In case you missed it, Kesha filed a lawsuit against her producer Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald (or Dr. Luke) trying to get out of her Sony contract claiming physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Last Friday, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled against Kesha, deciding that she couldn’t be released from her contract, thus making her responsible for recording six more albums with Sony. Welcome to 2016 where a contract has more legal rights than a human body.

Here isn’t where I give you my opinion on Sony, Dr. Luke, Kesha’s career, or even a timeline of Kesha’s accusations against Dr. Luke. Here is where I urge every one of you reading this to be a little more sensitive to survivors. All too often is the system quick to ask:
“What was she wearing?” – Why does this even matter? Should this matter? What someone is wearing doesn’t have a voice. What someone chooses to put on to go to a club, a bar, grocery shopping, or even to a college campus can not and never will be able to provide consent.
“What did she expect?” – I think there’s an obvious answer to this one. To be respected. Is it really too much to expect for your body to not be violated?
"Did she ever say yes?” – It doesn’t matter if someone consented and changed their mind right before. It doesn’t matter if someone gives consent and in the middle of everything decides to change their mind. No means no. You can always change your mind and you always have right to your own body.
“Why is she just now bringing it up/wait to report/wait to be famous?” – We can’t pretend to know everyone’s personal reasons for things. We can’t just assume that not reporting when a sexual assault first takes place means that the victim is lying. Remember, only 2 percent of rape accusations are false. We don’t know what happened and in many cases, we never will. There could be threats and the fear of speaking up is supported by the fact that the media, a lot of the time, is waiting to rip apart the victim limb by limb wanting solid, tangible proof.

All too often is the system quick to point out the times that the victim previously might have even hinted at the fact that the person causing them harm was ever a good person to begin with. In Kesha’s case, the defense is using a birthday card she gave to Dr. Luke along with an award acceptance speech.

We ask all these questions without stopping to think: if this was our loved one, would we feel this way? Would these questions matter? Would we immediately brush them off? Would we tell them they deserved what happened to them because of how they dressed? Would we question their motives for “just now” coming forward? Probably not! I know any one of my loved ones would fight tooth and nail to advocate for me, just as I would think most of you would do for those that you love.

Too often we dismiss victims, blame victims, and shame victims when they finally become brave enough to speak up. More and more we are seeing campaigns like It’s On Us and No More to spread awareness on sexual assault and domestic violence — urging people to stand for what’s right. We urge survivors to come forward and then when they do what is our response? We tell them to be quiet. We dismiss them, blame them, and shame them. Kesha’s case is just another example of how we would rather silence the victims.

It’s time for us to change our approach. It’s time for us to support survivors -- to tell them that they are loved, they are believed and thank them for coming forward. It’s time for us, the front row audience to so many survivors’ pain, to offer hope, resources, support and a whole lot of love.