The SF Sexual Trauma Center

I read an interesting article in the paper about the San Francisco Sexual Trauma Center (this was probably late 1976 or early 1977), and went in to volunteer. This turned out to be a little like my experience with my high school newspaper. What they actually needed were women to act as counselors to other women who had just been raped. The Center worked with the SF Department of Public Health to provide services for victims of sexual abuse. The goal was to have a counselor always available and then to follow up with the victims later. (One of the common, and very frustrating, aspects of sexual trauma is that the victim often blocks out what happened to them. While this is an understandable defense mechanism, it means that a year after the assault the woman is either housebound or has changed everything about her life -- including where she lives, which makes it hard to track her down -- and she doesn’t even know why.  Some kind of intervention is usually needed before the victim can get her life back. )  

I ended up being the Volunteer Coordinator, making sure that all the shifts were covered by our core of volunteer counselors. We eventually got some government funding and I even got paid for a time. Besides trying to keep our volunteer counselors happy, I also worked with the Public Health nurses and doctors to make sure everyone had what they needed and everyone knew what everyone else was doing. On the side, I organized what I believe was the first national conference on Male Rape.

What I remember most about this job is working in an office (in the Public Health Department building no less) where almost everyone smoked constantly. One day, in an attempt to make a point, I started puffing on a cigar only to have one of my women co-workers comment on how sexy the cigar was. At least that was one battle I would win in the end.

The burnout rate in that field is high, and I think the government money also ran out. In any case, I soon moved on to another, odd, transitional job. (See Typewriter Repair Days).