 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am Emily Nimsikant here at the Nebraska Library Commission filling in for our regular host, Krista Burns. Encompass Live is the Nebraska Library Commission's weekly online event. It is free and open to anyone to watch. These one-hour sessions take place every Wednesday at 10 a.m. central time. And they include a mixture of presentations, interviews, book reviews, and Q&A sessions, basically anything presented by either Nebraska Library Commission staff or guest speakers. Today we do have a guest speaker, Karen Jensen from the Teen Library Toolbox, and her guest, young adult author Krista Desir, are here to discuss using young adult literature to talk with teens about sexual violence and consent. So take it away, Karen. Okay, thank you. Hello, my name is Karen Jensen. I have been a young adult librarian for 20 years. I am currently working in the Grand Prairie Library System in Texas, Grand Prairie, Texas. And I work with ages, well, third grade through twelfth grade. And as she mentioned, we're doing a project this year called the SBYA Lit Project. We're using young adult literature to discuss sexual violence and consent in the life of teens and how to talk to them using these books. There's several people helping me with the project. Two of them are not here today. One is author Carrie Miss Rovian. She's over there on the right-hand screen at the top, and author Tristola. And they have written several posts and have been talking with us. They're not here today, but I am very excited to have Krista here with us. And she's going to take a moment to introduce herself. Hi, everyone. I'm Krista Desir. I am a young adult author. I also have a lot of background and experience in sexual violence and activism in this community about 20 years ago now. I started as a rapist advocate in hospital ERs, and I did that for about a decade. And then I started working, doing speaking engagements, and becoming part of a project called the Voices and Faces Project, which is about survivors and giving a voice and face to survivors. And part of that is a writing workshop for survivors that is geared towards empowerment. And then more recently, I'm actually returning back to hospital ERs to work with rape victims in that capacity, which is rape crisis counseling kind of thing. So obviously, I have a lot of passion for this topic. My first novel, Fault Line, is about sexual violence told from the point of view of a boy whose girlfriend was gang raped at a party that he was not attending. And it's sort of the fallout of their relationship and the aftermath of the rape from his perspective. And I have another novel coming out in October called Bleed Like Me, which is sort of a YA Sid and Nancy kind of, oh man, someone's got a train in the background. It's a YA Sid and Nancy about two self-destructive teens who get in a relationship that is equally destructive. So yeah, that's sort of me. Excellent. Excuse me, let me tell you a little bit about how this project got started and what we're trying to do. A few years ago, we all know the Steubenville rape case happened, and I wrote a blog post on my blog, Teen Library and Toolbox, about it. I felt very strongly about it. And of course, after 20 years of working with teens, I've had lots of conversations with teens who occasionally will, in a one-on-one situation, tell you something about their lives and you learn some of the things that are happening in the lives of your teens. And I have had several teens who've come to me and talked about the history of sexual abuse in their lives. So it's something that I've always been very aware of and very passionate about. And so coupled with just what happened with the Steubenville case and having the blog and finally having a way to be active and have a voice, I started blogging about it. And then the three ladies, Kari, Krista, and Trish and I, I think last December put together our first kind of online chat about it. And we had such a successful experience with it, we decided to turn it into a whole project and create a whole resource guide about it. So our project goals are to then to discuss sexual violence in the lives of teens and why literature on an ongoing basis. And we do that in a variety of ways. We do that, like I said, in blog posts. We have every other month a online live chat using the Google Hangout. And as you can see, we've had lots of authors involved. You can go back and watch some of the old chats get totally different perspectives to raise awareness of the issues and the titles that can be used to discuss the topics with teens. What we really want to do is talk about the literature and what we can learn from the literature and what we can help teens learn by talking about the literature with them. Obviously, we want to put together a variety of resources and we're going to share some of those with you here today. And then, you know, I'm always, as a librarian, I always about promoting teen literature and reading. So, you know, that's just a corollary goal here. But what we really want to do is talk about these issues and how they affect teens and what we can learn and how we can use what we learn to better serve teens and help them navigate, you know, the teen years. So what we do is we have a project hub at theteenlibrantoolbox.com. There's a link to it there. Or you can just go to the website. Where we link all of the posts and all of the resources that we find. We also have a Tumblr that we use. And I like Tumblr because it creates, if you click on the archive button, it creates a very visual archive so you can see everything that's there. And what you'll find there are book reviews as we find new books. We'll review them. We talk about them. We talk about what we've learned from them, what we think about them. We have book lists of variety of different topics, articles, stats, current events. We share news stories. I found some really neat curriculum that can be used in a school like the state of Pennsylvania has developed a curriculum on discussing and teaching sexual harassment in the school environment. For grades K through 12, it's a really great curriculum. And it's already there, so that's a great resource to use. And then when we find discussion guides for various books, we share them. And just really anything we want to share on that. Yeah. And can I just jump in real quick and just say part of why we wanted to talk about this issue and create a dialogue in this issue through YA literature as opposed to nonfiction or other venues was that we all sort of felt like it created, when you're using fiction as a medium, as sort of a jumping off point to start talking about this issue, there's a little bit of a safety there. I think that a lot of times teenagers won't necessarily, you know, if they've been survivors of sexual violence or if they know someone who's been a survivor, they're not necessarily going to go through the nonfiction self-help section of a bookstore or a library to find that information. A lot of times, at least with me and my book, you know, a lot of people have come to me or teenagers have come to me, readers have come to me and said, you know, this was my story or I really connected with this. And they connect in a way that I think is a little bit more accessible than them sort of seeking out a how to guide or anything else. And in terms of fiction, you know, it creates a dialogue in a pretty safe space because even if you're critical of the characters or you're critical of the things that are happening, it feels a little easier to be able to criticize that or to be able to be honest about how you feel about things or those kind of things because you're talking about, you know, made up people. And there's a little bit of a safety in that. So anyway, I just wanted to add that to part of why we wanted to do it through this venue. That's an excellent point. And, you know, for me, I don't really talk very openly about it that I, in my eighth grade year, had an experience with sexual violence and through this project, one of the books that I read was almost exactly like my experience. That was a very validating moment for me. And, you know, I mean, I took a few days and I shit down and I couldn't, like, I'm not going to talk about this and I'm not going to read anything. But then it's helpful to have, like, I can talk about it in an abstract way through these books and not have to talk about my own personal experience. So you raised an excellent point. Thank you for that, Christa. So part of the reason why we are doing this and we really think that it's important, we just want to give you a couple of good some stats to begin with. It depends on what stats you use, but by the time they are 18, anywhere from one in six girls, I've heard as low as one in three girls, and anywhere from one in eight boys to as low as one in five boys will have been the victim of some type of sexual violence. So by the time that they're 18, you know, it's already a pretty common experience. So we know that this is happening to the teenagers that we're working with, that we're talking to, that we're spending time with. And so understanding that is really important. And we know, of course, this year, there's been a lot of discussion in the news about what's happening in our colleges and the current stats are like one in four female students is the victim of some type of sexual violence in college. And of course, there are also male victims and it's important that that always be noted because, you know, any sexual violence is, of course, a problem and we want to address it. But we know that by the time that kids are getting to college, it's really too late, it seems like, to start talking with them. Like, we need to start building this conversation and in this framework earlier to help address just the epidemic that's happening. When we discuss stats, it's important to keep in mind that the basic, basically, the stats are underreported. There are a lot of people who don't report for a variety of reasons. One, of course, is the knowledge of what happens when they report, you know, because it's still, unfortunately, very common that when you get, when you report, you will be put through the ringer. You will, you know, people are going to ask you what, were you wearing, where were you, were you drinking, what were you doing. So a lot of people still don't report. And of course, a lot of males don't report because there is that additional stigma of being a male survivor of sexual abuse. In fact, there was a recent report that just came out that indicated that the incidence of, used to be believed that like only 10% of sexual violence victims were males, excuse me. But a recent report came out saying that it may be as high as 40% based on underreporting. And of course, when you consider, when you add in things like rape in prison, which I guess they weren't, they weren't including that in the stats, but I mean, it's still rape and it's still something we need to talk about because it's still a horrific crime. So, and another important thing for us to remember, when we're talking about teens and sex and consent, and I know it makes some adults really uncomfortable because, you know, people have very personal opinions about teens and teens having sex and even sex outside of marriage. But whether or not teens are having sex, teens are thinking about sex and they're trying to figure sex out and they're trying to decide, you know, what their personal views and opinions about sex are. And it's just as if the teenage years are important time of identity formation, it's also an important time of their sexual identity formation, deciding, you know, what they think about sex and whether or not they're going to have sex and who they're going to have sex with and what they want the sexual experience to be like. So that's another reason why it's really important that we do have these conversations because we want them to be able to, when they're talking about it in any situation, be able to express what their needs are, what their wants are, to know that they can say yes or that they can say no and that they can have, you know, a positive sexual experience. Yeah, and I'm just going to piggyback on that and say what's been fascinating to me and talking to teenagers and because I do a lot of speaking engagements with high schoolers, what's been sort of fascinating to me is hearing what they define as rape, you know, and what they consider rape and what they don't. I remember a few years ago I was talking to high schoolers and it was right after the Steubenville thing happened and I asked them and it was a room of maybe 45 kids and I described this scenario because most of them hadn't heard of Steubenville and I said, do you think this is rape? And almost all of them said no. And this was fascinating to me because I thought, where is the disconnect here that's happening either from conversations at home or conversations in school? Where is the disconnect that there's not a fundamental understanding of what rape is and what it is not, what consent is, what it is not, you know, and this was really interesting to me because it felt like sort of this hole in important education, important conversations we should be having and are not. So I love that YA is sort of dealing with this and tackling this issue because I think it creates those kind of dialogues where you could say, do you think this is rape? Do you think this is consent, you know, and have those conversations in a pretty open and safe forum around this? Yes. And I think, too, it's important that we keep in mind that part of sex education involves allowing teens to understand how to have dialogues about sex. I mean, we want to just like have, you know, like we think, oh, I just want to give you the facts and do this, but I think particularly to piggyback on Chris's point, helping them to understand what sexual violence is, not just what sex is, but what healthy sex is and what unhealthy sex can be and what consent is because I think that's where we're failing in part of our sex education. So excellent. So one of the things that often comes up when we start talking about sex in YA and sexual violence way is people, you know, get concerned that it's too dark to be having this conversation with teens. But the thing we need to keep in mind is that, you know, we just read the stats. So we know that there are many teens that this is actually their life. This is actually happening to them. So, you know, we can't say it's too dark for them to read about because they're unliving it and they're living it and that's unfortunate. So occasionally they might find that book that helps them to realize that, you know, this is not okay and I'm going to ask for help. And I think that's one of the important empowering things that can happen from YA literature. Another thing is for me as somebody who works with teens for my daughter who, you know, has friends that are in the teenage group, I want them to be able to understand the lives of other people. You know, we always talk about reading as taking a step in somebody else's shoes and I think it's important to remember that that means that sometimes we have to take a step into some very dark shoes and see some very dark lives. And that helps us to build compassion and empathy and to know how to support and lift up people in situations if those situations are not our own. Christo is actually working on right now a post for us about the idea of first responders. A first responder is someone who, you know, a teen will come to you and say, you know, this is something that's happening in my life and I don't know what to do about it. Oftentimes that first responder will be a friend so it will be another teenager or it might be you, a librarian, somebody who works with teens, an educator or the parent, you know, of a friend. And so again, it's just that idea that these books can help us understand what's happening and how it happens and even give us some ideas of how to respond appropriately when it does happen. And then I just think that when we give examples and we have to get positive and negative examples, that people, that teen readers then can start to develop for themselves their own ideas of what they want their sexual life to look like. And it doesn't mean that they have to be having sex right now, it can still be this idea of when I get older and decide to have sex, this is what I want my relationships to look like. This is what I think is going to be healthy and good for me. And do you have anything you wanna add to that, Christa? Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's sort of going through the motions of figuring out what you really want, what you want for yourself that's not based on, I guess, what's popular or what everyone else is doing. I mean, those are difficult questions and I think when we don't address them in different forums, that I think like, what I tell my kids is it's like bus talk, you know, where I always say like, okay, whatever you hear on the bus, if it sounds in any way dubious, like come back to me and we'll have a conversation about it because I think sometimes that bus talk can be sort of this domino effect of, well, everyone's doing this or everyone's, you know, and these things to me are sort of fascinating because it's like the tools that are being given to teenagers are coming from other teenagers or from, you know, whomever is talking about this. This, in my mind, shouldn't be the way it goes. These tools need to come from sort of a little bit more informed sources, people who know what they're doing, who have kind of been through it or talk about it. And then just the other thing I wanted to add on the idea of first responders is why I've always talked kind of primarily with teenagers about being first responders is that in the, you know, that's the reality of things is that teenagers tell their friends first. If something, you know, like at least, you know, that happens most of the time is that they're the ones hearing it first. Sometimes it'll be a teacher, but often, very often it's a friend first. And so it's a really interesting thing to have because here you're being given like this very important information and if you don't know how to respond to that or you respond in a way that makes the survivor feel bad, like that might be the end of that story. You know what I'm saying? Like I know people who the very first person they told said something to them that made them feel like I never want to tell anyone again. I'm never gonna tell anyone else. And then they don't tell anyone for 10 more years because of that very first response and how critical that is. And that's why these conversations, these dialogues with teenagers end up being really crucial because we're in a place where we have to say like, how do you respond when someone says this to you? What, you know, and it's hard because you're not developing little social workers. You don't want them to be in charge of that and have to be, you know, take on someone else's emotional landscape but you at least want to give them enough to be able to say like, this is the way that this looks when it feels good for someone. You know, if you even just say, I'm sorry that happened to you, that can do a world of good to a survivor. And similarly, if you say, well whatever, what were you doing with that guy anyway? Don't you know his reputation? Then that you've just done something incredibly damaging. And so these are conversations that I feel like are really great to see because in the books that we've covered this year, it sort of has won the gambit of a really positive sort of first responder response and really some bad ones. So anyway. Yeah, Chris is going to be talking more about that next week with us. So we're excited about that because she obviously has a lot of good information on that. So I was feeling like I'm like the clinical one and Chris is like, got all this passion. I'm like the clinical one. But no, stop, that's not cool. So when we talk about sexual assault or sexual violence, I just want to give it a brief definition of what we're talking about. And it was interesting to see because obviously we're not talking about just rape. It can be a lot of different things. It can be somebody exposing themselves to someone. It can be somebody sending them a photograph or asking for a photograph. It could be exposing somebody else to pornography. I recently read that the average age of exposure to pornography is 10. So that's again, another reason why we, you know, we could pretend this isn't happening or we could acknowledge that it is happening and have these conversations even if they make us uncomfortable. Sexual harassment and I get responses all the time from girls in middle school and high school telling me about the sexual harassment that they experience in schools on their way to and from school, at school hosted events. Sexual harassment, I think we need to be doing a lot more talking about in our schools because it's happening. And the stories I hear are really sad. And then the responsive, like this is just the way it is and we just have to live with it and this is, you know, boys will be boys and this is just the way the boys talk. Well, I don't think that that's true. I think that we should be talking with, you know, each other about what is an acceptable way to talk to one another and how to have conversations about sex with one another that makes everybody still feel safe. And the idea that, you know, our students should be able to, you know, navigate the hallways in school and feel safe. So, I feel strongly about sexual harassment, sorry. I don't want to touching rape and acquaintance rape. I talk, AS King, author AS King, who's amazing by the way, is gonna be talking with us in November about this topic, but when I was talking to her back and forth in email, she has a book coming out in 2015 on the topic of acquaintance rape or what's also called date rape. You know, and she made an excellent point. She's like, I hate that we call it that because this should just be called rape. It's just rape. You know, it just happens to be, you know, not what people consider rape to be, which we're gonna talk about in a moment. And then also sexual exploitation and human trafficking. So, and I'm sure there's still other things that aren't on that list. But when we talk about the sexual violence and the sexual violence and violent project, we're not just talking about rape because sexual violence can occur in a variety of ways and all of them matter. And, you know, none of them are okay. Do you have anything you wanna add, Krista? No, I think that's very good. I'm glad you put the photography and the exposure. And I think that, you know, just a little sidebar on this is social media harassment. And I feel like that this is sort of a new paradigm in our, with our young people is this idea of, you know, either, I mean, it could be rape threats, it could be pictures, it could be anything, but the idea that social media is playing such a crucial part of their development and their, and honestly, their sexual development and how that can be used both in the positive and in the negative way. So, I think that's a really good, it's a good talk to cover. I mean, I feel like you can probably do an entire webinar just on social media. But I'm glad that you included that in there because I think that it's critical as part of this dialogue too. Yeah, and you know, I've had some teen programs where I'd be in an event with a room full of teens and all of a sudden this teen will get something on his phone and he'll show it to somebody else and they'll start laughing and I'll be like, what is it? And I'll be like, you know, they're like, oh, you can't see. And you know, I'll be like, you know, you can't show other people those nasty things on your phone. Like, you can't do that. You need to understand that that's not okay. You know, like you can't do it here and you have to be careful what you're showing, you know, because if you're showing a picture of somebody who's underage, then it becomes child pornography and that's a whole other legal issue. And even if you're a teen showing another teen, then you can be charged with that, which we've seen many times in the media. And Ashley comes up in the book, A Thousand Words by, oh, if only I could think of the author's name right this moment. I'll look it up while you keep talking. Okay, so anyhow, and here are some good resources to get started for you. RAIN is the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. They have a really good breakdown of all the different things that are considered sexual violence. There is an organization called Stop Street Harassment which talks specifically about street harassment. And I think street harassment also applies to sexual harassment in the schools because that's, you know, the streets that the kids are walking during the day. And the Good Men Project has a lot of good resources, including the fact that they have like a little chart that breaks down how you can talk about consent with different age groups. So there's some resources for you. So we're gonna start by talking a little bit about what we've learned about sexual violence. When we think about rape, most people think of rape as being, you know, I came home and a man came through my window with a gunner and knife or he jumped out of the bushes while I was walking to my car. The truth of the matter is that a majority of rape happens not by a stranger but by someone that the person knows. It can be a family member, a mom or a dad, a brother or sister, an aunt or an uncle, a grandparent. But the truth is that a majority of people are not raped by a complete stranger. They are raped by somebody who is known to them. And a lot of times they have a relationship with them. Sometimes, unfortunately, they're forced to continue to have a relationship with them in some type of capacity. Two really good examples of this is the book Charming Strange by Stephanie. Keen. Thank you. Yeah, and by the way, 1,000 words is Jennifer Brown. Jennifer Brown, 1,000 words. Jennifer Brown, 1,000 words. Is that a hit list? Yeah, that, yeah. I knew it was a day, I just couldn't think. Yeah. Charming Strange by Stephanie Keen is, it was the Morris Winner blessure, right, Krista? Yes, it was. Yeah. And it is the story of a young boy, we meet him in school, and it kind of alternates the past and the present. And you kind of think that he has like these two different personality things going on. And slowly you start to find out like what happened to him, and it doesn't involve abuse, sexual violence from a family member. It is a great story. It is very hard to read. But it does a really good job of showing a lot of important things, including, it reminds us of the fact that not all sexual violence is against women, because this is a male protagonist who is the victim. It shows us how it can be systemic. Like, for some people, it's a cycle of violence, and that plays into this book as well. And you should just read it. Lift Through This by Mindy Scott is a really excellent story. I read it a couple of months ago for the project. And it involves a young girl who, and I will remember no character's name and was talking about any of this. I'm so sorry. But she is in high school and she's starting to date this boy, which brings up all these emotions for her, because she feels some guilt and shame and just confused about some issues because of things that happened to her in her life. And you find out eventually that she was abused by a member of her family. And it's a very good depiction of just the complexity of the emotional response. But it's also a really good depiction of, and reminder for us that a majority of rape is not by a complete stranger. And it can involve a lot of different types of relationships. It can be family members. It can be coaches. It can be teachers. It can be a wide variety of people. And then seeing too how those relationships can work and some of the grooming and stuff involved. The last statistic I read was 85% is someone that the survivor knows. So that's a really high number. And not to say 85% is a family member. Just 85% of rapes are perpetuated by someone the survivor knows. But in both these cases, what I thought was excellent about both these books was the way that PTSD was handled sort of within that realm of sort of after the fact, but also too like it was sort of current PTSD going on. And sometimes also called rape trauma syndrome. And it was a really interesting thing sort of seeing how these both, I would say like because it's family members involved, that these both sort of plagued both these characters in a way that really wrecked them mentally in terms of their mental health. And I think incest in general is a really deeply complicated, a rape by a family member is a really deeply complicated issue because you're talking about power dynamics within the family, but you're also talking about the secrets I think behind this. And particularly when you're talking about family members, the wealth of secrets and what family dynamics will happen and family systems will happen to keep those secrets within the family as opposed to ever telling anyone outside of that is incredibly difficult. And it makes this layer even more intense. I think sometimes because you're talking about, we talk a lot about the voiceless or people who are not able to report rape. I think that it's doubly complicated when you're talking about situations of sexual violence within families. Oh, definitely. And these are really good examples of that. One of this, did you talk about the idea that 85% of victims are raped by somebody they know when I found it really interesting to know that a lot of it occurs in dating situations. A lot of teenagers dating are having what we consider domestic violence and rape in those dating situations. They did a study and they said that between the ages of 16 and 24, girls between the ages of 16 and 24 are three times more likely than the rest of the population to be abused by an intimate partner. The statistics for even just dating violence for teenage girls was really, really astounding to me. And of course, then they don't necessarily differentiate in those statistics, but some of them are including rape statistics as well. So it's definitely something that's happening in the dating relationships of teenagers. And they also noted, I thought it was interesting, that violent behavior often begins between 6 and 12th grades, 72% of 13 and 14-year-olds are dating, and then a significant portion of those dating relationships will include some type of violence. So I thought that that was some disturbing information. A couple of good examples of this idea of acquaintance rape, date rape, they want to call it a partner rape. The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney and Inexcusable by Chris Lynch, I will tell you that Inexcusable by Chris Lynch is a particularly very fascinating and interesting story because it's actually told from the male point of view who is the person who, at the beginning of the book, we see him, we meet him, and he's in a room with this girl who is accusing him of rape, and he's saying, no, no, no, I didn't rape you. I couldn't rape you because I love you. And so it couldn't have been rape because I love you. And then he goes through several chapters introducing himself to us, trying to explain to us that he's a good guy. It's really important for us to understand that he's a really good guy. And of course, he went at Rainford because he loved her and he's a really great guy. And then you get to the end where it's finally revealed what did happen. And it's kind of left kind of, you know, like, did he or didn't he? I'd say he definitely did. But it's a very, very discussable book. I think it's a great book to use with teens to ask those questions about, you know, what do you think about what he did and, you know... How would you define this? Do you consider this rape? Yes. All those things? Yes. And it's a powerful, powerful story. And the Mocky Birds by Daisy Whitney involves a girl who wakes up and she realizes that she has been raped and she goes to a private school and the school has like their own, like, kind of student justice system. And it's the process that she goes through, the way the students react and her claims that she was raped and the way the students react and the way the guy reacts. But, you know, you get all those complex questions as well. If this rape is not a rape, you know, what do you think? Again, very, very discussable, very well-written. Yeah, and, you know, the nice thing about the Mocky Birds is that even though it's set in sort of a boarding school and it's this student ethics committee or whatever that's adjudicating this, it's a great launching place into discussing how that works in colleges and on campus. Because with campus, when you're talking about campus rape very frequently, it will not be dealt with by the police but will be dealt with within the campus, you know, bylaws in there and their adjudication system, their ethics committee, whatever they call it, or their disciplinary committee, which is often peer-related. So it's a really great, I feel like the Mocky Birds is so great in talking about how this is often dealt with in colleges too, because, you know, college campuses and colleges have been scrutinized lately about their policies with regards to this. How are they dealing with it? And we're seeing cases where the perpetrators are staying on campus with the victims and how that makes it really uncomfortable for the victim and how they're, you know, and ultimately it ends up being the victims who have to leave school because the perpetrators were not expelled, nothing happened to them, or it was some small disciplinary action and this, these kind of things. So it's a great, to me that's a great example too, yeah. Excellent, yes. It's important, look, I just, when we talk about rape, I know that I tend to default into female pronouns, but it's also important for us to remember and keep in mind that boys are also the victims of sexual violence and we always want to emphasize that and keep that in people's minds. And you know, no matter who the victim is and Krista thinks has a good quote where she talks about often the idea that, you know, people of sexual violence, they know no age, no race, no gender, no, I mean, you know, you hear in the news about babies being raised and sexually violated in some way and, you know, elderly women up in their 80s and 90s. So, and it's, you know, male, female, they don't care about sexual orientation and all sexual violence, all of it is wrong. It's not okay. Rain reports that 10% of sexual violence victims are male. Some recent information may suggest that it's high as 40%. And here's two really good examples of this and one of them just recently came out is Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick. He wrote the Silver Linings Playbook in Boy 21 and several other books. And then Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, he met me, Leonard, and it's his birthday and he's going out and he's going to deliver presents to, I believe, four people. And then he's planning on having, like, a mass shooting school situation. And as he goes through and he, he talks about what's happening to him and he reveals to a teacher something that's happened to him and his teacher looks at him and says, you know, Leonard, you do know that boys can be raped, right? And this was just like the most profound, you know, a moment in a book that I've read in a really long time because that's what Leonard needed was somebody to tell him that this is what happened to him. And then Swagger involves a boy on a high school basketball team who another friend reveals to him that he's being sexually abused by the coach and this friend is trying to decide whether or not he's going to report the coach because it will have implications for him and, you know, his basketball career and these types of things. So both of these, as I mentioned, are good examples of sexual violence against men and teenage boys. And we have a list on the blog of some other titles as well. The Gospel of Winter also comes to mind for me, which is about priests. Yeah. So we're going to talk about that later. But yes, the Gospel of Winter is just a beautiful, brilliant book about, as Krista mentioned, the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. And as far as I know, it is the only book about that type of violence. So that's... In YA literature? Yeah, maybe. In YA literature that I know. Yeah. I don't know. Right. So the next thing we want to talk to you guys is about what consent is. And this can, I think this is where the idea gets lost for some of our... Well, everyone actually. But basically, the general idea of consent is that those parties have to be able and willing to consent to some type of sexual interaction. So this means that those people have to be able, which means they have to be a sound mind. They have to be old enough to understand what's happening. They have to be clear-headed, which means not intoxicated, not under the influence of drugs. And it has to be of their free will, which means... And this is where it gets a little bit trickier because we talk about things like emotional manipulation, threats, this whole idea of, like, if you love me, you would do this for me. You know, that's not necessarily a healthy communication about sex. And we need to have those conversations with teenagers. I think one of the partners can be able to express their desire to have sex and do so in a way that doesn't guilt or manipulate or try to coerce the other person. And then part of that is also understanding that the other person has the right to say no. And consent is more than just the absence of no. This is something I think we really need to be talking to everybody about. But what you want is to have both parties say yes. When you read a lot of personal narratives about sexual violence, and they'll talk about the idea that when it was happening to them, they froze up. So they didn't say no verbally, but they were definitely saying no in body language and even sometimes trying to fight the person off. But this idea that no means no, that's a great idea, but it's even better the idea of yes means yes. It's important for everybody to understand that even if we start having a sexual relationship, that person has the right to end that sexual relationship at any time. You can withdraw consent. And that even like a person can start a sexual interaction and then decide in the midst of it that no, I'm not comfortable with this. This is not right for me. We need to stop. Two of my favorite examples of this is the book Infinity Last by Myra McIntyre. It's the third book in the Hourglass series. It focuses on these two characters and they are having this flirtation. There's a lot of sexual tension between them. And finally it gets to the point where it looks like yes, we're really going to do this. And the male character just flat out looks at the female character and says, so I have the green light to continue like this is what you want to do, right? And it's awesome. That's one of my favorite books. It's one of my favorite moments in the book and it's just a great situation. And then plus one by Elizabeth Bama. How do you say it? Bama. Thank you. They actually have a conversation and decide they're going to have sex. Then in the midst of the sex, the girl starts crying and the boy that she's having sex with notices what's happening and he kind of stops for a moment. He says like, are you okay? Is this what you want to be doing? And he doesn't know she's just crying because to her this is a beautiful moment. But he sees her crying and he takes a moment to check in with her in the midst of sex and say like, you still want to be doing this? Is this still okay? And so that's a profound moment. Yeah. And you know, I just want to talk to this last point because you kind of brushed over it. The yes is not always a yes. So this is the idea of... So what Karen's talking about here is what's called affirmative consent or enthusiastic consent. And this is sort of the next step in what a lot of educators are doing in terms of saying, you know, it's not just no means no. You need to have affirmative consent, enthusiastic consent. And I think what you're talking about here in this yes is not always a yes is when you're talking about manipulation and coercion. So when it becomes... And plus one is an excellent example because there's a part in it and now I can't remember the character's name, but where she's making a... She has a relationship with... Or she has a soldier comes up and she ends up like going off into the bushes with him to get through the guards. And it's very transactional. It's very... So this is a situation where sex has become transactional and yes, she has agreed to it, but she's agreed to it sort of under duress because she knows otherwise they're not going to get through these barriers. And so that's a conversation to have. Not to say that in that particular case, her yes means that, you know, anything else that means that this girl was raped. She was not, she agreed to it, but there's also something to... It's a discussion point with teenagers in terms of when things are transactional or when there's coercion involved or when you're talking about there's a manipulation that it becomes, well, if you want this, then you have to do this. And this isn't healthy sex. That's not healthy. So I just wanted to speak to that point because that was a little confusing. So go ahead, Karen. Okay, thank you. Okay. There are a few laws that discuss the idea of consent. Typically, in most states, and you should check your local state laws, consent can't happen before the age of 16. Like people who are considered younger than 16 cannot consent to sex. Then also, when you're talking about people under the age of 18, there's usually... There's an echo all of a sudden. A three-year age difference. Okay. So if you... Like a 16-year-old couldn't have sex with someone over the age of 20 or over. Because... And the reason those laws exist are some of the power dynamics that Crystal was just talking about. That's why some of those age consent laws that are there, especially when you talk about the age gap for minors under the age of 18, who might be involved in a relationship with somebody who is over the age of 18. So you'll want to check the laws for your state there. And of course, if a person is intoxicated under the influence of drugs, their ability to consent is compromised. And I think this is where a lot of discussion lately about consent has come up. You see it in the Stephenville case. You see it a lot when we talk about college campus rates. And you'll see article after article after article that will say, you know, to help the rape crisis, you know, women shouldn't drink. Well, you know... Or people should just not rape them, really. Exactly. But it's important to remember that people who are under the influence of drug and alcohol can't consent to the full extent because we know that it can influence... Especially people who are intoxicated to the point where they can't stand up or they might be passed out. It seems like you should go without saying, you know, don't rape them, you know? There's a really great conversation about this in the book, This Song Will Save Your Life by Lila Sales. There's a group of people and they're in a club. These girls are talking and this girl looks over and she sees another girl. She's being held up against the wall by some men. She's obviously really intoxicated. I mean, she can't really stand up. And there's some boys holding her up and one of them is like talking or kissing and the girl sees what's happening and walks over to them and says, you know, what are you doing? Leave her alone. And they're like, no, it's okay. She wants this. And they're like, no, she can't consent. She's too drunk to consent. You're taking advantage of her. And I think that this scene is such an important scene for two reasons. One, it discusses that concept of, you know, consent. But it also gives us an example of when they talk about the idea of being a bystander and how when you see something happening to somebody else, you can intervene and stand up for them and help them out in that situation. Which some of those cases that we see in the news would have gone so much differently if those other teens at the parties would have felt empowered to say, stop doing this. This is not okay. Yeah, I agree. I deal with this issue a little bit in fault line, too. And one of the things that is addressed is not necessarily the act of bystander, but the idea of not being able to consent because you've had too much to drink. And it was interesting because I got a review on Goodreads once that said something like, I'm tired of drunk girls crying rape. And I was so jarring to me and so difficult to hear or to read because I thought, oh, do people really think this? And I think that that's still sort of, there's a mystique that there are people who still think that. I recall that Fox News guy who, when Daisy Coleman, the Daisy Coleman story came out, this guy on Fox News said something like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess she was raped, but, and there was sort of this but, but she was drinking a ton, but all these things. And to me, part of this project is figuring out a way to talk to people so that we take the butt out of that conversation. Right. And this next slide is about the other part of consent that you were kind of talking about earlier, the coercive consent. Yeah. Did you want me to take this one, Carrie? Go for it. I know we're running out of time and we wanted to outline this, but so this is great. Point is excellent. It's an amazing book. It deals with a lot of different issues coming up, but one particular one, which I think is really excellent, is a great example of both an age power dynamic that's happening and the idea of being emotionally manipulated into consenting. So we sort of find out within that book that the younger, the girl who's the protagonist, she was a younger, I think, 13, got in a relationship with a guy who said he was, I think, 18. And it turns out he was like, you know, 23 or something. But the flashbacks that she has to that time, you can see how it's woven in and it's become really emotionally coercive and manipulative, where he sort of talks her into wanting to do this so that she really buys into it, and she really thinks that she wants to do it. And so much of that narrative through that book is her justifying this relationship that she had with this guy and everything about it. And it's fascinating because I think that that's very true in terms of teen girls. And I thought that rang particularly true to me was this justification of, well, I wanted this. I hooked up with them. I made this choice and there's a part where you say, okay, but you were 13 and he used all these sort of, he manipulated this chessboard against you so that, of course, you made that choice because he made you feel desirable and he made you feel craved and wanted and all these things that is really using, in this particular case, that place of prepubescence where that 13-year-old place where really you want that, you're sort of on the cusp of wanting to be an adult or treated that way. And so it's really, you know, to me is very fascinating in terms of that particular book and how, you know, up until the very end she is rationalizing this relationship but you can see how it plays out in many of her other relationships in that book. And then Karen, did you want to talk about Bleed since you were the one who sort of took that and understood that as opposed to me talking about my own book? Did you just mute yourself, Karen? Alright, we lost Karen. Okay, well then I'll talk about it. Oh, there you are. Yes. I muted myself while you were talking because my dog started barking. Yeah, can you talk about Bleed like me for a second? Yes, I will talk about it. So the thing about Bleed is that it's about a relationship between this boy and this girl. And basically she's very alone. She has three adopted brothers who take up almost all of her parent's time and this girl has become sort of invisible in her house and in her life. And this boy comes in and he's in the foster system and he sort of talks himself, talks her into him. And along the way says things that end up being very controlling. We're going to do this. You're going to stop doing this and it plays out in this way that you realize that she just craves someone to feel this way about her so much or to want her this much that she's willing to go along with a lot of, I guess, shenanigans that he talks her into and it ends up being incredibly destructive for both of them. But for her in particular because she I wouldn't say that she goes against form so much as she goes along with him in a lot of things and he sort of becomes the navigator of that relationship. And so there's a lot of things that is just emotional because she feels like he's the only thing for her and he ends up isolating her and the two of them take off on this road trip and end up moving to Minneapolis and there's all these other impacts that happen and you start to realize as it unfolds that she has been her own vulnerable state or her emotionally vulnerable state which is opened the door into this into a really unhealthy relationship. So, I'm sorry about that but it was at my door. I just wanted to say I've read, I've one of the people who have read Leeds Like Me and it's an excellent book and I think it really touches on those nuances of content. Like Christa mentioned the emotional aspects of consent so I hope everybody will read that when it comes out. Another thing that we just want to touch briefly on and I know we're almost out of time is what we can learn through reading the literature about how teens react to sexual violence and not just teens anybody really, any survivor. Probably one of the classic examples when we talk about sexual violence is Speak Mary Halsey Anderson and what we see there is the character withdrawing, shutting down withdraws into herself and really shuts down and I think a lot of people think that is how all people react to sexual violence and that is not necessarily so it is certainly one of the ways that people can react. One of the things that I learned through this project that really changed a lot of things for me was seeing how some teens become really sexually active after sexual violence either because as we see and thought line by Christa because they've been labeled a slut so their whole idea is that people are going to think this about me then I might as well just be it but also the idea of I want to try to seek out sexual relationships because I want to have a healthy one to erase this negative one we mentioned briefly the gospel of winter and I think one of the excellent things we've seen this is the idea that a lot of teens will turn to drug and alcohol use after sexual violence for the same reason that really probably most people turn to sexual drugs or turn to drugs and alcohol to kind of just numb the pain with Charmin who talked about the idea of PTSD also a variety of other mental health issues and disassociated behaviors and of course they can have a lot of sexual confusion, shame, doubt, guilt just a lot of emotional responses to that and through reading all of these different books you can see the different ways that people react but I think the other thing for me is something who works with teens it reminds me that when I see teens in my library engaging and what I might consider to be bad behavior it's also important to take a moment and consider that there might be reasons why they are engaging in this behavior I don't want us to just write off the teens that we interact with who are difficult to interact with as being problem teens but we have to understand that sometimes there's really profound reasons behind why they have these behaviors there's almost always trauma I always think there's trauma there there's trauma okay and then Krista is going to take over for a few moments yeah okay so one of the aspects we've talked about with this project is this idea of slut shaming and it was actually really interesting because I am trying to think who was the one who noticed the slut list on the Goodreads or the slut shelf Alexandra Duncan okay Alexandra Duncan did a whole thing on the slut shelf and how one of her books her book had been put on this someone's Goodreads slut shelf and it was really interesting because she was talking about what makes us I guess go to that place what makes us think about you know or make judgments on girls who are promiscuous what makes us in my mind at least separate ourselves from and one of the things that I think a lot of these books explore especially the books that explore promiscuity or being easy or any of those things that people use is the idea of well two things one is the idea that if a girl has sexual agency somehow that makes her either a slut or you know that she's got some baggage and this is really interesting to me because I think that sex and violence, Carrie Miss Robian sex and violence deals with a girl who has just a really positive sexual outlook and it's a really nice contrast because it deals with the nuance of girls who have sexual agency and our sexual beings and how that doesn't necessarily make them sluts or easy or those kind of things and then Karen you got to go back one in your slide because I want to talk about Alice and then and then in the truth about Alice which is Jennifer Methu's book this is a really great book for me because it talks a lot about or it deals with the issue about rumors and what makes rumors get started and it's told from all these different points of view until almost the very end when we finally get Alice's point of view and it's beautifully crafted because it deals with everyone's voice but Alice until the very end and then it also deals with the idea that all these people just created rumors around her and then she just and then it was decided that she's a slut and part of it was that Alice you know was sexually engaged and did have a sex life but then it sort of got taken into this bigger thing and because she was that way or because she had friends who knew that she had at one point done oral sex with a guy then it turned into this much bigger thing and to me this is a really interesting thing because it talks a lot about the nuances of rumors in high school and what that means and what how that for us for our benefit how that talks that deals with the issue of sexual violence so this is just a really quick story that I had a friend who is a high school teacher and he told me this story about how this girl and this guy were making out outside at the lockers and they went inside and she followed him into the guy's bathroom and when she came out she told the teacher that he had raped her and this every of course the rumors all around the school went around this and that when my friend was talking to his class about it because they told him most of the students in his class said well what did she expect she followed him into the guy's bathroom and this to me was so interesting that there was an immediate like an immediate decision that she was asking for it or for whatever happened she made that choice to go in the guy's bathroom and it goes along with the same idea of well what did she expect she was wearing a really short skirt or what did she expect she was drinking or what did she expect she was hanging out with that guy who's a total player you know whatever these things are it's a sort of a mythos around this and I think part of what we've talked about a lot in our project is that I think people's tendency to slut shame or to want to say well she's different than me I would've never followed a guy into the bathroom or I would've never been like Alice and hooked up with this older guy or I would've never done these things is our wanting to disassociate with the possibility that we could ever be raped or that our kids could ever be raped or that our sisters or whoever could ever be raped is that we want to create something that makes us different and sort of unrapeable and it's a really interesting conversation that's come out of this project is that there's nothing that makes you unrapeable I mean there's just nothing that I've worked with survivors who are three I've worked with survivors who are 89 there is nothing that you can do that makes you you know there's no there there I guess anymore so one of the things that with the idea of slut shaming and when you try and distance yourself is that it perpetuates a silence it perpetuates a silence for girls who are sexually active and who are raped because they think did I deserve this did I you know was it because I was wearing this and they they tend to blame themselves and so it creates a thing and so it's been one of the good things that's happened out of this project is being able to have a really good honest conversation about when you start slut shaming or when you start labeling girls as lots or when you say things like what did you expect you know then you're you're creating a silence and then one other point about this that Jennifer had written a blog post on was that there is similarly a mythos around boys and that boys have to want sex all the time or they have to be players or what the expectations of boys are in this and it's equally problematic it's it has the exact same problem that when you insist that girls don't have any sexual agency in the same thing that you insist that boys are always wanting to have sex it creates cultural stereotypes that are very difficult for teens to live up to or navigate or even work through and it makes it difficult for them Karen did you want to jump on that or we okay we're moving on okay so then the other thing that we wanted to talk about and that we've been talking about is because this is kind of a downer of a project in some ways I mean it's a wonderful project but it's very difficult because there's so much around this idea of God like it's relentlessly painful sometimes and difficult and one of the things that we wanted to talk about which Karen dealt with a little bit in the consent thing is YA literature that has really sex-positive scenes or things that are sort of really wonderful about girls making decisions girls and boys making decisions about what they really want and what their own I guess what their own sexual agency is without feeling like they were coerced or manipulated or any of those things and three examples that we have here I love the Duff I think the Duff is one of the most sex-positive YA books I've ever read I think she handles the subject real well it's really interesting the decisions she makes and I think that like obviously there's consent on both parts obviously there's good dialogue around this and it's it felt all of it feels very real and authentic to me and similarly in the summer I found you I love that the summer I found you is about a diabetic girl who is dating a guy who has just returned from Afghanistan and he has one arm and the sort of the sex scene between them is really interesting because at the very beginning she is dating a different guy and has been for a really long time and has not chosen to have sex with that guy and then she meets this and then they break up and then she meets this new guy and after a fairly short period of time she decides to have sex with him and the conversation around it and whether when she felt ready for it was really interesting because you could see that she was like you know all these parts about connection and what she wanted and when she was ready all came into play and then between the two of them that scene in itself is very sex-positive because it's awkward and wonderful and has all these different things because he's like I don't I haven't done this since I lost my arm and so she's helping him and there's like all these wonderful aspects to it that also makes you feel like this is real, this is how it can sometimes go but there's constant dialogue, constant conversation around them both being on board for this and I will always forever love Gail Forman's If I Stay because I think that the sex scene in that and sort of her nerves around it and everything that happens with that is so magical because that also felt really real to me and also really both really positive for both of them but also to really awkward and kind of wonderful that she was like I'm super nervous like how is this going to be and that was very truthful and I love that he says like you know play me like an instrument because this is their mutual thing and so you get also to I guess love and affection and all of those aspects in there without having it to be like deep true love I mean if I say obviously that's the place of it but there's also these are also examples of you know this doesn't have to be a one and only marriage kind of situation you can talk about having these thoughts and wanting to do this and wanting to be in that space and all the aspects of it and it's pretty great so and also to in all of these none of these books are just about sex which I like too this is one aspect of them but they're you know they're complicated thoughts or they they're very intricate so okay moving on we had to finish this Karen this is the last slide so we're good we're so sorry so what can you do with all of this information and I'm right now I'm going to speak specifically to like the public and school library environment one is know what the laws are for your state particularly you'll want to know if you're a mandated reporter have a discussion with your administrator once you find out what all the laws are including the laws about the age of consent have a discussion with your administrator write a policy for your library make sure it outlines what staff will do and then take and train the staff what that policy is and how to enforce that policy it's important to note that if something is defined as criminal activity your response should be to call the police but some of the stuff when we talk about like sexual harassment type of things you should address that in your policy you should have a code of conduct and a behavior but you know like you overhear a teen saying something to another teen that's not something to call the police floor but it's something that you want to address and maybe even ask the teen to leave for the day after you explain why what we want to do is create spaces and our schools and our libraries so like I said have a code of conduct it should be you should have a code of conduct you should have a code of conduct for patrons and you know have a code of conduct and post it in the public where people can see then like I said you're going to train your staff about the issues you are going to give them very specific actions about how to respond if complaints are made or if you witness something happening have a staff training day role play those type of scenarios and then make sure that you are actively enforcing the code of conduct then you'll also want to know about resources in your local community know who teens can you can refer your teens to if they come to you you can contact your local hospital sometimes they will have what's called a sane nurse it's a sexual assault nurse examiner they will go out into the community and do education they will come to your library they will do either a staff training day or I have held seminars like on you know violence dating violence and healthy relationships for teens and they will come and hold those type of or have those type of seminars for you and you know I just put on my publicity that we were going to talk about sensitive topics so people who knew people who were coming would know in advance and you're kind of covered but you can also contact local crisis centers they might come and do some of these type of educational seminars with you but at the very least network make relationships with these people have conversations with them know what's happening in your community know who you can refer people to know what the law is and then you can use the books that were talked about and other books and newer books will keep coming out have the conversations with your teen and I know that it makes people sometimes uncomfortable but I really think it's important that we have the conversations and that we use the literature to really engage teens in thoughtful dialogue I know that in the fall Jay Asher is getting ready to do the 50 states of bullying and his book 13 reasons why is actually a really good title to discuss and there's a discussion guide on there speak of course there's discussion guides for that and there are several other titles and there are some discussion guides that are listed on the project hub for you to connect to great and also too know if you're mandated reporters that would be the other thing I don't know if school librarians I assume they are mandated reporters not everyone is but it's probably something good for you to know if you do hear something if you're a mandated reporter because it impacts whether people can disclose to you so I think sometimes that teens don't necessarily always feel feel comfortable disclosing and if they start disclosing to you you need to let them know that you're a mandated reporter first because if they find out after that you've told their story that they didn't want anyone else to know like that becomes a real problem so they should know that first thing yes and I believe that almost always always anybody affiliated with the education system in a school is a mandated reporter but as Krista says definitely verify that should be part of the conversation that you have in the legal issues so the rest that we have is just some book lists for you and discussion guides and then some of the other resources we pulled up you can look through those slides on your own I will tell you this is up at teenlibraryntoolbox.com so you can click through and you can follow through all the links and everything this actual slide presentation is there and then of course it's being reported in archives so you can address it that way that's alright we frequently go over this was all great information so not a problem alright thanks Emily thanks everyone for coming and listening we didn't have any questions come in while you were talking if anybody does have questions they can type them in right now while we're doing that we have on the line Rochelle McPhillips who is the chair of the young adult round table at the Nebraska library association and she said that she wanted to you're done so Rochelle I have unmuted your microphone alright thank you well thank you Karen and Krista for presenting for us today I appreciate that as the chair of YARC this year advocacy is a big issue for me I see myself as an advocate in my library 14 so I just wanted to add about mandatory reporters in the state of Nebraska for anyone who's joining us from Nebraska any adult is a mandatory reporter regardless of your job also keep in mind that people at school like your guidance counselors your school nurses teachers that kids talk about and talk about as trusted people sometimes I can't do things about what I'm told because of my position but we can pull in another person and we have done that in the past so that's all I have I just wanted to say thank you and I hope that we can have you back to continue this conversation sometimes thanks thanks for having us thank you so much it's such an important topic and I just appreciate the opportunity always to get to talk about it I think that we really see every day the effects of not only just sexual violence on the life of our teens but just our teens trying to navigate this new sexual world that they're starting to think about and explore so I think it is important to have these conversations and I appreciate this opportunity absolutely it's definitely important and thank you Karen and Krista for joining us the like I said the links to this slideshow will be on Teen Library and Toolbox and we will include a link to that when the recording is available for this Encompass Live so you have all these links available that's for sure thank you all for joining us and we hope you'll come back for another Encompass Live