In reading Jenny Block’s Huffington Post piece on feeling “lucky” to have come into her sexuality on her own, I had to concur. It’s weird to have to say I’m lucky; lucky that I wasn’t forced into a sexual situation I didn’t want to endure, lucky to have been confused and awkward and sexual without it ever having been shoved upon me. I was lucky that my parents loved me from a distance, and that I got to make my own choices when it came to sex. Still, like Jenny, I hate to use the word lucky, because everyone deserves to take the same path I took. But so many women, and men, aren’t lucky like me. Even though by age 12 I was questioning my own sexuality (if I kiss, and fondle, women, or more specifically one girl my age, A LOT - am I gay?) I wanted to kiss her, I just didn’t know if I wanted to be a lesbian. My sexual preference was a choice. Our decision to be together was a choice. Even who I am today is a choice. A conscious choice.

I’m lucky I guess.

I have friends who aren’t/weren’t so lucky, but maybe now they think of themselves as lucky because without surviving those experiences, they may not have been as brave and open as they are now. Friends like Carly Milne who spit it all out in her memoir, Sexography. I’ve known Carly for almost ten years now and I’ve always admired her. She’s not afraid to talk about where she comes from, and put it all out on the table for everyone to read. She’s not afraid to help other women in similar situations get beyond where they once were as well. She even came up with this way to get the word out.

See April is National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, and that means this month is about raising awarness, and money, for the cause. Survivors of sexual abuse are not alone. And they should never feel like they are. There’s a place called RAINN (Rape and Incest National Network) that created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline which helps more than 140,000 sexual assault victims a year and has helped more than one million callers since its inception in 1994.

That’s a lot of people in similar boats. And even us “lucky” ones can’t ignore those statistics. The worst thing we can do is forget, dismiss or shut up about rape and incest. We can’t turn the other cheek and say if it’s not happening to us it’s not happening at all. Because that’s lame. That’s bullshit. That’s ignorance.

Whether you’re “lucky” like me, or not, there’s no excuse not to help.

Donate to RAINN