You may have seen the elephants at the header for this page and wondered what that was all about. It’s pretty simple, really— the theme is called The Elephant in the Room, which is exactly what this site is about.

Sexual abuse is indeed one of the elephants in our modern society’s room— it is incredibly, almost shockingly, common. In fact, it is estimated that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men have been raped or sexually abused.

From RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network):

1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have experienced attempted or completed rape. That is 17.7 million women.

93% of children who are sexually assaulted know their attacker. This statistic is 75% for adults.

Sexual assault is one of the most under reported crimes, with 60% still being left unreported.

Males are the least likely to report a sexual assault, though they make up about 10% of all victims.

If you don’t think that these very inconvenient statistics aren’t a problem, all you have to do is list all of the women or men in your life, and then, counting down, mark every fourth or sixth woman or man. It really is as simple as that.

Sexual abuse is one of the greatest but least acknowledged social problems in our culture— it is the elephant in the room that will one day scream so loudly that everyone will be forced to hear.

If the occurrence of rape were audible, its decibel level equal to its frequency, it would overpower our days and nights, interrupt our meals, our bedtime stories, howl behind our love-making, an insistent jackhammer of distress. We would demand an end to it. And if we failed to locate its source, we would condemn the whole structure. We would refuse to live under such conditions.

—Patricia Weaver Francisco