Every woman has their own version of a Harvey Weinstein in her life. Maybe your version didn’t go as far as masturbating in front of you, or maybe it went much further and turned into a violent attack. Either way, I hear you and I’m sorry that has happened to you.

I’ve been following all of the women in Hollywood and beyond, tell their #MeToo stories of sexual assault. I even told my own over on my Instagram account. The stories all have the similar theme. Man in a powerful position (in my case, my personal training client) takes advantage of said position and forces himself on a woman who most likely finds him repulsive.

BTW Guys – how hard is it to NOT masturbate in front of a woman who doesn’t like you?

This is nothing new, hence why women are not surprised by these stories at all. We are not surprised, because we’ve been dealing with it our whole lives. We have dealt with statistics like 1 in 5 women will be the victim of a sexual assault in their lifetime and that 1 in 4 college aged women will experience sexual assault. If it hasn’t happened to us, it’s happened to someone we know.

That’s why this conversation is so important, and it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. When we open up a once taboo subject and start talking about a few things happen:

1.We allow women to share their stories. Once they start to share their stories, they can start the healing process. This was very evident in a short video I made about sexual assault survivors who were raped on their college campus called Report. Share. Heal. 

2. We alert a younger generation women that these are things that they may have to deal with as they get older and more worldly wise. And maybe even give them better tools than we had to deal with it.

3. We out the predators so other women will steer clear of them, probably divorce them and possibly make them accountable for their actions in a court of law.

Will this movement deter men from predatory behavior? Maybe some of them. Maybe not. But in the meantime, I am going to continue to help empower women to stick up for themselves, stand up to predators and physically and emotionally protect themselves. Here is my latest piece, a candid conversation on the Livestrong.com STRONGER podcast, What Every Woman Should Know About Self Defense. Enjoy and let me know what you think!