When I was in college, I was one of the founding members of the Sexual Assault Support Team (SAST), which was a rape-crisis hotline. I carried a beeper, which at that time was as large as a computer monitor. As a rape survivor, it was important to me to be an activist for the cause. In the beginning we didn't get a lot of calls. I got a few about gray-area date-rape incidences, and a really chilling one from a guy I knew. He called to tell me he thought he might have raped and sexually assaulted girls, but he wasn't sure of the criteria. He was kind of tortured, but it freaked me out. At 19, you're just not ready to deal with such confessions.

Later, a friend started dating a different guy--one I got a phone call about. The woman who called the hotline told me his name--let's call him John-- even though I asked her not to. (Oberlin is a tiny place. It's hard to keep secrets.) So when my friend hooked up with John, I couldn't tell her why I held him in such contempt. I stewed about it for months, but knew I had to keep every call confidential. They broke up soon, as people in college do. And the hotline was disbanded a couple years ago after its own membership decided it was racist. Only at Oberlin could you have a 24-hour emergency resource completely obliterated because it was "created in a white space."

Anyway, I haven't thought about this stuff for ages, but was reminded of it when EVS sent this BBC article about a helpline.

Suicidal girls calling for help

[Image from Ohio University's vintage print advertising archive]