by Lisa P.
While kinky abuse victims are welcome to seek help at all organizations that help survivors, they may not find understanding at all of them. Some anti-abuse organizations are unfamiliar with kink, and may have a difficult time telling the difference between consensual kink and abuse, and/or may shame victims for being kinky, suggest that being kinky contributed to or even outright caused their abuse, and/or try to cure them from being kinky.
Fortunately, there are organizations that are sympathetic to and knowledgeable about kink that help both kinky and non-kinky abuse victims equally. One such organization is The Network/La Red, which, as stated on its website, is “a survivor-led, social justice organization that works to end partner abuse in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, kink, polyamorous, and queer communities.” It can be contacted at its hotline phone number of 1-800-832-1901, or emailed at info@tnlr.org. It also offers a webpage dedicated to explaining the difference between kink and abuse for those unsure, which may be helpful to kinky abuse survivors on the TNLR webpage.
Another such organization is Resilience, which offers kink-friendly training to its workers. It can be reached at Resilience. There is also the National Sexual Assault Hotline, available at 1-800-656-HOPE, which is staffed by people with kink-friendly training. It is run by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), an anti-sexual violence organization.
Another resource that can be helpful for kinky abuse survivors is the Kink and Polyamory Aware Professionals Directory (KAP), a service offered by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, which, as its website states, is “dedicated to providing the community with a listing of psychotherapeutic, medical, legal and other professionals who have stated that they are knowledgeable about and sensitive to diverse expressions of sexuality.” While not limited to offering help for abuse victims, it does contain information on professionals that can help with such. It can be reached at KAP (although you have to scroll down).
Here is a guide to finding a kink-friendly therapist online. While therapy is not only useful for abuse victims, many survivors do seek therapy to help deal with their abuse.
All people, kinky and not, should be able to find resources to help them escape abusive situations, prosecute their abuser(s) if desired and possible, and process the trauma involved in being abused. But until we live in a kink-accepting world, those of us who are kinky will often have to seek out specifically kink-friendly resources in order to do so, rather than simply being able to trust that any anti-abuse resource will be kink-friendly. Hopefully, this blog post can be useful in providing information about those that are.