"Athena Ives, Author of 'Thank You For Raping Me'"

In this weeks episode, we lean toward a more controversial topic of rape. We had the opportunity to meet with Athena Ives, a Marine Corp Sgt Veteran, and Author of the book, "Thank You For Raping Me". Athena describes her unbelievable story of growing up being raped by her brother and then again, twice, during her military experience. She explains that the "Thank You" in the title of the book is based off the idea of how these horrible occurrences happening, made her into the person she is today. Kevin, Crystal (yes Crystal was back for this episode!) and Sully talk about what is going on in today's society that makes people NOT want to come forward and some of the reasoning behind why people do. Kevin thinks it's because of all of the false accusations made by women that weren't actually raped and that draws fear into those that have been, from coming forward, in fear of not being believed. Sully describes how difficult it would be to completely rectify the problem because no company, or especially the military, would consider using a 3rd party system, to investigate any allegations of rape. He also describes how "normal" citizens identities are protected when they come forward, and that should be a good reason to do so, if you've been raped or sexually assaulted. Crystal describes her experiences and explains why she decided to not turn in the person that did this to her. Crystal also discusses her thoughts on why people don't come forward. They also briefly discuss how there has been backlash towards Athena from the #metoo movement. Athena's biggest hope with her new book is to inspire people through her words. To let people know that even in the darkest days, there is hope, and that you can build off tragedy and become a bigger, better person from it. You can purchase a copy of Athena's book, "Thank You For Raping Me" here: https://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Raping-Me-Resilience/dp/099804170X -or- Visit her website at - https://athenaives.com/