We’ve had quite a few of these scandals recently, haven’t we? Thirty-five women came forth to accuse Bill Cosby of a variety of sexual assaults a few years ago; Donald Trump, in the last few weeks, has had at least ten women step forward with the same accusations. And there have been several beyond that—go back ten years, find that one celebrity; go back another ten, find that celebrity—seemingly one every decade or so.
And, with that, we receive the same responses as the ones I’m reading on my social media and news pages now. We get the “Well, why did they wait so long?” There’s the “Aw, c’mon, that was so long ago” and the “Look at these idiots trying to get attention!” (These are all verbatim quotes from Facebook and Twitter, by the way, so as to credit the sources.) And, through these, we get the biggest one: “They’ve gotta be lying!” Today, that’s come in the form of hashtags—#NextTrumpVictim being one of them, suggesting that the Clinton campaign came up with fake victims—or in rambling Facebook/Instagram posts. People wonder why these women didn’t come forward when the “alleged/supposed/apparent” assault happened, and, from that, they assume that they’re lying.
Well, I want to tell you why those women didn’t come forward that ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago: you.
Now, don’t freak out on me yet. I’m not trying to vilify you. I’m not saying you’re some psychotic fantasizer on the loose, or a criminal that hasn’t been put behind bars yet. What I am saying is this: it’s because of people who accuse of dishonesty that those women didn’t come forward. That is the truth.
For cases qualifying as assault and battery in the USA, 253 out of 1,000 perpetrators are arrested; for rape cases, a mere 63 are (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). A worse number than even that, only six rapists out of every 1,000 will ever see the inside of a jail cell, whilst for battery perpetrators, the number is 33. That is an insane amount of difference. And while that’s occurring on the strictly criminal justice side, an American is sexually assaulted every 109 seconds, 1 out of every 6 women will be attacked in their lifetime, and 1 in 33 men will experience attempted or completed sexual assault by the end of their life (RAINN). Those two sides of the numbers don’t exactly go together, huh?
Because here’s the thing: looking at those statistics, any normal person would be absolutely horrified. Numbers are shocking things, and we should be disturbed by them. I’ve been following this topic for several years now; I’ll never get past being nauseated by the statistics. However, a lot of those people who hate those numbers are the same people who turn around and give ill responses.
“What were you wearing?”
“She shouldn’t have been there then!”
“If they couldn’t play with the big dogs, they shouldn’t have been let in.”
“Well, were you drinking?”
“He would never do that! He’s a good kid!”
Every single one of those things correlates to, “You’ve gotta be lying.”
Rape is something that is used as a dominance tactic, prominent in every bloody war ever. It’s almost always ten times more invasive than other criminal doings (robbery, petty theft, even murder). It rips apart a person physically, mentally, psychologically, and emotionally. It has the capability to—and usually does—lead to depression, anxiety, PTSD, and the like. Sexual assault is a painful thing to go through. The physical pain may fade, but the feeling of having one’s dignity ripped away, or innocence destroyed, or confidence shattered…that’s something that’s never going to leave.
Because of that, victims already don’t want to talk about what they went through. Add into that immediately being attacked by any and/or all of the accusations listed above, and that creates a recipe for disaster. Right now, it takes years upon years to build up the strength and courage to come forward, knowing that the justice system isn’t exactly on your side (for example: Brock Turner and Christopher W. Petersen) and that a lot of people aren’t, either. Our nation is so wrapped up in how horrible rape is that too many deny it. It’s like some weird Freudian method of coping with life. We offer nearly no support to victims of heinous crime. That is unforgivable.
So, of course, these women didn’t come forward thirty years ago. If this kind of reaction is happening now, what do you think would have happened then? If you are responding to this in that way now, would it have changed at all back then?
I am so proud of all of these women—named and unnamed—for telling their story. I am proud of them for finally finding the strength in themselves. And I am so, so proud of them for doing it all in the face of people shouting them down. That takes true courage. It does. Remember that the next time you ask yourself if someone is lying.
Because maybe it’s you—maybe it’s us as a nation—that are in denial instead.
