Nicole Brodeur / Times staff columnist
Progress is someone to tell

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I called Stone to clarify: Will you be toasting, or drowning your sorrows?

It's easy to feel despondent about our country's "Cool Hand Luke"-style failure to communicate between the sexes. Women feel like prisoners, men feel unfairly accused, and the truth gets lost under shovelsful of dirt.

The Kobe Bryant case came to a screeching halt when the woman who accused the NBA star dropped the criminal case because of the stress of publicity and the impending trial. She is still pursuing a civil case against Bryant, who said he was sorry for what happened. He understood the sex to be consensual.

So the bodies continue to fall, or retreat, in this ages-old battle. But Mary Ellen Stone is still standing.

For there is much to celebrate, she told me, if you look past the headlines and into the hearts of 25 years of clients.

Society has a better awareness of what constitutes sexual assault and, more important, is more willing to talk about it.

"This is something that has been around and under wraps since the beginning of time," Stone said.

She has had clients in their 60s who have come forward with stories of childhood abuse; there was no one to call when it happened.

But there are countless children today who won't have to wait a half-century to soothe their stunted souls.
 
"Maybe now they'll say, 'It was bad, but people rallied and I'm doing OK.' "

Stone, 51, started as the center's director with three staffers and a $50,000 budget. Now she has 36 staffers and a $2 million budget.

"Do I think we've gotten somewhere? Absolutely," Stone told me. She even takes heart that the Bryant case got as far as it did, despite the venom directed at his accuser.

"We are still challenged with imagining someone famous being a sex offender," Stone said. "And so we say to the victim, 'It's you. It can't be the person we idealized.' "

Her rape counselors assume that every accuser is telling the truth: "It is really not our role to say, 'Did this happen the way he or she says it did?' "

For all the progress, the biggest challenge remains getting victims to come forward. So Stone counts her battles individually, and her victories cumulatively.

"I am not giving up," she said. "There's a lot of work to do, and for the most part, it is hopeful work."

Consider this moment: At a recent community event, the center hung a banner advertising its new "Never Too Late to Call" campaign. A middle-aged woman approached, and said it was indeed too late: She had been raped three weeks before.

Stone's staff got her help.

"If there is any question about it," Stone said. "Well, there's our proof right there."

As tragic as this work is, there's still reason to raise a glass. Thanks to Stone and those like her, there's a place to go and people to help — no matter how long it takes.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. The 24-hour line: 888-99VOICE.