lead wellness series groups, and then we also... I lead a hotline at JDI, where I'm one of the supervisors at the hotline, and so we are able to engage folks that way. And so it's significant because we've been able to experience how to support survivors in a lot of different capacities, in a lot of different ways: One-on-one group, and then remotely through a hotline. And I think a lot of the considerations that I have, kind of derive and are rooted in just that, that it kind of doesn't really matter in what capacity we've been able to help folks, these things have held true.

0:05:22.5 VS: And so the first one I think that is really, really important to consider is, first and foremost, how we talk about survivors is key. And I think, as we were talking about earlier, the fact that we don't really consider incarcerated survivors in our day-to-day work, I think especially as advocates, it also means that we're out of step and out of practice in how we communicate about them. And so the first thing that I think is important for us to keep in mind is that survivors that are in detention, especially males, are less quick to open up. So building rapport and trust, in terms of their lived experience and the fact that they're living in a controlled and impressive environment, is really important.

0:06:10.5 VS: I think it's really important to keep to quick and simple responses when communicating to folks on the inside, I think it's also really important to keep in mind that they prefer discussing conditions of confinement, more so than they feel comfortable talking about sexual abuse itself. That's safe, that's something that feels a lot more relatable, it's something that they don't really have to worry about, and it's just sort of a way of opening up to really talking about the abuse itself. I think that with that there's also a lot of talking around trauma instead of talking about trauma. And then also just really wanting to keep in mind that consistency, being consistent, with folks in detention is more important than folks on the outside, and I think especially with male survivors. So really wanting to be consistent in our communication with them, consistent in our messaging, consistent in what we have to say, and then really wanting to make sure that we are maintaining boundaries and working to really get that buy-in, because I think that initially, especially on the front end, can be really difficult with incarcerated male survivors, is gaining their trust. It's really, really tricky. So that's number one.

0:07:32.5 LM: That's great. And yeah, it seems to me that for those advocates who hadn't thought about confinement and what that's like, and that there are survivors there, I think those are some really great practical things to think about, it's kind of one of those basic skills of going where the survivor wants to go and then kind of applying that to the setting, so I think that's a great, great place to start.

0:07:58.8 VS: Yeah, I think it's meeting people where they're at, and we tell advocates that all the time, that whenever they're engaging with clients and meeting with survivors that you wanna meet the survivor where they're at. And that's certainly true attention, but I think it's a little bit trickier, right, because we're talking about an environment that people just really aren't familiar with and don't really understand, and so I think a lot of it on the front end is just doing our best to try to understand the environment without being invasive about it. So, of course we don't wanna ask questions that are inappropriate, or just for the sake of knowing, that isn't going to serve our relationship and our rapport with them, but we also do wanna understand their environment. And so it's a lot of questions around like, "So what does that mean? What does that look like? When you say that, what does that mean?" And not really making assumptions as much as possible, but really wanting to understand what that environment is about. And every facility is different too, so I think once you have experience working with one facility, if you are working with somebody who is in a different environment, also wanting to understand how those politics work and how those dynamics play out.

0:09:08.6 LM: Yeah, thanks Vanessa. I know that something that comes up in NSVRC when we're talking with folks about working with male survivors is just that advocates should be prepared for male survivors to be perhaps more descriptive of abuse or graphic perhaps that advocates might be used to. And I know that's also part of thinking about male survivors in detention. So could you talk about that? 

0:09:42.0 VS: Yeah, so I think one of the reasons that we see that is because I think male survivors especially are more focused on different aspects of abuse that are less feelings-focused. And so as much as we as advocates wanna get into the emotional response of the abuse or trying to find out how the abuse has impacted a survivor on the most personal level, I think incarcerated male survivors are more wanting to... Or are more comfortable, I should say, focusing on the physical acts of the abuse itself. And so kind of like the details, the events of what happened, and just sort of processing that, sort of the physical aspect of it all.

0:10:23.0 VS: So I think that's one of the reasons why we see that they're much more sort of descriptive and graphic and wanting to tell of what happened. And I think the other thing is just being concerned with how the abuse impacts their identity as a male. And so, I feel like when we talk with male survivors, they wanna know what this means versus why it happened, and I feel like when we talk with women it can tend to be the opposite, it's more of like, "Why did this happen? What sort of led to this happening to me? Why me? Why was I a target?" But males are more focused in the future of like, "Okay, so what does this mean? And so let me unpack what happened, let me get into the details of what occurred, and let me figure out what this means for my future." And so, I think that's an important sort of conceptualization when you're talking with males, is to kind of understand why they wanna may focus on those details more than some of the other stuff that us as advocates are more comfortable exploring.

0:11:34.4 LM: Thanks. Vanessa. And, you know, I know a term that comes up in our work in the sexual assault movement and beyond, is "toxic masculinity", and that can mean lots of different things to different people, but just the concept that lessons that we've learned about what it means to be a man that are actually harmful to our interactions with each other, with women, with people of all genders. And so, how do those messages impact men who are in detention, particularly male survivors who are in detention, and who are navigating that trauma and perhaps seeking services or perhaps interacting with an advocate like yourself? 

0:12:25.3 VS: Yeah, I think in detention, we're talking about hyper-masculine environments, and so I think it's sort of a breeding ground that sort of perpetuates toxic masculinity, and there are very few opportunities to really even explore that or even introduce it.

0:12:44.0 VS: And so it's one of those really difficult and tricky things to kind of navigate, and I think especially when you're talking to a survivor around "Okay, well what kind of man do you wanna be?", and having that conversation. And so I think I've spoken to a lot of males who are just kind of at odds with that, of trying to kind of keep up with this environment that they're in, that they feel like they have really little control over, and they feel like they have to sort of perform or behave in a certain way, but at the same time are trying to heal and grow as people, and understanding that there are maybe certain traits or ways that they were raised, environments that they grew up in, prior to incarceration, that have carried over into being in detention, that they're in conflict with.

0:13:34.6 VS: And so I think, again, meeting them where they're at and understanding that that point of tension in their lives that a lot of them are currently experiencing, that there are a lot of men that we speak to that are trying to get to that next place, and are trying to figure out for themselves what type of person they wanna be and what their healing is gonna look like and what that's gonna mean for them And yet at the same time, when you're done with your session or when you're done with your phone call or after they leave your program, are then going back into an environment that is contradicting a lot of where it is that they're trying to go.

0:14:17.0 LM: Yeah. And of course, we know that about our field, and really even beyond our field, a number of people in human services really broadly, but certainly many advocates at rape crisis centers are women, and I know you've done some thinking around dynamics around female advocates working with male survivors in detention. So could you talk about some of those dynamics? 

0:14:43.9 VS: Yeah, it's a challenge, I think, because some of the things that we face are, one, that maybe a survivor sometimes would prefer to talk to a male. More often than not, we don't necessarily see that, but it certainly is a dynamic that can come up. But I think understanding what it means to offer services to an opposite culture, right? So a lot of direct-service providers are women, and so I think it's important for us to think about how that impacts our ability to support male survivors. And just thinking through sort of dynamically, "What does that look like?" And also that we are essentially creating restorative experiences for male survivors and how that impacts the boundaries that we have to set up.

0:15:36.9 VS: So we could very well be the first positive point of contact that a survivor has ever had. So, prior to detection, a lot of folks we see come from environments that are really challenging, a lot of gangs, a lot of drugs, just coming from environments that don't have a lot of resources, low SES and things that come with just being in poverty, to then being in detention where again there's just no positive points of contact, no people that they can really connect with. And so then you have this advocate who is the first person that you're able to really open up to, connect with, talk to about your trauma, and really just sort of being mindful of what that means, and that there are going to be boundaries that come along with that, and really wanting to not blur those lines of like, "How can I be this positive force and this positive person in this survivor's life?" And that part of my responsibility is to maintain boundaries, because you are modeling relationships for the future, and in helping them understand the difference.

0:16:51.1 VS: But I think it's helpful in terms of helping folks get to a more emotional place, so I do think that is one of the advantages of there are being sort of an overwhelming amount of female advocates versus male advocates. And I do think that when we've experienced male survivors who maybe don't wanna talk to male advocates, it's for that reason. And so... That they are finding that they're having an easier time opening up and sort of creating a safe space to do so, if that makes sense.

0:17:24.0 LM: Yeah, I think it really does. And yeah, through this work over here at NSVRC, around talking about working with male survivors, one of the things that comes up that what you're saying reminds me of, is anger and how in male socialization, for a lot of us who are men, anger has been what we've learned is the most socially acceptable way for us to express emotions. And in the context of trauma, sexual trauma, and the context of the trauma of incarceration, anger is definitely a dynamic that comes up when we're talking about communication and tips for communication style. So could you continue with what you were talking about? And particularly thinking about this fact that for lots of men we've been socialized to be most comfortable expressing anger, and not only most comfortable expressing anger, but what we've received back from the world is that "That's an acceptable thing for you to express emotionally", and other kinds of emotions are not... Yeah.

0:18:35.0 VS: Yeah, and I feel like that is probably one of the greatest challenges to working with men inside, is when you think about working in detention, a lot of it has to do with containment, like this containment mentality. So whenever there is a display of emotion that in any way seems even a little aggressive, sort of the immediate response inside is that "That is something that I need to contain and something that I need to control." And so what sales to be seen is that if somebody is trying to heal from any sort of trauma, and especially sexual abuse, that's what processing those feelings can look like. And so I feel with men we see a lot more of demonstrative anger versus with women it can be a lot more passive, and so a woman in process of healing from sexual trauma is a lot less disruptive. And so we do see this double standard.

0:19:46.0 VS: And so I think the thing that can be really challenging is understanding that there aren't really a lot of resources on the inside to help support men in that process. And so I think it then comes down to offering them tools and resources of what to do when they do notice themselves getting upset or angry or being triggered by certain things, and helping them to identify what some of those triggers are, and then giving them tools to deal with it. Because one of the unfortunate challenges that we're faced with as advocates is having to see things for what they are and having to learn how to sort of navigate the system as it is, as awful as that sounds, but that's part of our responsibility and our role oftentimes, is to say, "Okay, when you do this, then what happens?" And although it may not seem fair, and although we may not agree with the outcome, we have to deal with the reality that's in front of us, and I think that that's one of the number one challenges. But then it does create a double standard, because there is an implicit bias towards men, and women are seen as emotional, right? 

0:20:55.2 VS: So that's something that we've just sort of come to expect, that they sort of need to calm down, and society just is kind of more patient with women than they are men. And when it comes to healing from sexual abuse that is incredibly, incredibly damaging. And so the men are not given the same consideration and are labeled as aggressive, when really that's just what the healing process looks like.

0:21:20.0 LM: Thanks, Vanessa. And I know that you and JDI, in your work directly with survivors and also in working with advocates around what they can do, talk about coping skills and self-care strategies. So what does that look like in our direct service work and in your technical assistance work, and what are some of those strategies? 

0:21:43.9 VS: Yeah. So I think with men, they typically need more active coping skills and self-care strategies versus women who maybe can be offered more passive emotive coping skills. So I think where we see a big difference is, men need to... We see men requesting of us, "Okay, but what do I do? So give me something to do, 'cause I don't wanna process something, I don't wanna sit with something. I want to be able to physically do something to change these circumstances, to change the outcome."

0:22:23.5 VS: It needs to sort of be action-oriented, action-focused. And I think the other thing too is that with men it's a lot around trying to make it through that next day, trying to make it through this next moment or this next experience. And it's not to say that women are not also seeking that, but I think women are much more willing to look to the past and explore what led up to this or that, whereas men are just kind of like, "How is it that I am gonna be able to then engage with my family the next time they visit? How is it that I'm going to be able to sit through this class and do what I have to do in order to get out? Those are the types of coping skills that I need." And so a lot of it is just physical stuff, and so it's around, "Okay, so what do you already do that kind of helps you through X, Y and Z, and how can you apply that to this current situation?"

0:23:25.1 VS: And so is it, you know, physical activity, is it physical exercise? I think a lot of it too is just how can you be of service and maybe be of a mentor to other people, and so it's like "How can you use what you've been through to then create a ripple effect with some of the other men that are in the facility, how can you create a sense of leadership?", are kind of like key words and concepts that I think are really helpful for men to hear.

0:23:53.4 VS: I think being able to... Mindfulness and deep breathing is all good and great, and I think it does work for both men and women, but I think with men, definitely much more sort of physical. So progressive muscle realization rather than mindfulness, focusing on the physical aspects, not necessarily the internal. And then I also think, "Okay, so you're gonna do journaling, but then this is what you're gonna do with it, this is why that's helpful, and this is what you can do after you do that journal exercise." So again, just always having this tangible physical component to anything that you do. But I think first and foremost, just always explore it with them first and find out what works.

0:24:46.2 LM: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is really great, and I know that, of course, implicit in what we're talking about is that men have diverse experiences and needs and, as do women, as do non-binary people, and as do survivors of any gender. So yeah, I just appreciate that, hearing what you've learned and what you've developed through working with men who are incarcerated and that you're taking care to point out that we're providing options for things, for strategies which, again, kind of what we were talking about earlier, is basically a core skill of advocacy. We're providing options.

0:25:30.0 LM: And so, yeah, I appreciate what you're doing to kind of open that up and share what you have been learning about, about men who are incarcerated. While advocates certainly should also take from this that people have just a variety of different needs, and we're talking broadly for the purpose of addressing the topic of male survivors.

0:25:47.1 VS: Yeah, exactly. I think that's what's hard, is I think it's difficult when you have to generalize something, right? When really it can be such a nuanced thing, but it's all for the sake of just understanding the culture. It's understanding the community and understanding that that's exactly what it is, that when you're working on the inside you're talking about a community, just like any other community that you do work inside of. And so really understand what it means also in terms of male/female, what's important to males versus females in terms of being a part of a community, what are those things that matter to them and applying that here as well, that it's no different. So I think all of that is really important.

0:26:41.9 LM: Yeah. Great, well, I know that you also had... We've been talking mostly about communication styles and strategies and some things that you do in your work with male survivors or that you work with advocates on developing in terms of their communication style, and I know that you had a number of additional considerations that you're hoping that advocates can keep in mind as they're working with men in detention, male survivors in detention, so what are some of those additional considerations that you'd like advocates to take from this conversation? 

0:27:18.4 VS: I think one is that it's difficult to conceptualize and recognize something as abuse on the inside, so I think we still have a lot of myths around the fact that men can't be raped, and so that that sort of impedes how rape services are received. And also in terms of how services are delivered. And so I think when we're talking about male survivors, power and control looks different. So power and control is a dynamic for all survivors but I think especially with males, really exploring what power and control means to them, and how that's relevant. And I think that gender norms absolutely influence our understanding of consent as well. So there certainly are a lot of double standards and myths about the abuse of men around "If it happened then I must have consented."

0:28:26.9 VS: Or that men are not abused in the same way as women, or that if I'm letting this happen then I maybe can't stop it. And so I think all of those kind of trickle down to our understanding of consent, because I feel like there's a double standard there as well, between consent of many women, that men have this internal understanding that consent is more related to a woman than to a man, and that they have these ideas about being an initiator or something like that. And so this idea of men being survivors of sexual abuse I think really does call into question our understanding and ideas around consent, and some of the myths that we hold.

0:29:28.5 VS: And so then there's also different ideas of sex and intimacy, and so misconceptions and stereotypes of the male sex drive, that if it happened to them, again, that they must have wanted it. Or that it's not unwanted, and then over-representation of men of color in detention, and just sort of the cultural norms around masculinity when we're talking about men or color, and all the considerations that need to be made with that.

0:29:57.5 VS: So you know, you and I were talking earlier about just understanding the different environments that folks come from and sort of the pathways to prison and just sort of what leads to all of that and what kind of environment a lot of folks in detention are coming from, and that it's just completely inequitable and unfair and that we just have a lot of work to do in our criminal justice system, in terms of who's inside and who it is that we're supporting. And that it's incredibly important to understand those dynamics first and foremost and then understand the prison dynamics, 'cause I think they go hand in hand and very much near each other.

0:30:39.5 VS: And then, I think living in a hyper-masculine environment and sort of the impact of performing masculinity, which is something I think we see a lot. And I think, again, if you think about a young man who was 18 or 19 years old, when he went inside and is now in his 30s or 40s. And the examples that he's had about masculinity and what it means to be a male, I think you do see a lot of performing, and performing toxic masculinity. And I think that's the thing that's so interesting about toxic masculinity, is I feel like a lot of it has to do with just performing an idea of what we think it means to be male or masculine. And that's, I think, what makes it such a phenomenon, is I don't necessarily think that it's anything that comes naturally to anyone, I absolutely think that it's learned and it's observed. And I think when we're able to pick that apart and tear that down a little bit, at least in my experience, I found that almost 100% of the time when you're able to really explore that with male survivors that's what it kinda boils down to, is "That's all that I knew and I was just behaving what I thought was right."

0:32:02.3 VS: And how that impacts your gender identity development to being on the inside, because we're talking about survivors who have maybe spent decades on the inside. Or, again, young men in just sort of that developmental stage between 18 and 25, you're living in a male facility. And then I also think just sort of gender role expectations, which it all goes hand-in-hand, around behavior, healing and growth. And what it means to heal for sexual abuse and the permissions that males give themselves to heal, or lack thereof. And I think a lot of males it's like, "Well no, I deserve this, and it was my fault because I couldn't control the situation or I couldn't stop it." And again, all survivors kind of wrestle with those questions, but I think for men it does look a little bit different, that "I should have been able to do something about it. As a man, I should have been able to stop this." And of course, we know that that just isn't true, but then it kind of goes back to, "Okay, so then what does this mean for my healing and what does this mean for my ability to grow?"

0:33:10.1 VS: And that those can be really difficult topics to introduce to a male population, talking about growth and healing, those sound like feminine words, those sound like feminine topics. And so to have to present those in creative ways. And again, talking about trauma without actually talking about it, and that even us as advocates kind of have to talk around it sometimes, so that we can make it safe. 'Cause I think you wanna model and mirror what it is that they're saying. And so if a survivor is wanting to talk around trauma, then we find that we're talking around trauma and circling around it, and circling around it until we can actually get there, and we can find our entry point.

0:33:52.4 VS: And I think what's really interesting is men want to heal. And we see that, because in our hotline, I think when JDI initially started our support line and inside line for incarcerated survivors we, like a lot of other people, made the false assumption that we would overwhelmingly be receiving calls from women. And we've actually seen the opposite to be true, that the overwhelming majority of folks that are calling are men. And that's incredible, and I think that absolutely proves that men want to heal and that we have to be creative in the ways that we are offering services and supports to males, because it's less in your face, it's safer, it's "I'm talking to somebody on the other line that I don't have to see face-to-face." And it's not to say that we shouldn't be creative around providing in-person direct services, absolutely. But I think, again, just when we think about why the hotline is successful, incorporating what we have learned and what we have found out to direct services as well, it's like, "So how do we offer some of the safety nets that they're experiencing on the line but then transferring that in our direct service work as well?" And so I think, yeah, that's definitely given us a lot to think about.

0:35:14.0 VS: And I think that coping skills don't need to be gendered, so when it comes to the art workshops that we've done on the inside, primarily in the beginning our focus was working with women and figuring out how to roll this out for women, but now we figured out ways to consider how this could work for men. And so something as simple as art, on the surface can at times feel like a gendered tool that might be better suited for women, but we need to think creatively about how we offer services and figuring out ways to make sure that it works for everybody. That they're accessible, and that we all need to shift our thinking around what's possible for men to heal, And that starts with including them in the process and trying to understand what works for them, and really working through those tensions and that resistance that is inevitably going to come up. And again, like we were talking about earlier, where a lot of the service providers are women, really working through all of that and figuring out, "Okay. You deserve to heal. There are ways to make this work, help us figure that out. And how can we make things more inclusive?"

0:36:29.5 LM: You are giving so much good stuff out to those advocates who maybe are, like we mentioned at the beginning, starting their journey into even thinking about incarcerated survivors and what it might look like for those advocates to begin to provide really great services to male survivors in detention, and I think also people who have been doing this work for a long time. So thanks for that really great rundown of different considerations, Vanessa. I especially liked when you were talking about the need to talk around trauma, particularly your evidence that people want to heal, men want to heal and want services, and that just might look different than what we've been used to offering and engaging in. And I think... Yeah, your comment about talking around trauma really rings true for me in terms of sometimes our own lingo and our paths of thinking that we've developed inside of our work can be barriers for people who have been outside that work. Of course, it sounds so obvious when I say it that way, but when you're in it and you're using this lingo and you're using it every day, sometimes we can forget that that's not everyone's experience. So, I particularly appreciate that comment. Vanessa, is there anything else that you didn't get a chance to share with our listeners around communication considerations for working with male survivors in detention? 

0:38:02.0 VS: I mean, I think you nailed it perfectly, right, that this whole thing is about communication, and I think what we are finding is that you're gonna develop your own kind of language when working with incarcerated survivors. Because like I said before, I always look at working in detention as working with an individual community, every facility is its own individual community. And every community has its own culture, its own language, and so I think part of our responsibility is to figure out what that language is for that particular community.

0:38:35.0 VS: And so when we are talking around trauma, I think it's really, really important to be keyed into that language and what is being said and figuring out what it actually means. Because so much is being said even when it feels like no one is saying anything. And I feel like that is kind of the big takeaway, is even when you feel like absolutely nothing is being said, so much is being communicated. And you don't have to be in front of the person and even see their body language to know that. And so, I think I'd just encourage people to ask questions and to stay curious, all for the sake of building your relationship with that survivor, because they're worth it and they need you, and they absolutely want help and a lot of the times just don't know how to ask for it, because they're used to not receiving much of anything. Expectations are really low, and so the fact that you are somebody that wants to go in and help is overwhelming. And so, to just be aware of that and how impactful it really is that you're there.

0:39:39.0 LM: Awesome, thank you again for joining us today, Vanessa. And we do invite listeners to learn more about working with male survivors, and more about JDI's work by checking out the links in the show notes.

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0:40:06.8 LM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource On The Go, for more resources and information about understanding, responding to and preventing sexual assault visit our website at www.NSVRC.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@NSVRC.org.