Outpouring of Sexual Assault Stories Matched Only by Outpouring of Excuses
Content warning for discussion of sexual assault and harassment.
“I just start kissing [beautiful women]. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” -Donald Trump (Emphasis added)
After the leaked video of Trump boasting about how he would assault women, writer Kelly Oxford talked about being sexually assaulted, and invited other women to share their stories and experiences on Twitter.
women have tweeted me sexual assault stories for 14 hours straight. Minimum 50 per minute. harrowing. do not ignore. #notokay
— kelly oxford (@kellyoxford) October 8, 2016
I know there are people who will simply refuse to accept the prevalence of sexual violence, no matter how many survivors speak out, no matter how much evidence is presented. For the rest of us, the kind of outpouring that followed Oxford’s Tweets leads to a simple question. How can rape and assault and harassment continue to be so common?
Let’s look at the initial responses to Trump’s remarks:
- First came the defense that talking about grabbing/assaulting women the way Trump had is just locker room talk, just guys being guys.
- This was met with disgust and disbelief, along with claims from many that they’d never heard talk like this in any locker rooms, or from any guys they knew.
Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their consent. He boasted about how he could do anything to them, because he was a star. This is not just guys being guys. It’s not harmless banter. It’s not normal.
People can be crude and vulgar, sure. We’ve all said things we’re glad nobody was around to record. But no, we haven’t all boasted about sexually assaulting women. Don’t try to normalize that shit. Don’t sweep it under the rug of “boys will be boys.”
And then you have the guys who say they’ve never heard such things. Really? Never? As common as sexual assault is in this country, you’ve never heard anyone boasting about a problematic encounter? Never heard anyone glorifying assault, talking about what they could do, what they could get away with? Never heard the jokes about getting women drunk in order to get them into bed rape them?
Maybe not. But I have to wonder, how many guys have never heard such things because we haven’t wanted to? Because we don’t want to look. We’re significantly less likely to be victims of sexual assault and harassment (though it happens to men far more than we like to admit), so we feel like we don’t have to think about it. We don’t have to pay attention. It’s easy to ignore things we don’t think affect us directly. (Which is one of the reasons so many of the men denouncing Trump’s remarks preface it with “As the father of daughters” and so on — because we assume none of this affects us personally.)
Those two responses — normalizing and turning a blind eye — are a huge part of why rape and harassment are so common. We either assume it’s normal or we refuse to believe it.
“The New York Times goes back over 30 years to find somebody who had a bad airplane flight,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, referring to a woman who alleges that Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt on a flight around 1980 when she was 38. (Source)
This would be the minimizing and normalizing approach. Gingrich doesn’t say here that the assault did or didn’t happen; instead, he describes the act of a man grabbing a woman’s breasts and trying to put his hand up her skirt as nothing more than “a bad airplane flight.”
“Trump talks like a guy. And ladies out there, this is what guys talk about when you’re not around.” -Scott Baio (Source)
No, this is what harassers and rapists talk about when you’re not around. And there are admittedly a lot of harassers and rapists out there. But if this shit is normal guy-talk for you and your friends, you need to step back and take a good look at who you and your friends are.
“I don’t characterize that as sexual assault. I think that’s a stretch.” -Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (Source)
Different states have different laws and categories for types of sexual assault. In Michigan, what Trump described would likely be classified as Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 4th Degree. But this wasn’t about giving a legal opinion. This was a senator claiming that Trump assaulting a woman in a sexual manner shouldn’t be characterized as sexual assault. And that twists logic and reason well beyond the breaking point.
“Retired neurosurgeon and Trump backer Ben Carson said this week that when he was growing up, men were constantly boasting about their sexual exploits.” (Source)
Sexual exploits? Yeah, that’s not unusual. An inability to distinguish between boasting about consensual sexual activity and boasting about sexual assault? That’s messed up. That’s a serious problem.
I know most of these quotes come from a place of political desperation to defend Trump’s remarks…but isn’t that what we see again and again? We don’t want to believe a guy we like could do something so predatory, so we make excuses. We minimize and normalize and ignore it. We call women liars and say they’re overreacting.
And predators get the message. They hear us loud and clear when we say it’s normal to grab and grope women without consent. They smile and nod when we talk about how forcing yourself on a woman isn’t really sexual assault. They silently thank us when we suggest we’re not going to look, not going to pay attention to their crimes. They thank us again when we attack the women who dare to speak out, knowing they’ll be harassed and threatened and doxxed as a result.
This is some of what we talk about when we talk about rape culture. It’s not that everyone in the culture is pro-rape. It’s that so many are so willing to ignore and normalize it. It’s all we as a culture do to allow and facilitate sexual assault, and to protect sexual predators.
You say you don’t know what rape culture is? Wake up and look around. We’re drowning in it.
TheresaW
October 13, 2016 @ 10:04 pm
Well said, Jim.
Laura Resnick
October 13, 2016 @ 10:10 pm
Very well said. Thank you.
(Sexually assaulted twice. Was lucky enough to get away both times without being raped.)
Stephanie Whelan
October 13, 2016 @ 10:37 pm
At one place of employment once, we had an incident (involving a sexual predator) which caused a work-related therapist to come in and discuss with us all the reactions we might have had and to talk through them. My workplace was mainly women. They got us in a circle in chairs and I figured, what the hell, I’ll say something.
I was sexually molested by my orthodontist when I was 9. I figured I’d say it, throw out something about how mad the incident at work made me and be done. But . . . the other people in this workplace–ALL of the women then each recounted their own assault or rape. ALL of them. Not one or two. All. That’s rape culture.
And I’m glad to hear from voices of reason like you because there are so many others out there right now telling me I’m overreacting, and I’ve had to end my participation in a few conversations because I’m not calm, and I won’t be. And it’s very hard to hear even some very well-meaning men and women I know, some who don’t like Trump any which way, still not get it.
Nancy Tice
October 13, 2016 @ 10:43 pm
Thanks for words well said.
Today I listened on-line while Michelle Obama spoke in New Hampshire while my husband was out in the yard, praying the tomatoes would ripen before the frost gets them this year. We then went about our day, errands, a doctor appointment, late lunch. Then, while driving home, I started to read parts of the speech to him.
Suddenly tears were streaming down my face, and when I finished, I was sobbing, without really understanding why. Reality can really stink, and now I know what being “triggered” is. And I really hate it, because it makes you feel powerless, and miserable, and weak.
He is a good man, a wonderful man, and he was upset, and he wanted to know when did it happen, that I was abused by someone. And I finally gulped back my tears, and tried to explain that it happens all the time, to all women, from the time they realize they have breasts, until the time they get old and don’t matter any more.
That’s the worst part of all of this. It is death by a thousand tiny cuts. It is the lobster in the cold water, slowly heating up to kill them. It is constant, and yet never quite bad enough that you can risk that job, or that client relationship, or that salary review, on causing a commotion, or making “a big deal” or being “hard to get along with” or not being “one of the team”.
“Qui tacet consentit” means roughly, “Silence gives consent”. Until all of us are no longer silent none of us will be free.
stardreamer
October 14, 2016 @ 12:38 am
As common as sexual assault is in this country, you’ve never heard anyone boasting about a problematic encounter?
I submit that this is very likely connected to the way many men don’t recognize a lot of problematic encounters as rape/sexual assault. They’ve never heard anyone be as coarse and blunt about it as Trump was; that’s the equivalent of the rapist in a parking lot or a dark alley with a knife. Lesser stuff just sort of… slides past without catching their attention, because it’s so normalized. Talking about women as a collection of parts, rating them on a scale of 1-10, catcalling and wolf-whistling — those are the equivalent of the guy who makes sure his date’s drink keeps getting refilled. Nothing to see here, move along.
Martin
October 14, 2016 @ 12:43 am
When the discussion about the lewd remarks of Trump came up and people defended it with “men talk like that”, i belonged to the group claiming that men don’t talk like that.
Why? Because of the consequences….
People who talk like this are viewed by HR managers like “drivers with an alcohol problem”, “accountants with a gambling addiction” or “people with a known history of physical violence”. They see them as people who, at their current position, pose a risk to the company. (Remark: A drug addiction is not comparable to sexual abuse. This is only intended as example for the risk involved).
If they see any chance to get rid of those for any reason, they take it.
Two examples where I was personally present:
Sales presentation of company A with company B. Only men are present. In a break, a sales guy from A makes a really dirty joke denigrating women. B reacts totally frosty. After the break the leading manager of B says “I think we end this here, our company cultures do not match” gets up and leaves the room. All people from B follow.
Freelancer D of company C is on a company event. He talks to a young female employee of a partner company and compliments her long legs with the remark, that they would make her “good in bed”. D is immediately escorted from the event, all contracts with him are terminated for a cause and he becomes blacklisted. CEO of C calls the affected woman to apologize.
If men talk like that (or act like that) and are pulled out into the light, they have to fear consequences.
To talk freely and openly like that, you have to be in an unassailable position (or believe to be so). You have to have power / stardom to protect you, preferably for your whole life. You have to be like Trump who for all of his life was never really held accountable for what he did. Such positions are rare. Therefore “men” who talk like that are rare as well.
P.S. (1) This post shall not imply that there are no men like Trump who abuse/denigrate/objectify women. In fact I know that there are far more than there should be. Harassment happens often. My statement shall only imply that they most men like that have to do it in the shadows. That they cannot boast openly about it to random people. Even in average locker talk…
P.S. (2) This is something important that has changed. It was not like that 30 years ago.
Eleanor C Ray
October 14, 2016 @ 1:06 am
Thank you, Jim.
It is a hard subject to discuss, because people want to tie it up with politics, and say it only bothers me because I am “looking for reasons to trash Trump”.
I am trying to avoid politics like the plague, but I am assumed to be trying to trash someone who said the things he said, because he is in *politics*? Someone who said such things should not be electable, but the talk, and the assaulting of women, happens on both sides of the aisle, and I hate it just as much when a Democrat gets away with that shit, believe me, I do.
The problem I have is that it is necessary to call out people on this issue so often that people assume I am being too touchy. I have a sexual abuse history, but that does not disqualify me from having an opinion on this subject, either. It can give me a certain clarity of vision, as long as I try to recognize if I am being too triggered by a particular case for me to be fair. Do I see it more in people I disagree with? I may, because I am human and that is a human thing to do. But do I only see it when Mr Trump does it and not when Mr Clinton did it? I do not. Do I only see it in politics, but not in other fields? Do I see it among men excusing other men but not women excusing men? No, damn it for being true, I see it everywhere.
As I write, I realize I sexually assaulted a man when I was much younger. I walked up to him from behind and grabbed his buttocks. I meant it as a joke, we always joked verbally about sexual matters, but that doesn’t matter. I assaulted someone sexually. This business with Mr Trump is opening a lot of people’s eyes to certain behaviors, and I am apparently one of those people.
Guess what? I have someone to go look up and humbly and sincerely apologize to.
Again, Jim, thank you. I don’t like that I did that, but I think it is really important to realize I did, and to do what I can to make amends now. And Steve, wherever you are, forgive me. It was an inexcusable thing to do, and I am truly ashamed and sorry.
Jaime Lee Moyer (@jaimeleemoyer)
October 14, 2016 @ 2:46 am
It was after 10 pm when I got home from work. I found the link to Michelle Obama’s speech and watched it online. I’m a middle aged divorced woman. It didn’t take long before I started to cry.
My first job was working in a local department store. I was 15, the youngest person working in the store. The assistant manager liked to back me into corners, or up against a wall so that I couldn’t easily walk away. I don’t remember him ever actually touching me, but I remember how helpless I felt. That creeping sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was exactly what Michelle described.
Double dates to the movies involving a friend from school, her boyfriend and the boyfriend’s brother were supposed to be safe. The boyfriend laughed when I slugged his brother for pawing at me. I think I was 17.
In the middle of our divorce, before I moved out, my ex proposed a “friends with benefits” arrangement to me. He couldn’t understand why I refused or found the idea repulsive. He tried to force the issue not long afterward. I’d had oral surgery and was passed out cold from Vicodin. I woke up and he claimed I’d been coming on to him–while out cold from painkillers.
I work in retail management. I am constantly getting between men and the young women working with me. I have chased off more creepers than I can count.
That doesn’t stop the ones who like “older women” from feeling free to take my hand, or slip an arm around my shoulders, or get so close I have to step back, or put a counter between us. They call me darling and sweetheart. I’m not a person, I’m part of the merchandise. I’ve gone way past anger into rage over this behavior. The more personal they get, with me or the young women working with me, the colder and more distant I become. I need this job, so I keep it this side of professional.
My boss is male. He flat out doesn’t see it.
Michelle Obama gets it. You get it. I don’t know any women who don’t have stories of their own to tell. We all do.
It’s death by a thousand cuts, and the constant chipping away of your sense of safety, your right to autonomy. Your right to be a person.
And I cried over that speech not so much because it triggered me, but because this strong, articulate woman was publicly saying all the things I’d felt since my teens, and she meant every word.
AMM
October 14, 2016 @ 10:03 am
The situation may be as you describe at your workplace. It is definitely not true everywhere, and to judge by what I hear, in most workplaces harassment gets swept under the rug or laughed off, and women learn that to complain about it will only make their situation worse.
Also keep in mind that you will hear about the incidents where someone does something about assault and harassment. Unless you are one of “the boys,” you will not hear about the cases where the woman’s complaint gets blown off or where she never says anything in the first place because of her repeated experiences of being invalidated and/or punished for complaining.
Women know about these cases because they’re the victims or because the victims trust them because they’re women. For the most part, women don’t tell men about them because they know men won’t believe them.
AMM
October 14, 2016 @ 10:05 am
(My previous post was intended as a reply to Martin, who BTW I assumed was male.)
Fraser
October 14, 2016 @ 10:19 am
“And then you have the guys who say they’ve never heard such things. Really? Never? As common as sexual assault is in this country, you’ve never heard anyone boasting about a problematic encounter? ”
I don’t find that improbable. I’ve never heard it because most of my friends are women I’ve heard a couple of stories from them about being on the receiving end, but I don’t spend much time in all-male groups. I’m sure I’m not unique. Plus I really hate standing around in locker rooms, let along making small talk.
That’s a minor quibble about an excellent post, sorry.
Martin
October 14, 2016 @ 10:46 am
a) Assumption correct
b) Generally: I think the situation has changed the last 20-30 years. Most managers below the age of 50 were socialised in a different context and therefore act different
c) There older managers and those tend to concentrate in the higher levels (which set the tone). If the top dog is such a fossil, the problem of course persists
d) There are younger males that consciously ignore those changes. If serving below managers as described in c), they are a pest. But the share of managers who are part of this group is IMHO small
e) When I was younger, I did see wrongs but didn’t know how to act or did not have the self-assurance to act. This comes over time, so the situation here will improve. The time is working against the managers from group c) and d)
None of the arguments makes the points you mention invalid. My view is limited to what I can see. I am aware that the larger part of the iceberg is below the water and my impression of a positive change may be wrong.
Ann Onymous
October 14, 2016 @ 12:19 pm
My first sexual assault (gods, why does that have to be a thing so many women can open a sentence with?) was when I was 10 and “babysitting” my 8-year-old brother. He pulled my pants down so he could see my vulva, then insisted on showing me his penis.
I was fastening my pants when our parents got home. I was the one who got in trouble. For not saying no, even though I’d grown up in an environment where I’d learned that my feelings, my wants, didn’t matter. My brother probably doesn’t even remember this. After all, they didn’t say anything to him about what he’d done.
On Rape Jokes and Normalizing Assault
October 14, 2016 @ 12:29 pm
[…] A few people have commented on this part of yesterday’s blog post about sexual assault and excuses: […]
Lucy Busker
October 14, 2016 @ 12:32 pm
Thank you for posting this. The things going around in my head are not pleasant right now. I caught myself saying, “Of course I’ve been groped…” like it was just a given. I mean, I’ve been a D-cup or larger since I was 14. Of course hands have squeezed, bushed, “oops, sorry” my breasts. And then I’m angry with myself, and with the world that taught me to believe it was no big deal. I think of the number of times that unwanted make attention has been foisted away with, “I’m married,” because of course, my feelings are less important than those of the man who “owns” me. I think of the number of times I got hit on on the daily bus from my apartment to school in just one year (mostly by men old enough to be my father), and how saying I had a girlfriend only seemed to make things worse. And then I think of my 9-year-old daughter, and how hard I’m trying to impress upon her that she can TELL ME anything, specifically about unwanted touches and attention, and I want to cry all over again.
Athena
October 14, 2016 @ 2:00 pm
Nancy, I have had the same experience. This week, I am furious at the people who have co-opted the word “trigger” as something to mock and make fun of, because even people I know and care about will immediately go into “mock” mode if I mention it. And I got to thinking about it, and realized that these things aren’t so much triggers as they are Land Mines. Triggers are easily visible–you know exactly where they are on a weapon, and someone must do a specific action to pull them. Land mines lurk under innocent-looking, seemingly solid ground, and they can go off at the slightest provocation, without warning. And the fact that my facebook feed is *blowing up* with women who are experiencing that deep and confusing pain that comes with stepping on that land mine, over a *presidential candidate.* Not the guy running for Biggest Blowhard in the Bar. The guy running for the highest office in the land.
Sally
October 14, 2016 @ 3:39 pm
Nancy, this is a terrible and a wonderful story. Your second-to-last paragraph sums it up perfectly. Your husband’s a keeper.
I hope your tomatoes make it — if not, to the internets for green tomato recipes!
Nancy Tice
October 14, 2016 @ 6:33 pm
Sally,
Thanks, fingers crossed for tonight in Maine!
Nancy Tice
October 14, 2016 @ 6:37 pm
Athena,
So true, a land mine rather than a trigger! And my Facebook is going nuts as well.
I am a board member of Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine, and still was shaken by the depth of my involuntary reaction.
thanks
joe
October 14, 2016 @ 6:51 pm
our best bet would be for trump to drop out and let his VP take over. It is pretty pathetic when the election comes down to these two clowns. One who talks like him and may have committed sexual assault (I say may have simply because of the innocent until proven guilty, no other reason).
Or you have the other side the one who is riding this out and whose husband has been accused of similar (still innocent until proven guilty) and while shunning this takes over $10million from one of the most rape filled counties (Saudi Arabia) in the world that as others have said “treats women like cattle”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Saudi_Arabia
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign-charity.html?_r=0
I love my country, but i for the life of me, cannot imagine how either of the people are praised or endorsed for this position. How can either care about sexual assault when both are somehow tied to it. Very sad state of affairs, i will be choosing another candidate.
Fraser
October 14, 2016 @ 8:00 pm
A guy with Pence’s views on rape and abortion should be kept as far away from elected office as possible.
Senator Clinton isn’t tied to sexual assault–she isn’t Bill. She isn’t liable for what he may or may not have done. And while Saudi Arabia is indeed an unpleasant nation in a lot of ways, it’s not like anyone in our government is squeaky clean with regard to them. They have oil, they’re an ally, and as usual with our unpleasant allies we clasp them to our breast and proclaim them champions of all that is good.
If it’s a choice between Clinton and Bury Your Fetuses Forcible Rape Pence, I know who I’m voting for.
J
October 14, 2016 @ 9:32 pm
@Nancy Tice
I agree and would just add that it also happens before we get breasts and after we are old. At no age are we immune.
Lucy Busker
October 14, 2016 @ 9:54 pm
There is no way Trump can withdraw without conceding the election to Clinton. People have already voted with him on the ticket (even if they didn’t vote for him). It would be a logistical and legal nightmare.
As for Pence, a man who tried to divert funding from HIV/AIDS programs to LGBT “conversion therapy) – you know, the kind that drives gay kids to suicide – or wants to force women to hold funerals for their miscarriages, I don’t think he’s exactly what we need, even if it could be legally done. The fact that *Indiana,* one of the reddest of states, wanted to get rid of him should be a clue.
Carol
October 15, 2016 @ 8:23 pm
WRT Jim’s #2 point. DH and I were listening to the fivethirtyeight.com emergency podcast on the topic and someone there made the same point. We thought: why sling mud at the guys who are trying to climb out of the muck? Isn’t that where you want them to be? Even if it’s not factual, it’s aspirational in the direction you want society to progress, no? Assuming that it is not all willful ignorance designed to obfuscate a particular set of acts should idealism not be supported?