Taylor Rippy Monson and Taylor Jarman, two former BYU–Hawaii students, are gaining momentum in spreading awareness of sexual assault through their organization called Honey. It has been featured on media outlets such as Good Things Utah, SLC Feminist, and NPR Utah radio.
Honey aims to stop the silence on the subject of sexual assault by creating a community where people who have experienced sexual violence first hand can share their stories for others to read.
The website reads, “We believe that in order for rape culture to be dismantled, we must, in the words of Lynne Hybels, ‘silence lies with truth… and never hesitate to let passion push us, conviction compel us, and righteous anger energize us.’”
“Since sharing my truth, it has brought me a step closer to inner peace, acceptance, empowerment and relief,” said Nina, a Honey truth-sharer featured on their website, honeyishere.org.
Carianne Hirano, a senior from California studying TESOL, said, “With any trial you go through, talking about it with the right people at the right time can be healing.”
Monson graduated from BYUH in 2013 with a degree in intercultural studies and her co-founder Jarman attended BYUH for a time but is studying at BYU in Provo.
Monson expressed, “Taylor and I have been friends for years and have talked about everything under the sun with one another, except for our personal experiences with assault.”
She continued, “It wasn’t until around April of this year that we actually opened up about what we had been through with our respective assaults.”
Monson explained how from this point on they were driven to act. “We just knew that we had to do something,” she said. “There’s something about hearing the experience, the heartache, the despair, confusion, shame, come out of the mouth of somebody that you love,” Monson said in The SLC Feminist’s article in August of 2015.
Through Jarman’s skills in developing their website, the more than 2,500 followers on social media channels, and the events they are organizing in Salt Lake City, Honey is growing rapidly and the two Taylors have plans to expand outside of Salt Lake City in 2016.
Monson said, “It’s funny. We probably contacted 100 blogs and other organizations asking if they’d be interested in featuring us,” but those organizations didn’t. Monson explained how Honey appeared in the media only through those media outlets that reached out to them independently.
Although they both attended school at BYUH at the same time, Monson and Jarman didn’t meet in person here. They became connected via email and stayed in contact for nearly a year before they both ended up in Utah.
Monson said, “I’m a Seasider. BYUH means the world to me—it helped me to become the person that I am today, and my degrees in intercultural peacebuilding and political science have absolutely been a support in my work with Honey.”
Jarman received her associate degree in psychology at BYUH and said BYUH holds a very special place in her heart that will never be replaced.
Monson said, “As a university, BYUH administrators, faculty and students have a responsibility to create a safe environment for all. The Honor Code is important, but we need to be realistic about the pervasiveness of sexual assault. I know people on campus from my time at BYUH who are working to change that, but the effort needs to be greater than a few individuals. It’s all of our issue.”
Monson said statistically one in four women will be assaulted during college in the United States alone, and she believes it’s a mistake to think that just because BYUH is an LDS school, nothing bad happens. If students have been sexually assaulted, both Jarman and Monson want them to know they aren’t alone and they have people who love and support them.
They expressed that “for some, the best thing to do is to first share what happened with a trusted loved one. For others, it’s to get in contact with a counselor or therapist right away.”
Monson continued, “The Counseling Services on campus are a great resource for survivors of assault, and there are also a number of resources available island-wide, like the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children’s Sex Abuse Treatment Center and their 24-hour hotline that can be reached at 1-808-524-7273.”