**TRIGGER WARNING**

Really looking forward to the release of this documentary. As a survivor I always experience a great deal of healing when someone breaks the silence. Here’s to ending sexual assault and all the shame that surrounds it.

“Secret Survivors is an interview-based theater project by NYC-based theater company, Ping Chong & Company, featuring adult survivors of child sexual abuse telling their personal stories on stage. To expand the impact of the theater production, we are creating a documentary and toolkit to accompany the live presentation so that we can reach thousands of individuals around the country who are working to end child sexual abuse.”

For more information visit: www.secretsurvivors.org

**Trigger warning**

Reposting this web-gem from here, because we love the way it puts the focus and responsibility for sexual assault back onto perpetrators!  Female-identified people get a lot of messages about what we need to do to keep ourselves safe and minimize our risk of sexual assault (carry our keys in our hands to use as weapons, don’t listen to headphones while out walking alone, and, heck, don’t even walk alone at all!), when in reality, the recent National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey conducted by the CDC found that over half of all reported rapes were committed by a current or former partner, with an additional 40% being committed by an acquaintance known to the survivors.  Only one in seven rapes were committed by strangers.  This list is also great because it  decentralizes the role of the survivor’s gender in sexual assault and intimate partner violence.  As the CDC survey also points out, male-identified folks are also victims of sexual violence, which is sadly under-reported due to stigma.   So with those facts in mind, here are some sexual assault prevention tips guaranteed to work:

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect the answer the first time, you are commiting a crime- no matter how “into it” others appear to be.

Just as the title says! Our good buds at Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf are extending their submission deadline until next month!

“We are extending the deadline for Issue #6 to FEBRUARY 1st, 2012!

what better new year’s resolution than to submit that comic you’ve been dreamily drawing to Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf?

Submit a comic to Issue #6 of Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf
Sex Education Comic Book Project!

sexedcomicproject.blogspot.com is where you can find guidelines, theme info, updates, and downloadable comics of issues 1-5.

email scanned comics to us at notyourmothersmeatloaf@gmail.com and let us know if you need to snail mail it to us, we will get you an address. If you don’t have access to a copy machine we can scan your originall to you! if your name doesn’t appear on the comic itself, it will be anonymous!”