So, in the last week or so, I have been reading many of the Facebook posts about the plight of a young woman in Maryville, Missouri, who claims to have been sexually assaulted and left outside in sub-freezing temperatures, after sneaking out of her home, drinking and exchanging flirtatious phone texts with a boy from school.
What has struck me most about these posts are the comments by people who have either failed to read the entire story and understand what appears to have happened, and by those who are simply so filled with vitriol against women who come forward after being raped or sexually abused that they can't wait to say the most horrible and shocking things.
It makes me very sad. It makes me worry that the world is a terrible place in which to bring up a daughter. It makes me worry about my own unborn girl and the things she might face in her lifetime.
A small handful of people know the truth of what happened to Daisy Coleman on a cold January night in 2012. When I first heard the history of her case on Kansas City's Public Radio station a year or so ago, I was horrified for this girl and her family. There seemed to be more than adequate proof that something happened to her. It didn't make sense that the case against those she accused was dropped. She never even got a day in court.
People who fail to read or thoroughly understand the history of this case are quick to ask why the Coleman family has just come forward nearly two years later. Sadly, that's just the kind of ignorance the snapshot Internet perpetuates. Few people take time to carefully read information on the Internet, so they often overlook key bits of information. This isn't a new story. It's sad that people say things without any knowledge, but that's not a new story either.
The older story that bothers me most though are all of the people who say that she must be lying, that she is probably just angry at the boys involved and trying to get back at them, or that her mother should have been keeping a better eye on her or this wouldn't have happened to her. It's the same old mentality that follows so many sexually related assaults and abuse cases: somehow the victim is to blame for what has happened to her. It's not surprising that many of these naysayers are men, but it's shocking to me how many are actually women.
Whenever you read anything about sexual assault or sexual abuse, one statistic is so commonly thrown around, that I'm not even going to try to credit it with a source: one in three women are sexually assaulted or abused in their lifetime. Sometimes that statistic reads as one in three women report it, other times it reads just as one in three women are victims. Either way, that's one-third.
If one-third of men were sexually assaulted or abused, I think there would be more public outcry. And I doubt that they would so frequently be blamed. After all, they are not the "weaker sex."
I don't really know what happened to Daisy Coleman and her friend the night she ended up on the porch of her house for several hours in below freezing temperatures. Reports say that she and a friend had been secretly drinking in her room without her mother's knowledge and that she had been exchanging texts with the boy she alleges to have assaulted her. She and her friend agreed to sneak out of the house to hang out with him and his friends. One of his friends recorded part of the sexual encounter between Daisy and the boy on his cell phone.
A lot of people commenting on this ongoing story bring up the drinking, the lack of parental supervision and Daisy's appearance in photos. Many people are saying that she was drunk and confused and doesn't remember saying "yes." Many are saying that her mother should have been watching her more closely and that even if Daisy was assaulted, it was her mom's fault for not supervising her better. Others, disproportionately men, bring up the the number of false accusations
made--again, this must mean that Daisy and her friend are lying. They talk about how bitter and angry she looks in photos--obviously this makes her a liar.
Under age drinking is a huge problem, but it is not exclusively the problem of women or girls who allege that they have been assaulted or abused. Under age drinking leads to many potentially dangerous things. But under age drinking is not an open invitation to being taken advantage of. The thing that the folks who feel Daisy was just asking to be taken advantage of because she didn't have the good sense not to drink are overlooking is that not only did this guy have sex with her--consensual or not--she was left outside in the freezing cold afterwards like something he was finished using. If we forget the possibility that Daisy didn't consent to the sexual encounter, can we at least agree to the inhumanity of leaving someone behind like a piece of garbage? If he was such an upstanding and decent young man, what mental break caused him to leave a 14-year-old girl out in the cold like that? If everything was on the up and up, wouldn't he have tried to get her into the house?
Every one of the folks who thinks Daisy's mom should have been watching her more closely has to be able to swear that they never got away with doing anything that their parents don't know about. I defy anyone to either claim that kind of perfection in themselves, or that kind of hawkish protectiveness in their parents. And even if her mom's supervision was lax, how does that equate to an invitation to take advantage of her daughter? That equation doesn't even make common sense. That's like saying "you weren't doing your job, so your daughter deserved to have her life devastated. Those are just the breaks."
As for the number of alleged victims who make false reports, I tried to research the percentage. Reports on the Internet vary from 2-8 percent of these accusations being false. It's a much harder statistic to pin down, but nowhere did I see a number over 8 percent. Lies of any kind are damaging, but when one-third of women are victims of sexual assault or abuse, I think that 33 percent trumps 8 percent as a valid rape or abuse defense for perpetrators.
As for how Daisy looks in photos these days.... People who have been assaulted or abused are bitter and angry. For anyone who has suffered such an act, the pain doesn't go away when the act is over.
I grew up in a violent home. My young single mother was afraid she couldn't take care of me on her own financially, and she married a batterer. I lived in fear of our lives for the entire sixteen years of their marriage. There was an unpredictable force in our home with easy access to guns. But hands around a throat, bulging temporal veins and fists were a pretty good source of influence as well. For about four years of that sixteen-year marriage, the unpredictable force fixated on me and I became a source of his escape and pleasure. This kind of abuse is different than a rape on multiple levels, but the feelings associated with it are the same.
While it was happening, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't try to fight. I didn't try to protest. I didn't care about myself. I was trying to protect two other lives in my house. Guns; hands around throats; bulging temporal veins; fists--these were all enough to prevent me from trying to help myself. My mom worked outside of the home, and was gone during the hours of the day that he was home. She wasn't watching me. She knew something wasn't right, but she didn't know what. Every time she tried to get to the bottom of the situation, there were the guns, the hands, the veins and the fists. The control he exerted over my life made me want to run away and escape. I wasn't even allowed to actively participate in school activities. I took opportunities to sneak away and do things without his knowledge. Inevitably, I got caught at many of these things--none of which happened to be drinking or any such outrageous things. And then, there were all of those deterrents. I didn't think I was asking for more abuse because I wanted to go roller skating with a boy, but according to so many ignorant people who think somehow sneaking around invites harm, I probably earned more abuse. I didn't stand a chance.
When he was finally gone from our lives, the overwhelming sense of relief I felt was akin to euphoria. As soon as I was free, I knew I was free to do the right thing--to try and make sure that he wouldn't be able to perpetuate these acts against my younger sister, or anyone else. We reported the crimes (because they were crimes), and we pursued justice.
As everything began to come to light, I lost a huge chunk of my family who just couldn't believe me, because I was now "damaged." My aunt actually said that she wasn't surprised about what had happened to me, because as a child I had always treated every guy she dated like a jungle gym--as if to say that somehow I put off a vibe that I was "available" for these kinds of acts. In a courtroom, I was forced to recount everything that had happened to me and the time frame. I stumbled over dates when my step-father's attorney was cross-examining me. He seized on this stumble, which rattled me even more than I was already rattled. I was 20 years old, and coming out a psychological internment camp. Things had been happening for so long, I could barely keep track of dates. Because every material possession I had was under his watchful eye, and was subject to search and seizure, it never occurred to me to keep a diary or log of events. Dates didn't matter. I didn't matter. I only set down onto paper the events of the preceding years the day I decided that instead of going to my college freshman English class I was going to drive off a cliff instead.
The relief I felt at being able to finally let go of the pain was soon replaced with the bitterness and anger that I had suffered this abuse for years and was now being subjected to ignorance and hate from people who were supposed to care about what happened to me.
Rape and sexual abuse are acts perpetrated by individuals who need to feel power over their victims. It's not about sexual pleasure, unless they get that from the power they feel. When that control was removed, I colored my short blond hair nearly purple. I wore clothes that were more in line with what most women my age were wearing--I showed a little skin. I lost the forty to fifty pounds I had gained my first year in college when my fear of dying had been at its highest. I probably did look kind of bitter and pissed most of the time--because after being abused for years, the rest of the world seemed to want to join in. It did make me bitter. It did make me angry. I defy the normal person not to feel and look the same way. But then people who have had these acts perpetrated against them often aren't "normal" anymore.
I don't know what really happened to Daisy Coleman and her younger friend. The only people who do know for sure are the people who were there. But I know how such acts shatter you and splinter you into pieces you don't know if you can ever put back together. I know about the frustration of looking for justice and being slapped in the face, either because the events are hard to put together in your broken mind, because what happened to you wasn't quite bad enough, or because the statute of limitations on the crimes had run out. I know the frustration of looking for peace and hoping for understanding from family, friends, and law enforcement, and meeting with cold shoulders and ignorant unkindness.
The thing about the attention this two-year-old case is now receiving that scares me the most is the impact it may have on victims. When victims observe the attacks on the character of these young women and these families, they might think twice before seeking the justice and healing they need for themselves to simply survive. Who wants to be raped and abused, and then be metaphorically be raped and abused again? The pain of the acts are horrible enough. The pain of reliving them when necessary to file reports and testify in court is challenging to be sure. But the pain of being doubted, disrespected, blamed and sometimes publicly reviled is almost as bad or worse than the original crime.
In a few short months, I will be the mother of a little girl. She will probably bump her head on the coffee table while I am distracted fixing dinner. She will probably ask to do things I won't give her permission to do, and will try to get away with them from time to time. She will probably make mistakes like drinking before she's 21. But even when all of those things happen, she will never ask for or deserve to be sexually assaulted or abused by anyone. My heart would break if she somehow became "one in three," but if she ever does, her father and I will cry on every mountain top for the justice and dignity that every human, regardless of gender, deserves.
Nobody asks to be raped or abused. Nobody.
No comments:
Post a Comment