Out In The Mountains : News - Rape Ctr. Opens Hotline to Men

     Burlington's Women's Rape Crisis Center has announced that its Wednesday night staff for the hotline for victims of sexual violence will include male advocates. Center Director Celia Cuddy said in an interview that the number of male callers seeking support had quadrupled since 2000.
     "What we hear so often is 'I don't know if I'm calling the right place...'" Cuddy said. The Center has in the past run a support group for male survivors of sexual violence, including childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual assault. "For an agency that wants to be welcoming to all survivors, this is an important step. We wanted to start small and make sure that everyone calling the hotline has a choice of speaking to a male or female advocate."
      Cuddy hastened to add that the staff did not assume that a male caller would rather speak to a male advocate, but that it was important to make the option available. The agency's membership, Cuddy said, voted three years ago to welcome men for outreach and fundraising. Expanding the hotline staff to include male advocates is the next logical step.
     The men who will be staffing the hotline on Wednesdays from 5 to 9 pm have gone through the agency's recent joint volunteer training with SafeSpace. Other agencies may not have experience in dealing sensitively with male victims, Cuddy suggested. "Male survivors of rape rarely go to the hospital, so they may not have considered how a rape kit protocol might need to be adjusted."
      The hotline hours with male staffing started on December 2. Asked whether the increase in male callers represents an absolute increase in assaults on males, WRCC outreach worker Jim Leahy suggests otherwise. "I think that increase is a response to outreach."
     Leahy and Cuddy agree that the vast majority of the perpetrators of sexual assault reported by their agency's clients are men, whether the victims are men or women. "Men have a stake in supporting efforts to challenge the dominant paradigm where stereotypical masculinity is equated with violence and aggression to establish power and control," Leahy said.
     Jim Leahy is the first male staff member of the Women's Rape Crisis Center. The 2003 graduate of Colgate University (he majored in mathematical economics) said his passion for working on sexual violence issues is based on two factors: his involvement in a campus group called Men Advocating Change, and his witnessing of the pain that women friends and female relatives have gone through as sexual assault victims.
     Leahy is part of helping to create a Men Advocating Change group at UVM. The group took part in a candlelight vigil sponsored by the Feminist Majority at UVM in early December to draw attention to assaults taking place on the path through the Redstone section of campus.
     What's important about having men on the hotline, he said, is that it "provides an opportunity for men to identify as victims, but also for the male partners, friends, and family members" of sexual assault victims to get support and understanding.
     "It's time," WRCC Director Cuddy said, "for us to be having a statewide conversation, and for men to have the opportunity to not hold this [experience of victimization] inside."

WRCC's 24-hour hotline number is 863-1236 or 1-800-489-7273. The service is free and confidential.