This has perplexed me my entire life as well. As a woman who grew breasts early and then kept them quite enormous, I’ve learned that I can’t wear what flat-chested women wear. And I understand that different styles fit bodies differently but as my mom constantly shamed me for wearing what the other girls were wearing,…

I believe his official statement was “don’t live in rural areas where there’s a lot of alcohol”

At our agency we don’t like to label people at all so we try to use “person victimized by sexual violence”. When I’m speaking with that person though, I’ll let them self-identify as victim or survivor and then follow their lead.

The best solution I’ve seen so far for this problem is traveling SANE buses. This is not my original idea but I also don’t know if anyone has put it into practice yet. I know this would also have many barriers as something like this would most likely cover many different counties which means...how do you decide where…

Yeah very few ED nurses/doctors want to do an exam. Added on to everything you said, they also have to maintain custody of the kit until law enforcement picks it up which means they either can’t do their job at all or not very well. Every ED nurse and doctor I’ve worked with has been 100% supportive of a SANE/SAFE…

Eh I know it varies from place-to-place. I have seen exams that lasted 6+ hours but that’s become rare where I’m at.

It’s not about not doing any work to investigate and prosecute, it’s about what evidence is useful. Law enforcement aren’t going to test a kit if the perp says it’s consensual UNLESS there is another way to prove it wasn’t along with the kit. Unfortunately they usually have to use other tactics at that point. So,…

I know it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but all of the law enforcement that I work with picks and chooses which ones get tested. As far as I know that’s how it is all over my state. Now they won’t test Jane Doe kits until a report is made. So if someone chooses an anonymous kit, then law enforcement doesn’t…

Typically it’s 2-4 hours. That’s because it includes:

First of all, I’m all for testing all the rape kits. If we dedicate enough resources to testing them, it’s possible to do. Very expensive to do, but so is everything else we spend government money on so that’s no excuse.