A message from Allison Amy Wendell:

Straight men, I need you to read this in its entirety. Please.

So there I was this morning, enjoying a leisurely birthday scroll through my FB page, when I discovered a reference to an article that made me want to vomit.

It took me all day to calm down enough to write this. I was basically useless at work. My heart was pounding, my ears were ringing.

I am going to link to the article in the comments, because it could be triggering for my fellow survivors. It certainly was for me. For the rest of you, it's not a pleasant read. It is, however, a crucially necessary one.

It concerns a global, online "academy" (worst use of that word or concept EVER) of men teaching other men how to drug and SA their wives, then sharing the video evidence with one another on the same platform for entertainment. I wish I could say I made this up. I didn't. I wish I could say this was unprecedented. It's not.

One website that KNOWINGLY hosts this moral corruption got 62,000,000 visits in one month this year, the majority of which came from the US. No, they're not unique hits. But let's just say the men in question each visited that site once per day in February. That's still at least 2.2 million men going online to either learn how to r@pe* their wives or watch other men do so. That's the entire population of Houston. More than Phoenix. More than Philadelphia. Each one guilty of or complicit in SA.

R@pe is outlawed in nearly every country on Earth. But no law should have to tell you what you should already know: it is EVIL. It is the morally bankrupt act of a soulless worm. THAT's why you shouldn't do it.

"But she's his wife! That can't be r@pe!" It can, and it is. She is a human being. No matter her relationship to you, she--AND SHE ALONE--gets to decide whether she wants to have sex with you every. Time. And if she doesn't, and you claim to love her (or, hell, hold her in the esteem you hold your neighbor's pet goldfish), that should be it. End of story. Do not pass Go.

"What's the harm? If she's unconscious, she won't know it's happening!" First of all, gross. And second of all is a little thing called consent. If she's drugged (or drunk, or a child, or or or), she can't say no. But hear this, and hear it now: she also can't say yes. No means no, but incapacity also means no.

So guys, why do I want you to read all of this? Why am I preaching to what I desperately hope is the choir? Because we need your voice. Women have talked about this until we're blue in the face, and this shit is still. Happening.

So please: Read this article. Then share it.** Talk to your guy friends about it. Don't laugh it off or stay silent when your male friend or colleague makes a sexual remark about or to a woman, or describes her by the size of her breasts, or any one of the millions of little things some men do every day to chip away at society's respect for women, their dignity, their autonomy, and their safety. Because I promise you, the little shit leads to big shit. So call it out. Refuse to normalize it.

Maybe they'll listen to you, because they damn well aren't listening to us.

P.S. If your first instinct after reading this is to get defensive or tell me I'm wrong, I invite you to ask yourself why--and then think long and hard about commenting.

*I am using this version of the word to avoid c3nsors, not to save anyone's feelings or downgrade this inhuman act in any way.