When she was a teenager (she’s 27 now, and a student nurse), Amara was raped. It affected her in ways she didn’t expect, and couldn’t find help for. “I couldn’t go to the doctor anymore because I didn’t want to be touched,” she says. “I tried to go for a cervical smear and it reminded me so much of the forensic testing I’d had - ‘lie down, do this, do that’ - that I couldn’t go through with it.”


At first, Amara says, “I thought maybe I was really weird and there was something wrong with me”. She googled “rape, body image, can’t go to doctor” and found nothing.
But when she asked the other women in the support groups she attended about it she quickly realised, “Ok, I’m definitely not the only person.” Those women talked to other women and soon Amara was receiving emails from all over the country.
“It felt like I’d opened the floodgates in terms of women talking about how sexual assault had left them feeling,” she says.
“Some women had eating disorders after experiencing sexual violence because they felt like they just wanted to disappear. Some were self-harming. One woman in her sixties said it had affected her entire marriage. She was raped 40 years ago, before she met her husband, and it had ruined their whole sex life. She found it difficult to be touched. It affected the way she felt about herself physically.”
Amara understood the woman’s feelings. She was so desperate to escape her own body – she described her body to me as “the crime scene” – that she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror. “I was connecting my physical self to what had happened,” she says. “And to all the feelings that went with it. I felt numb, like my body didn’t belong to me anymore.”
Sh! in Hoxton Square, London, is the UK's only sex shop specifically for women
Her solution was Café V – a monthly meeting in a Shoreditch sex shop. It offers practical advice on how to enjoy sex again after rape.
“It’s ‘v’ for ‘vagina’,” she says with a laugh. “We wanted it to be fun. Often I’d go to support groups and come out more depressed than I’d gone in. You don’t want a regular downer, you want a space where you can say, ‘this is how I’m feeling, this is the issue I’m having, how do I deal with it?’”
It’s held in Sh!, the UK’s only sex shop specifically for women. “They’ve been incredibly supportive,” says Amara. Around thirty women attend each session. Some of them are so tense during sex they black out or vomit. For others, any physical intimacy triggers flashbacks of the assault.
Amanda O’Donovan, the psychologist, tells me, “People with a history of sexual trauma often dissociate from their bodies completely, so it’s a matter of encouraging them to focus on physical sensations again.” She helps run Cafe V as well as the My Body Back clinic.
At a recent meeting, she suggested taking a moment in the shower each day to notice the feeling of warm water on the skin.
She also gives advice on when and how to tell new partners about the assault, and how to be clear about what they do and don’t feel comfortable with. Café V is now launching in cities around the UK and the My Body Back team is talking to organisations in the US about running workshops there, too.


The clinic has seen a similar response. The flagship operation in St Bart’s is already enormously over-subscribed. “Scaling up is a big priority,” says O’Donovan. They are working with NHS trusts in Nottingham, Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff to open further clinics over the next few months, and have been approached by organisations in New York and Los Angeles about replicating the model in the US.
The demand is huge. “One in five British women has been raped,” says Amara. “The average GP will have hundreds if not thousands of patients dealing with this on their books, even if they don’t realise it.”
I visit the My Body Back clinic on its second day of operation. It looks like your average NHS clinic: strip lighting, speckled grey floor, lilac-upholstered waiting room chairs. Except for the coffee table, which is laden with gourmet teas, cakes and pretty china cups.
“We get through a lot of tea here,” laughs Amara. The spread serves a serious purpose. Before they arrive, the patients tell Amara “what they’d like to drink, what newspapers they’d like to read - anything that will make them feel more comfortable. Today, someone asked for crosswords. Another woman wanted a fan and a sick bag. It’s about giving them choice.”
They also discuss potential triggers. For example, one patient wanted to make sure nobody told her to relax while she had her smear test – because it was the same word her rapist had used throughout the attack.
Messages from the Notes of Love project, in which strangers offer support to victims of sexual violence
As well as Café V and the My Body Back clinic, Amara runs a number of other workshops including Notes of Love, in which strangers write messages of support to victims of sexual assault, which Amara distributes to Rape Crisis centres.
The messages help with something Amara herself struggled with. “You see these polls saying people think it’s the woman’s own fault if she gets raped,” she says. “I worried about starting My Body Back because I didn’t want to get judged.”
In the end, she decided providing these services was more important. “And you know what? Nobody’s been anything but positive about it.”
We run through My Body Back’s upcoming events together. “Gosh, we’re doing a lot aren’t we?” she says, a little surprised at herself – and at the support she has received.
“It just goes to show,” she reflects. “Once people want to get things done, they do.”

The traditional wedding ceremony for a bride involves the biological father walking his daughter down the aisle to pass her off to the soon-to-be hubby. Obviously that isn't always possible depending on the circumstances. But what happens when the daughter technically has a biological father and a stepfather?
Most of the time the dad who brought her into the world assumes the responsibility. Then again, there's Todd Bachman who went out of his way to stop the wedding procession and bring his daughter's stepdad to the altar with him, causing almost every person in the crowd to break down into a puddle of mushy tears.

A husband took this photo of his wife after he came home from some time away. Aww she looks so cute sitting on her bed, posing for this picture. After he looked closely at the picture he decided to divorce her.
When the husband took a closer look, do you see what he found?
In the corner of the bed, under the mattress .... a guy that she was cheating with was hiding there the entire time.

This is British woman Sarah Tetley, 26, and she's been with husband Charlie Tetley, 34, since she was 18. There were a few hints that something was a bit off about him. He admitted to sleeping with prostitutes at his bachelor party. When Sarah become pregnant, he told her she would have to have an abortion if it was a boy. After they had their daughter, Charlie wouldn't even touch the baby for 3 months and threatened to leave Sarah if she didn't lose weight. He would shut himself up in his room and was very protective about his computer.

But even so, Sarah was not prepared when the unthinkable happened one night . . .

One morning Sarah was woken up by her husband doing something that wasn't right, as she told 'This Morning':

"I woke up in the morning in that drowsy waking up stage and realised he was molesting me in my sleep. At the time I thought I’d just pretend I was asleep. … He stopped pretty quickly "

She ran downstairs and decided to alert the authorities. The police ended up taking a look at Charlie's computer and what they found was shocking . . .
The police found home videos on Charlie's computer that documented hundreds of instances of his raping and/or molesting his wife Sarah in her sleep. What's more disturbing is that she remains lifeless in the videos; it is suspected that Charlie had been drugging his wife to keep her docile during these attacks. In addition, there was also footage of him having his way with household objects. Sarah never had a clue.

A man who punched his girlfriend in the face and put her in hospital during an “extended” campaign of domestic abuse has been jailed for three years.
Curtis McAtamney, 24, was jailed on Tuesday after pleading guilty to wounding with intent at Croydon Crown Court over an attack on his partner in May, after which she finally reported him to police.
Police said the attack came after an “extended period” of domestic violence, during which she was forced to seek hospital treatment for her injuries.
Acting Detective Sergeant Tom Jones, who led the investigation, said: "This is an excellent result and sends a strong message that we will thoroughly and robustly investigate all allegations of domestic abuse and will push for the strongest possible sentencing."
He added: "If you are a victim of domestic abuse or you have information concerning domestic abuse, please contact police on 101 and know that you will be taken seriously and all possible steps will be taken to support you and keep you safe."
McAtamney, of Whitworth Road, South Norwood, also admitted supplying cannabis.

Police are hunting a disgraced lecturer who skipped bail shortly before being convicted of downloading indecent images of children.
Julian Myerscough, 53, left Ipswich Crown Court while the jury was deliberating its verdict and boarded a train to London yesterday afternoon. Police met the train at Liverpool Street, but he did not appear to be on board.
They are now appealing for anyone who saw someone matching Myerscough’s description near any of the other stops of the train – Stratford, Chelmsford, Colchester and Manningtree.
The former criminal law lecturer at the University of East Anglia in Norwich was found guilty of downloading child pornography and breaching a sex offences order shortly after he vanished.
He is believed to have got on the 1.43 train, which was due to arrive at Liverpool Street at 2.55 and Stratford 10 minutes earlier.
A Suffolk Police spokesman said: “British Transport Police met the train at Liverpool Street and found no trace of him.
“Police would like to hear from anyone who may have seen Myerscough or anyone matching his description, in particular in the area of any of the stops on the London-bound train, or at any regional sea or air ports.”
Myerscough is white and 6ft 2ins tall. He is slim and has greying hair. He was wearing a suit at the time.
Anyone with information is asked to call 101 and ask for Suffolk Police.