Frankly, it sounds to me like she’s trying to find a place to go when she knows she can’t possibly stay any longer. Kind of feeling out her options.
This is a bit of a hijack, but here I can assure you you’re absolutely wrong. Gay and lesbian people in domestic violence situations face a number of issues that may apply to them either uniquely or with more intensity than in heterosexual situations, including: dismissive attitudes on the part of police and other authorities (not understanding DV as partner-based, seeing lesbian DV as a “cat fight” or thinking that gay male DV survivors can “settle it like a man”); heterosexist assumptions or even homophobia on the part of some DV workers; heterosexism or homophobia on the part of some shelter residents; the limited size of the community, allowing gossip to spread and hampering the ability to find safe space inaccessible to the abuser; denial among some members of the community that domestic violence exists in the community (a desire to put a brave face on it for others, or the belief that women cannot be abusers); use of specific threats such as outing as a method of control; lack of resources for male survivors.
These are just some of the reasons that have made the very limited services in Montreal for survivors of DV in same-sex female relationships, at least, very necessary and very under-resourced.
That’s nice for Montreal, but specialized emergency services for same-sex DV victims are rare to non-existent in the US.
But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be useful if they existed. Which was the point of bringing them up in the first place, as a parallel to the BDSM-specific services that KAP seem able to offer. Different circumstances require different types of expertise. I’m not quite sure why you seem so dead-set against this concept - do you not think this woman would do better with guidance that’s more tailored to her specific circumstances? Do you really think the one-size-fits-all approach is appropriate for anything short of an actual life-or-death situation (which it didn’t sound from the OP like this was…)?
Irrelevant since they don’t exist.
There aren’t any emergency services tailored to her specific circumstance, and the emergency professionals who do exist are not going to care about her sex kinks, nor do they need to know about them.
But since most of us are not talking about true emergency services, your point is moot. And even at the emergency level, there are in fact differences as others have pointed out.
Dio, honey, why don’t you put down the hammer already? The professional building crew has already made a good case that this is more of a Phillip’s screwdriver kind of job. 
I’m unsure of what your personal experiences are in the DV area, but in my own experience doing volunteer work as an emergency response coordinator with a family crisis center in a fairly good sized city, I do know that there are differences in resources for different situations.
For instance, fully 70% of the resources available in the area where I volunteered were unavailable to LGBTQ clients. Only about 25% were available to males over the age of 17. Ten percent were not equipped for children. Elder and disabled abuse had their own resources. Two clients that I worked with had to be coordinated with both legal aid and CPS because they not only needed help for themselves and their children, but there were other children in the household that they had no parental rights to, who needed to be removed. And homeless DV clients were a whole 'nother ballgame.
Although I never personally worked with someone in the situation described in the OP, I can understand why she would need somewhere tailored to her needs.
You seem to be conflating emergency services with domestic violence support services, or not, depending on whichever happens to serve your argument at the time.
matt_mcl’s link appears to be a DV support service for women in same-sex relationships, which major cities (at least) in the US also have an abundance of. I have no idea why you’d claim that we don’t have them. We do.
And the KAP list provides referrals for the same sort of DV services for people in kinky relationships.
Whether or not any of these organizations provide 911-level emergency services is not germane to what we’ve been discussing, since, again, if she were in immediate, imminent danger, I’m pretty sure Scupper wouldn’t be posting about it on a message board in lieu of actually calling 911.
Besides being mistaken, as kaio pointed out, this is not relevant to your response to Scupper’s saying that
I showed why you were incorrect to say this was “absolutely not” the case, which you did not respond to.
I was not incorrect. Those groups cannot provide emergency services. All they can do is give you the phone numbers for the ordinary emergency services that everyone else uses.
OK, Diogenes, we get it. You’re right - emergency services are only provided by calling 911. Well done.
For everyone else, who wasn’t talking about calling 911 (since that’s both an obvious move and not one appropriate for the situation) thank you for sharing your experience and insight - I’ve learnt a lot from the discussion, even if others haven’t. I hope the OP has found something useful for their friend.
I’m not just talking about 9/11, but DV services in general. There arent any specialized whip and dildo shelters for piss drinkers or rubber freaks, or whatever. The shelters are the shelters.
I think your contempt for this woman’s lifestyle choices might be hindering your ability to read earlier posts in the thread which have said that, in fact, there are options that are more suited for dealing with people who have experienced abuse in relationships which are outside the norm. Your repeated insistence that this isn’t the case doesn’t change reality.
And frankly, your consistent belittling of BDSM relationships in a thread started to ask for help for someone in a difficult situation strikes me as out of place, at best. Continually insulting the OP’s friend is not helpful.
I have expressed no contempt for the relationship (at least not for the sexual part of it. I do have contempt for batterers). I think the sex kinks are completely irrelevant. I have belittled nothing. That’s flat out not true.
In point of fact, there ARE NO specialized emergency services for kinky sex fans. If you disagree, please she me an example of a BDSM DV shelter.
I can’t show you an example of a BDSM DV shelter. But then, I couldn’t show you an example of any other type of US DV shelters, either - this is why I like the idea of talking to professionals in the field who will be aware of any such support, which is what I understood was being suggested throughout this entire thread.
As for your view of the relationship and kinks in general, if I’ve misread your tone, I apologise. It seemed to me that you were being unnecessarily derogatory towards non-mainstream sexualities - dismissive terms such as “whip and dildo shelters for piss drinkers or rubber freaks”, “leather freaks”, “kinky sex fans”, “S&M club” and the like didn’t convey a positive view of this woman’s relationship and the professionals who are trained (like KAP) to understand the specific nuances in non-mainstream relationships.
There aren’t any DV shelters that specialize in it.
I’m also not denigrating any of it, I’m just trying to illustrate that I think any sex kinks on the part of a DV victim are irrelevant to any immediate emergency. I’m not even saying don’t call KAP, or whoever, I’m just saying she needs to make sure she’s physically safe first.
This is exactly the sort of attitude which could torpedo her efforts at escape, and exactly why she needs specialized services. Imagine if she went to a DV service organization and that’s how they referred to her sexuality? I know I’d be offended, and if I were particularly emotionally vulnerable (like, say, I was scared and trying to escape from my abusive boyfriend), I wouldn’t feel safe or understood if that’s the reaction I got.
Whether you feel that using derogatory terms is denigrating or not, that’s how most other people will hear it.
I searched the KAP database for less than a minute and found this:
The National Leather Association Domestic Violence Project, http://www.nlaidvproject.us/. (Made link non-clicky since technically it’s NSFW as it does deal with kink lifestyles, which corporate America frowns upon. No nudie pics or anything like, though.) And hey, nifty, the first thing you see on the main page is “Victim Info: Safety Planning – STEP ONE (Planning to get out safely).”
Scupper, I hope you can find that link useful.
I haven’t used any dergoatory terms, just named some other kinks. If you think there is something wrong with those other kinks, that’s your hangup, not mine.
Did you actually read it? Did you actually check to see what the contact informnation was? Take a look:
As I said, all they do is give you 911 and the same DV contacts as for anybody else.
I win. Thanks for the link. You just confirmed my argument for me.
What they can do, for the umpteenth time, is provide information as to which resources, such as shelters, are better equipped to deal with people in the given situation – gay or lesbian people in the example I gave, BDSM practitioners in the OP’s example.
Despite what you apparently believe, not all services, not even all emergency services, will deal equally well with people in those situations. This doesn’t posit some shelters that are set up especially for them, but for example resources whose workers are known to have received appropriate training, or where others in the same situation have had more positive experiences – or conversely, which ones to avoid based on bad experiences that others have had.
This is really not that difficult, Dio.
ETA: Of course they’re going to tell you that 911 is the emergency number, don’t be ridiculous, and if there’s only one shelter they’ll tell you that as well. But when multiple resources exist for the same problem – more than one shelter or other services – one or another may well be better or worse equipped to deal with people into BDSM, the same as with lesbian or gay survivors.
There usually isn’t going to be a schmorgesborg of shelters to choose from. As was demonstrated above, they just give you the standard 800 number.