Why is our organization, message board, and chat room for rape and sexual abuse survivors called After Silence?

       The name of our organization is inspired by the memoir After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back by Nancy Venable Raine. Defined by the New York Times, "A book that dignifies the human spirit," After Silence is the written account of Raine's journey of recovery from victim to survivor.

        In her book, Raine explores the pain, the silence, the stigma and shame that still surrounds rape and sexual abuse survivors, shading light on the fact that the trauma doesn't end with the attack but continues in the aftermath.

        Nancy V. Raine was told by her rapist to "shut up," over and over during the hours of her rape, and these words continued to hunt her for years after the attack.

"Silence has the rusty taste of shame. The words shut up are the most terrible words I know.... The man who raped me spat these words out over and over during the hours of my attack -- when I screamed, when I tried to talk him out of what he was doing, when I protested. It seemed to me that for seven years -- until at last I spoke -- these words had sunk into my soul and become prophecy. And it seems to me now that these words, the brutish message of tyrants, preserve the darkness that still covers this pervasive crime. The real shame, as I have learned, is to consent to them."