[Danielle Balocca]: Hey Medford Bites listeners, today we have a little bit of a different episode for you. Today's interview is of me, conducted by Chelly Kishaven, in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. This interview does contain discussion about rape and sexual violence and its impact. We hope that this conversation prompts further thinking and discussion. If it brings up more difficult feelings, I've also put resources in the show notes for support. One point of clarification from the interview today. We talk a little bit about the definition of sexual assault and I want to be clear here that many people go through a process of doubting if what was done to them counts or was bad enough. And lots of people stay silent about sexual trauma for fear of not being believed. I want to state explicitly for those people that you are seen, you are believed, and you are loved. Thank you for listening.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Hi, everybody. My name is Chelly Keshavan. I am the chair of the Medford Human Rights Commission and board member at Medford Health Matters and VP of the West Medford Community Center. I am super excited to be here today interviewing Danielle. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I think today we are talking about Danielle's work with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Yeah, so do you want to share an introduction?
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure, thank you. I'm a little nervous to be in this seat today, but my name is Danielle Belaca. My pronouns are she and her. I normally am the host of this podcast, but also I'm a mom of two kids in Medford, and we'll talk a little bit more about this, but I'm a social worker. I work at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.
[Chelli Keshavan]: That's so exciting. Do you want to speak a little bit to your professional role and talk about the work that BARC does? Sure.
[Danielle Balocca]: I was trained as a social worker. I went to Salem State a long time ago now. for a master's in social work, which is a great program. And as part of my final internship, I was an intern at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. And I almost never left. I took like one year off working somewhere else, but basically been there ever since. My role there right now, so I sort of started as a clinical intern, and now I manage that program, so I help train Masters and doctoral level students who are pursuing some type of counseling degree. So social work, mental health counseling, doctors and psychology. And so alongside them I also do the counseling work. So I work with survivors of sexual assault and sexual violence and also their loved ones. So their friends, family, partners. And we do individual counseling on kind of a short-term model. We also provide group counseling. We do also work with couples and families. And that's a lot of the work that the counseling department does. But BARC, as an organization, does a lot of other work. So clients find their way to us. Either they've heard of us or they've Googled us. More commonly, they've called our hotline for some kind of support, and they're referred to counseling. We also have a program called Medical Advocacy, which meets survivors in the emergency room. So if they've gone to an emergency room to do an evidence collection kit around their sexual trauma, hopefully they're at a hospital that has a sexual assault nurse examiner and also the hospital will reach out to Barks Medical Advocacy so someone will meet them there, talk to them about our services and also sit with them through as much or as little of their time in the emergency room as they choose. So those are like kind of our main programs. We also do have like a community awareness, prevention, education, and outreach program. So they do a lot of trainings. We'll talk a little bit more about today about sort of prevention and some of the approaches around that, but they do a lot of that work with college campuses, businesses in Boston. And yeah, we serve a majority of like the greater, sort of the like 95 sort of corridor.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, 95 Belt Highway.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. And our main office is in Central Square. We just actually yesterday which this will come out a little later, but we had like a ceremony, ribbon cutting for our new space in Central Square, which is the same building, but the city did something really cool where there's 11 non-profits in our building at 99 Bishop Allen Drive, and we were sort of at risk for losing that space, and the Redevelopment Association purchased it and totally renovated the building. It's beautiful, so we had that yesterday. That's exciting. Yeah, a pretty beautiful and welcoming space.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah. Maybe we can start with sort of an upstream question and maybe I can ask you, what does sexual violence mean? What are we talking about when we use that term?
[Danielle Balocca]: I think it means different things to a lot of people. I think we're recording this because of sexual assault awareness month, so I think it's important. We'll hopefully talk about lots of different ideas about sexual violence, but there is a very legal definition of rape, and that's not always very relevant. I think it's pretty technical and involves some pretty specific criteria, but we, like at Bark, when we were meeting with people and hearing their stories, sexual violence can mean a lot of different things. I think there's this idea of rape being like the boogeyman who jumps out of the bushes and attacks you, some stranger that you're supposed to be sort of anticipating all the time. you know, that's really a very rare kind of scenario. I think a lot of people, I mean, it's in the name, but sexual violence, associate rape and sexual trauma with violence, and we know that a lot of sexual assault does not involve, like, physical violence. So I like to talk about sexual trauma as really being about power and control, and sometimes that, you know, often that is in the context of a relationship, and the perpetrator is somebody that we trust. I think we'll talk today a little bit about sort of the gendered aspect of sexual violence, but I do like to be explicit of like, you know, it's not like a women's issue. There are a lot of survivors who identify as women, but we also know there's a lot of men who have been victims of sexual trauma.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Can you speak to some, is there a mythology or are there sort of conceptions around sexual violence that we are possibly not naming or identifying or sort of bringing to the surface as far as discussion and understanding?
[Danielle Balocca]: Totally.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Culturally maybe?
[Danielle Balocca]: Totally. I think that, you know, kind of like I was describing earlier, I think people, when we talk about sexual violence, there's like one picture that comes to mind and a lot that's excluded. So, and maybe you can, if there's anything that you want to add to like, I think like people do usually exclude you know at first glance like any sexual trauma that happens in a relationship or like crossing of boundaries and in a marriage or things like that that there's sometimes like this expectation of like Well, we're married. So like, you know, everything's on the table, which you know, he knows yes and something also like Consent I think consent can be like a tricky thing. And you and I were talking a little bit before about this idea of like blanket consent. So like consent should be like enthusiastic and sort of like an ongoing conversation. So, you know, oftentimes I think we'll hear about like coerced consent where somebody is like asking and asking and asking until somebody just finally submits, right? And that's really not consent. And then other examples of like, you know, if there is consent to a certain, like, engagement, like intimate engagement, that, you know, it doesn't count forever. So, like, that communication around, intimacy is really important.
[Chelli Keshavan]: I think when we were talking I think you might have used the term enthusiastic, yes, and I was so impressed and what came up for me was reflecting on times where I thought that I was communicating with a person who was an intimate partner properly or clearly rather and in hindsight now realizing that I was not sharing the messaging that I thought I was sharing and that the other person was taking steps based on a different communication that I thought it was offering and then that there were hard feelings after the fact. And so at that time in life I had never heard the term enthusiastic yes and I also maybe didn't know that it was okay to insist on that level of comfort communication. Yeah, so how do we, I love it, how do we speak to that learning process, how do we offer people that spaces that everybody deserves, all those things. Thank you for sharing that.
[Danielle Balocca]: And I think you bring up a really important point, which is that sometimes those dynamics are about things that maybe aren't actually in the room. So like the conditioning of folks around maybe gender expectations, right? We, in our volunteer training at Bark, we used to watch this video with a pretty explicit name. It was called, like, Frank the Rapist, I think. And what, so I think this was not an actual person, but it was like a composite of, like, actual stories or actual, like, people so basically it's like in this it's like a talks about this like guy at a frat party and the expectation of at these parties is that these like you know men get guests at the party really drunk and then they have sex with them and there's like resistance to that from on the part of the women but the expectation is the men just like go for it and that's like and and And I think you can sort of have some empathy for both sides there, where this is what these men have been told is their role, right? This is what they should do no matter what, and there's not a lot of room for understanding. that there needs to be consent, right? Absolutely. And like I think also expectation of women, like what does society expect of us in these situations? We had talked a little bit about like, I hear this a lot in my work too, of like, when is there a choice to say no, right? And that shouldn't be a line, right? It shouldn't be like, well, this person didn't say no. The line should be like, well, did they say yes, and did they really explicitly communicate that they wanted this, right? And I think we hear, I hear a lot about that, those reactions in the moment on the part of the person who's being harmed, really creating a lot of, shame and self-blame and guilt in the end, right? And I think when we look at those, you know, we talk commonly about that like trauma response in the moment, you know, we hear about like fight or flight. Yes. And one that, and those I think are like more easy to understand, right? Like if somebody's threatening me I either run away or try to fight them. One or two that are really common for sexual violence is to fawn or to freeze and sort of submit. So maybe my brain is telling me in this moment, I don't have a choice to get out of this. I just need to sort of get through it in whatever way I can. And sometimes that is just getting through it and freezing and not being able to fight. And I think our brain perceives in those moments fighting or fleeing could put me in more danger, so I'm gonna do whatever I can to survive and sometimes like that is really confusing to people after the fact right and they And that's something that we hear about a lot is like that like I should have done this I could have done this why didn't I do this and that just real sense of like How did I contribute to this? And I think we talked about those expectations of if somebody is making a move on me, it's rude to say no, or it's rude to turn them down. I'm supposed to be polite. My favorite meme is this one that was like, I am woman, hear me apologize when I bump into an empty chair. Absolutely. I think those types of things definitely come up around consent and around that sort of dynamic with sexual trauma.
[Chelli Keshavan]: I've definitely had experiences where I have perceived a hierarchy of other people's experience of the moment if acts have happened in public spaces and reflecting on a fear around disrupting the whole environment and holding that as more important than my physical comfort and kind of freezing and saying, I'll just, I'll find a coping mechanism, move through it, and feel upset later. Yeah, for sure.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and sometimes I don't know that that's always a conscious choice that we make and sometimes it's like our brain taking over, especially if we've had experiences like this in the past. And that's something that I think people see after the fact too, is this like, sometimes I talk about it as like a miscalibrated alarm system. Some of us have smoke detectors right near our stoves, and so they're always going off even though there's not a fire. And that's kind of what trauma does to our brain, right? Something that usually we could cope with pretty easily is now setting off that alarm. And so that's a lot of the work that we do with clients at BARC is kind of Helping them understand like my brain is responding to danger, and how do I assess that accurately right like am I in danger right now? How do I ground myself? How do I know that because that alarm is really important it keeps us safe right? It's like we need to know when there is danger so that we can make it You know try to make whatever choice we can for ourselves But like I think you know I think with sexual trauma. It's really it's not a logical thing right like so when we when people try to recover from trauma, they're applying these principles that work for normal circumstances. So like, I'm going to try to find my fault in this situation so that next time I can make a different choice and I'll be safe. And that just doesn't work with sexual violence because it's not your fault. So you can't find that thing that will ultimately allow you to take responsibility for it. We talk about this a lot with like alcohol consumption or like substance use so when there's which is a common story, right? Like I went out I had too much to drink I woke up the next morning and you realize that this had happened right or this person had done something to me and And I think a lot of those cases we don't hear about because people say oh well that was the consequence that I that I got for like that's right drinking too much and My response to that is like, that's not a normal consequence for drinking, right? If you drink too much, you get a hangover, right? Or you don't feel great the next day. A natural consequence is not sexual assault. And I think it's a really like, it's not a linear process, right? There's a talk a lot about how you can know something rationally and understand it rationally, like to know that this was not your fault. But it doesn't always translate to how you feel immediately, so there's a lot of work there in sort of, you know, helping people through that process.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Sure. I'm sure you're familiar with the exhibit entitled What They Were Wearing. I've heard of this, yeah. Yeah, so for women who are willing, they were sharing the clothing that they wore when they were... when an assault happened, to speak to maybe a similar thing where some folks are told, well, this happened because you were dressed provocatively, or you were asking for it, or whatever the commentary may be. And the exhibit was trying to make the point that you shared, that this is so much about power and control. Maybe fear based power and control as well as opposed to any other factor yeah, no totally and we you know we talked about like
[Danielle Balocca]: There's some language that I try to remind myself to use when we talk about sexual trauma. It's not something that happens, it's something that is done. Somebody makes a conscious choice to do this. I think it's not like a, whoops, this just happened. This is an intentional thing, an exercise of that power and control. we talk about how you should be able to walk down the street naked and not be sexually assaulted, right? That's not, the way that you dress is not an invitation for someone to do something to you. And we talked, I think, a little bit about this, too, like, how that, like, it's not, like, being proud of how you look and, like, wanting to, like, feel comfortable and wear clothes that, like, you know, show that, that's something to be proud of. It's not, like, a reason that It's not like a way to attract harm, right?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Sure, sure. I think we also touched on, like, well, you know, men are invited to not wear shirts as soon as the temperature passed that of their bodies, and it's never been an option in my life or for others.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, totally. I remember in high school, like, doing our, like, in the spring sports, like, running our warm-up mile or whatever, and one time, like, just wearing a sports bra and being, like, told that I could not do that. Yeah. I do think they maybe have a rule for the boys, too, but I probably came later. Yeah.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, totally. Yeah, dress codes, absolutely. Yeah. So... I'm wondering about the concentric needs of a trauma survivor, sort of immediate needs, and then what do effective trajectory plans look like for support?
[Danielle Balocca]: I think a lot more disruptive to people's lives than we might think, right? Like I think of like a ripple effect. So also some services at BART that I didn't mention are legal advocacy and case management, which are huge, right? And like I feel so lucky to have those programs at BART because there's like a lot of functional needs that I can't solve as a Councilor, right? So like lost wages. So if somebody, we hear a lot about sexual assault that happens in the workplace. Like, if I can't go to work because my perpetrator is there, or I can't go to work because I'm so scared to leave my house, things like that. And just, you know, I think that there is... a process for folks, or like a legal process that is available. And I think when people think about what do people need immediately after sexual trauma, sometimes that comes to mind, like they need to tell the police. That's an option. It's not what they what people don't need is to be told that right like I think So what we try to do is like give them all the information like here all the choices that you can make Some some things around like evidence collection. There's like a timetable for that So we try to give them as much information about like here's what you could expect if you waited longer But it's not a surprise that that system, the criminal legal system, is really not set up to serve those people, right? So, you know, that's a system that's also dominated by power and control, right? So we're talking about, like, oftentimes women who are, you know, harmed, and it's a process in which you become the person that's sort of being investigated, right? So all those questions that like, well, what were you wearing? Like, what did you drink? Where did you go? Why did you do this, right? And it's a process that is really long, like it's several years before you even usually get to a point where they decide if they're gonna take this up. It's a pretty, like, a disempowering process. Invasive. Yeah, totally. And oftentimes there's no real form of justice. So that is actually something that we talk with people a lot about is how can you sort of define closure for yourself? How can you define a way of moving through this that maybe is detached from that system? Because we don't have any control over that. And that's a great point, like a great point too is like, When people are sexually assaulted or they've experienced sexual violence, it's a point in time where all power and control is taken away from them. So I think giving folks that experience of being able to have choice, being able to have some control, pointing out what are ways that you can do that is really valuable for survivors because so much of what happens after that is can feel like, even like the internal experience of trauma, right, like the flashbacks, nightmares, like these intrusive thoughts, dissociation, things like that can make you feel like you're even out of control of your own body. So being able to sort of help folks think about choice in that way.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Sometimes I wonder about the ways in which, again, oftentimes women do not have space to be self-determining to the same effect that men do. Just being pregnant is not having full control over your body in the way that not being pregnant is. Breastfeeding is the same. Perhaps answering to a partner or a male partner's life and goals and schedule and money and answering to children. So I feel like in a lot of ways, women move in spaces that answer rather than hold agency to begin with.
[Danielle Balocca]: When people have identified an incident of sexual violence, it kind of throws into contrast the rest of their life. Yeah, I really did not want this to happen, but it also makes me think about all these other things in my life where I didn't really want that, but I didn't think I had a choice. Or it was just easier for me to do that than try to argue for something else. I think people do oftentimes tie sexual violence and domestic violence together, and definitely there are relationships that include both. Personally, I think if there is physical violence in a relationship or a level of control and coercion, there's probably likely some kind of sexual element to that. I think it would be really hard to engage sexually with somebody who was treating you like that. Absolutely. Without any fear, right? Right.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah. Something that comes to mind, I felt it in my young life to a certain extent, but certainly not to the same extent as young people now, how does the digital world lend to this conversation as far as the plethora of ways that folks can share images and videos and to what extent do they understand the ramifications of that, specifically maybe young people. What are your thoughts? Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's not something that I have a ton of knowledge about. Quite honestly, I'm a terrible millennial in that way. I don't have a lot of tech skills. But I think I remember in middle school when instant messenger was the big thing. And I remember being teased in sort of a sexual way by peers at school. And it was really hurtful. And we hear about cyberbullying and all those things. I think that there is an importance like teaching responsibility around some of those things so like what is the like if you know what are people asking for online what are people sharing I also think it's like another way to shame people right like I've overheard conversations about like judgment about Look what she posted, that picture of herself. And I think it can be a powerful way of organizing. I think around Me Too and we've heard people calling out perpetrators online. I think sometimes it can be a useful tool in that way. I think I've had people talk to me about Posting about their posting their story or writing a post about it. I think too. It's like it's always a calculation, right? Like how much how is that gonna help you or what's it gonna feel like? If you don't get the response that you want or if you do get the response you want But it's mixed with some inevitable trolls right on the internet, right? But yeah, it's it's a tricky one.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, I think when we had talked we had said something to the effect of socially we often maybe this segues into another thought we the discussion of what healthy sexuality can look like and offering toolkits around that in an effort to maybe mitigate spaces where assault or lesser than that can occur.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think we had been talking about how do we talk to our kids about sexual violence and I think that like, you know, I think there is a way to talk about boundaries and consent and sort of what you want shared and what you don't. And I think that maybe applies to the digital space. But also kids, I think kids aren't often told that their bodies are theirs. There's so many times where parents have to say, we have control over everything about their lives. And so I think being able to model boundaries, even in little ways, Grandma wants to hug you. It's okay not to hug her. Yes, she's your grandmother, but if that's not something you want, give options, right? You want to give her a high five? Do you want to wave to her when you leave? And letting them know that that's okay to have those boundaries. But it's tricky, too. our son, you have to bathe your kids, you have to make sure that they're clean, and being able to say, we do this to you, but also nobody else should. Somebody might change your diaper at daycare, but nobody else should be doing that. And I think as they get older, talking with them about how would you know when you felt uncomfortable, what tells you that maybe somebody's kind of like, Creeping in on some of those boundaries because like kids know that you know yes, but I think you had some great points though about That autonomy in more of like a sex positive way right of like you can explore Your own body, and you can do that like in your private time right like And there's spaces where that's okay to do and that's really important to do I have two boys, but I don't know if it
[Chelli Keshavan]: I have one boy and one girl, I think mine might be a little bit older than yours, but I know that there's space between what I think I'm saying to them and what they're hearing, but I'm hoping that I'm saying, to your point, there is a time and place for exploring your own body. There are reasons to do so that will help build your own understanding of self and confidence and also a healthy intuition about yourself and others. And my hope for them is they take that into relationships with others when they get older. Yeah. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: I think that's also really good for reducing shame about sex, right? It's not something that you do in the dark as a secret, but this is something that you can and should do and feel good about within those sort of private spaces, right? Yeah, totally. It makes me think of a different point, too, about childhood sexual abuse, where the way we talk with kids about privacy versus secrecy is important, so not asking your kids to keep a secret, being able to say that they can share things with you, and I think having those conversations about boundaries and consent and sexual violence in a proactive way is helpful, too, because the hope is that then if they can come to you, or if something happens, it's not the first time you're talking about these things, right? There's sort of an open communication about these topics.
[Chelli Keshavan]: recognizing amongst peers if I imagine they will. I think we touched on this, too. Instead of the sort of stranger danger, dare approach, like watch out for the rapist, to kind of build a toolkit around this is likely something that you'll interact with at different points in life. So let's try to build some strategies around how to respond and knowing who your couple people that you could reach out to. I think something I'm hoping for my kids is that they will always have people they can call day or night. that will show up like ride or die hardcore type of people.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, well and I think that that's a big thing when I talk to like younger people, like teenagers about their sexual trauma and like what it feels like to talk to their parents is like there is a lot of like, am I gonna get in trouble for this? And I think that's similar for adults, right? That sense of, is this my fault? Are they gonna be mad that this happened? But I think it's also maybe a helpful segue into talking about prevention, too, because I think it needs to be said to kids that it's not their fault. It's not their job to prevent childhood sexual abuse. And the same thing, I think when we think about prevention, we have to think about those myths of sexual trauma, right? it's not on vulnerable people to stop sexual trauma, right? Sexual trauma is not gonna end by changing the way we dress, changing our alcohol consumption, right? It's about, I think, also about those, what are we telling, what are those values of, like, misogyny, right? Like, who has the right to what, and how do we sort of communicate those sort of values I think across the board. Absolutely. Yeah, it also makes me think about, you know, you had brought some good points actually in our conversation about in Medford how we can apply some of these things.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Right, we are both Medford moms. Yeah. Yeah, I'm absolutely, I know that pieces like the gender equity ordinance have come up on many occasions at the city council. The noted until recently sort of discrepancy between having a largely male council and such a largely female school committee and what does all of that mean. What does it mean to have a mayor who is a woman and mother? And what does baton passing look like? What are the services in Medford? Where do folks go if there are services or not? Are they strong? What does the model look like and do we all know? do we all know? I don't know. There are so many questions and I am both rooted and I also have no idea. Yeah. So that's a problem.
[Danielle Balocca]: And I could probably say the same. I don't know. I mean I know we have actually a really strong public health department that they do like a lot of really great work. I don't know about like sexual violence though. But yeah, and also I think you had talked about some really pretty innovative ideas about what businesses and restaurants could do. So this is where alcohol is being served. What are maybe some safety mechanisms that we put in place?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah. I think those are all pieces that the city should be centering as we're evolving, for sure.
[Danielle Balocca]: Also training of police, right? I think like a common one is more commonly people are trained around or police are trained around domestic violence and I would probably say not well trained around domestic violence and the number of times I've like even heard of Survivors going to the police and really not like almost being discouraged to make a report is like baffling to me, but But yeah, it also kind of makes me like our other the other thing. I think we wanted to talk about was the sort of intersection between race and racial trauma and sexual trauma. And it's something that at BARC we try really hard to hold, to acknowledge. It's important that when folks come into our offices they can see just not a bunch of white faces. And that even if we are white, that we are able to be pretty explicit about race, like racial difference or racial similarity and how that can play into the already, that power dynamic that already exists between a Councilor and a client. But I think the systems of oppression are pretty similar too, right? Racial oppression and then the oppression around sexual violence and how we sort of think about changing that.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Sure. We were making the point about workplace assault and my head immediately went to, well, what if your perpetrator is tethered to your check? There are so many intersections that make it did more difficult, tenfold if not more.
[Danielle Balocca]: Totally. I do think that you brought up too some elements about sexual trauma that can be, like when we think about differences of power, right, where I think we hear common narratives about like the sort of, like, exoticization of different ethnicities and how, you know, some, you know, maybe you want to share.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, no, and I can, like, take full responsibility for this just being, like, my thought process and not, you know, fact-checked anywhere. But my sense is that there has always been a protection of the purity of a white woman to the point of I think of it as like an incubator, like we have to hold this space for like a childlikeness, like there's like white tears comes to mind, a damsel narrative comes to mind, but I think about what it means to have like solidly white relationships and the sexual aspect of those led to like reproduction like we have children with other white people we build families and intergenerational narrative with other white people and then wondering if sort of sexual vices are held for women of color where that like again like it conflates like healthy sexuality with like a dirtiness maybe and like does the white man bring that to white women or no? Because can she handle it? Do I even ask her to handle it? Do I acknowledge that she has her own sexual wants, desires, hopes, whatever? Maybe not. Probably not. I don't know. There are sexual acts that are asked of women of color or perpetrated on women of color that I'm not sure if race plays a role.
[Danielle Balocca]: Maybe like this sort of racial hierarchy, I see these folks as less of people so I'm okay with these sexual acts, or that's how I use those people.
[Chelli Keshavan]: like a final comment on an identity out in public. Maybe the safety of a white sexual relationship and what it means for a public persona is different from, like I can have a, yeah, maybe it affords space for more of a double identity there.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's complicated. Yeah, it's hard to put into words. It makes me think about like, also in our history of white women claiming rape by black men in order to, whatever the situation may be, and that causing a lot of harm to those communities. And I think it's something that we hear a lot, too, of like, I don't want to report this black man because I know what will happen to him. That might not happen to white men who are reported for these sorts of things. And that sort of disparity, like how how these situations play out, too. It's also something we haven't talked about is I think that what is maybe also another myth about sexual violence is the false reporting, that they could be not telling the truth. And my question to that is, well, why? Because we know these processes are not fun. They often end up dragging the person who's making this claim through the mud. they are the one who's remembered for making this claim and the outcome's not good. I always think about Chanel Miller, she was the Stanford, this is named Brock Turner, they essentially found her unconscious behind a dumpster and he went to jail for six months. She kept her name out of it until everything was done, but she wrote a beautiful book. She said two men found her, they knew exactly what had happened, they were able to prove everything, and he went to jail for six months. That's not a penalty. And why would you put yourself through that process for what? And this other claim that I hear often is, well, if you report this person, you're going to ruin their life. Well haven't they already ruined my life? Or what about the impact to me? And also you're probably not going to ruin their life because what's going to happen to them?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, totally. I got onto my soapbox in a conversation with someone about six months ago and I was hearing the narrative. sexual and domestic violence happens in low-income communities. This person and I kind of lost it. And I was like, well, or not. But it brings to mind folks who know that they have resources, whether it be dollars or network, to kind of clean up a legal mess if and when it comes up. how that plays in to choices or liberties that they assume.
[Danielle Balocca]: One, like, think about all the eyes on people in low-income communities, right? Like, there's, like, you know, maybe it's being seen in a different way or, like, because when these, like, people in mansions can hide everything, right? Like, there's a lot of privilege in that way, sort of, to be able to, like, hide any of those things, right? Yeah, yeah. Oof.
[Chelli Keshavan]: big stuff.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Does BARC have, I feel like I ask everybody that I ever talk to questions like this, is there a sort of a design curriculum that folks can lean on if they're wanting to onboard, like I mean I can just highlight myself, like at the Human Rights Commission or at the Community Center are there Yeah, are there spaces to lean on for help in getting this discussion started?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, so that's our COAPS, the acronym is for like Community Outreach Awareness Prevention Education Services. So they do a lot of those sorts of trainings and like they can answer a lot of those questions and I think they do like a responding to disclosures training that's like pretty like structured. I think they're working on kind of they over the last few years have been like kind of revamping the program so but they're a good resource for that kind of sort of awareness and education piece. One thing we haven't talked about yet, I think we wanted to talk about was Me Too, the Me Too movement. I think that also has an important racial component to it. Who was it, the actress that was given a lot of credit for Me Too, but we know it was actually Tarana Burke who started the movement. But I was hearing a lot from my clients, one, that it's how hard it is to have sexual violence in the media all the time. Like, there's no choice to ignore it, really. But also that, like, they were hearing about all these rich and powerful people who are getting justice for, or, like, you know, calling out their perpetrators, whatever, where, and that wasn't working the same way for just, like, sort of normal, everyday people. And it also, I think, like, brought up this point about calling out versus calling in, and sort of how And I think that's something to think about, right? I think depending on the situation, I think this is more for when we have conversations about sexual violence, where we might be hearing people, and like race, like right when we're hearing people say problematic things, like how to engage with that, with those beliefs, and like explore them, and try to like create an openness for new ways of thinking, rather than like, just shutting somebody out, right? I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I don't think it works the same when we're talking about actual people who have committed sexual violence. I think there's like, that sometimes can be kind of a lot, you know, a lot to ask of somebody and wherever they are in their healing, but yeah, I think it's an interesting concept for sure.
[Chelli Keshavan]: I think also talking about what it's like to move through the world with less power. Again, I can just use myself. I'm physically smaller than other people. I am female. I have two children with me, so if something were to happen, now what? My kids are just out the sidewalk. I don't know. There's a lot of spaces where I don't have physical power. And so I've sometimes said to people, what would it look like if you moved in the world knowing that other bodies could disarm you?
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah. I think we'd also brought up like the fine line of like the power of saying me too publicly and just acknowledging numbers and also folks finding that triggering and outing and taking issue understandably.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, that's another thing that I forgot to mention sort of in the immediate needs of somebody who's been sexually assaulted is like that isolation, right? So I think that maybe was one thing that, for better or worse, like did come from the Me Too movement. It was like this understanding of how pervasive this is as a problem, right? And I think that it's not something that people really talk about casually, right? Whenever I bring up my work at a party, it pretty much kills the conversation. I think people feel isolated in that. I hear people say, I don't want to be around people because I just feel really lonely. I don't feel like people understand me. I don't want to burden my friends. I think it's an unfortunate thing because I think a lot of people do. understand in some way that kind of pain and you know I think people react to it differently and so like you're not always going to find like oh like just because we've both experienced something like this that we're going to relate to it in exactly the same way but I think that feeling of isolation is real and it's one of the reasons that we do group therapy at Bark is like to sort of connect folks to each other. And there is kind of a common way that people respond to sexual trauma, and even sometimes just hearing that, like, what you're experiencing is really normal for what you've been through. Can really, like, put into context for folks and sort of, like, you know, that validation can go a long way, and it's actually always surprising to me that that's not something that people are hearing, like, most places.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yeah, I mean that reminds me, we also mentioned like wondering, circling back to what the city can be doing or education can be doing. what does our sex ed curriculum look like in Medford, and to what extent are these themes included and encouraged? I am old enough that I remember when there was a Planned Parenthood office in Davis Square, and so distance-wise for Medford, that didn't feel like such an imposition, and then it was gone, and then ConMav feels a little farther away, and then, you know, I am not a person who, by default believes that Planned Parenthood will just always be there, so if the time came that it wasn't, then what? Then how far? And if you're talking about young people or folks who have less money or resources or travel is a thing. Yeah, I sometimes worry about... How to say this? Like knowing that you have to continually fight for services such as and not sort of believing that they'll just exist just because they're here now.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Yeah. And just like the curriculum stuff is, that's a great question that I would love to know more about. I remember my own curriculum was like, I remember it was mostly about like, here's what drugs will do to you and here's what a condom is and like which really didn't apply to me at all so like I was like okay and like like nothing about like different types of sex like different types of people having sex together there was nothing like and nothing about like consent or pleasure or anything like that and I think that's part of that like that thing about enthusiastic consent is like I think having no personal experience with this, I think what happens a lot of cis heterosexual intimate situations is it's about one person's pleasure, right? And so that really doesn't, hopefully that's not true for everybody, but that really doesn't leave room for communicating and slowing down and making sure that everything is okay for everyone, right? And yeah, I don't know. And hopefully that's something that can be worked into a curriculum for students.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Absolutely. Also the piece of like, well, whose responsibility is birth control? That's a great one. Yeah. And even just the responsibility of knowing and understanding what the options are. Yeah. Way before effectively using them.
[Unidentified]: Totally.
[Danielle Balocca]: I heard a story once about like So it was like a mother who like, you know, she trained her son to always carry like pads and tampons with him for his like, you know, female friends. I thought that was so lovely. Like, you know, like just sharing that like care and responsibility.
[Chelli Keshavan]: The fact that we are still hiding tampons in public feels like a disaster of the patriarchy. I am so over it. Yeah. I'm not with any of that.
[Danielle Balocca]: And we have to pay for them.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And then we have to pay for them, yes. And that birth control costs money, and Viagra costs different money. Yeah, oh my gosh.
[Danielle Balocca]: I feel like I've covered most of it. I feel like we've covered a lot. We did forget about the food question at the beginning. Oh, food question. Which happens, you know, when we get excited about a topic.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Of course, we get all excited.
[Danielle Balocca]: The favorite place to eat.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Oh, our favorite place is to eat. Yeah, so after a heavy conversation, where is your favorite place to go?
[Danielle Balocca]: This is a nice way to break the ice at the end. Um, that's honestly harder than all these other questions for me. There's so many good places where my family, the vegetarian, well, pescatarians, we eat fish, but we like this place on Salem Street. It's, I think it's called like Fiore Italy. And they make this like mixed grill of seafood that is like, we got it for takeout once during COVID and it was like so delicious. And they also have this pasta dish which had smoked provolone in it. It was like, oh, so good. But we're also, you know, die-hard fans of donuts, so donuts with a difference is, like, pretty stable for us.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Yes. Sounds like a good way to mix it up. I like it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Depending on the day, my answer could definitely change. There's a lot of good spots in Medford, yeah.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Sure. Yeah, we're getting there. Looking forward to more.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Nice. Well, thank you so much for sharing to the extent, to this extent. I learned a lot.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, thank you. And I think it's worth saying, like, if folks have reactions to this or questions, that they can feel free to get in touch with us. Yeah, for sure.
[Chelli Keshavan]: Absolutely. I look forward to that.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you. Many thanks to Chelly for your work on this episode and your vulnerability in the planning process. BARC will be hosting our annual Walk for Change at Constitution Beach in East Boston on April 24th. If this episode brought up anything for you or you're looking for support, you can access the BARC hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-841-8371. If you're outside of Massachusetts, you can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline through RAINN at 1-800-656-4673. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode, and as always, if you have feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail.com. You can also subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.