For the Record: Failed Systems of Secrecy and Complicity
The session started at 10:02 a.m. You were shaking and fidgeting in your chair when the video started. You had been anxiously watching the clock all morning since 7:00 a.m. As the familiar chime started signaling therapy was in session, you painted a bright smile and greeted your therapist. The two of you exchanged pleasantries as you always had. It always felt and was genuine. You had a very specific agenda today, and you waited for your moment to deliver the words that were weighing on you for days.
I can’t wait for therapy, you had told your best friend only a few hours earlier. You practiced on her, delivering the words that were eating away at you. Yeah, you need that. Your best friend had agreed. It’s not that your best friend didn’t support you. Of course she did. But there are some things that are above her pay grade. Even so, she creates as much space for you as humanly possible, and her advice and wisdom are never far off from that which you gain in therapy.
A lot is going on this week, you start, still keeping the mood light. The mood is bright; she’s excited for you to start a new job and for your upcoming travel. I’m not sure where to begin. You shift in your seat. You notice a nail on your desk, left over from the recent artwork revamp you did in your office and guest room. You find yourself reaching for the nail and fiddling with it between your fingers. You move in succession, from topic to topic in terms of severity. You save the heaviest for last.
There’s a slight pause. Everything in the news is really difficult this week. Your therapist’s face drops, and she nods in silent agreement. You’re grateful that you don’t need to explain much for her to know what you mean. Nonetheless, you continue. All of this news about rape clubs, or whatever the hell they are calling it…I’m having a really hard time.
She’s quiet, attentive to your every word, holding space as you explain your current emotional state.
I’m angry. And it’s not just the men that do these things, assault and take advantage of women. It’s the men who stay silent, who do nothing, who contribute to locker-room talk and perpetuate this violence. It’s people like him, and his friends, there are those people that do these things. He would do these things.
You hold the nail between your two index fingers, pressing it gently, feeling its sharp end hit your skin. You set the nail back on the desk and return your gaze to the screen. The shaking continues, more intensely now.
He did do those things. Your voice is cracking now. You feel the anxiety and fear rise in your body, and you speak the words. He recorded me without my knowledge, without my consent. He told me after the fact, and he said that he deleted it. But I don’t believe him when he says he deleted it. He said he had also told his friends that he had recorded me without my knowledge.
You pause and meet your therapist’s gaze. Her eyes are wide. Your mouth is dry, and your body is convulsing in fear, anger, and sadness. Ok, she says in a somber voice. Let’s just hold space for that. I feel it, too. She says, gesturing down her arm at the goosebumps rising.
Yeah, you respond quietly, looking down, then out the window. I haven’t said that before.
How does it feel to say it now? To me. What’s coming up for you? We’re talking about big things: violation, violation without your consent or control, control over you. Where are you now? You weren’t just emotionally unsafe, but you were also physically unsafe.
Where am I now? You wonder and reflect, taking the pause your therapist offers you.
Anger flushes your cheeks, and tears fill your eyes. The feeling of violation and betrayal makes you dizzy. You are overcome with emotion, and your voice is cracking, breaking uncontrollably as you speak.
Despite describing the various emotions that are coming up for you, and have been coming up for you, around this event, you feel as if all the words fall short. No single word or adjective seems to truly capture the deep pain you feel inside. The word “betrayal” only covers half of it. Conceptually, we might know what it means: a violation of trust, confidence, or a moral standard, often involving deception by someone close to you. That’s just a definition. It’s a completely different thing to feel those words manifest in your bones, gnawing at your heart and mind day in and day out. Then there’s “violation,” breaking or disregarding someone’s rights. The words are there and are more resonant of what happened to you. Breaking. Disregard, as if you are nothing, as if you don’t matter. That’s what this society teaches us: that women don’t matter, we are property to do with and dispose of as men choose. Your story isn’t unique. You’re just a fucking statistic now.
Days earlier, you heard the news. 62 million views. Rape club. Wives drugged. Porn sight. Teaching men how to ensure their women were asleep before they committed their crime. You scrolled relentlessly over story after story, your heart sinking and your stomach coiling in knots. You couldn’t sleep that night, your chest filled with pounding anxiety. You feel on the verge of tears at any given moment. From the audacity men have to violate women, to the complacency we teach other men who stay silent, it all burns your insides and creates an ache that sears your entire body. We know the phrases like “Not all men.” To you, that’s meaningless. To you, even the men who aren’t committing the act are no less guilty. Are they standing up, saying what’s wrong with this? Do they call out their bros for inappropriate locker room talk? You grew up in a world filled with derogatory commentary about women and girls, their bodies and their persons. You know what those conversations looked like, and what they still look like. And it’s still ever-present now, with your partner violating your privacy and your trust by recording you in intimate moments you thought were between you and him, and him gloating about it to his male friends. Did any of them speak up, call him out for his criminal and immoral behavior?
That’s where this finds you now. You aren’t just angry, hurt, and disgusted by his acts. You’re also betrayed by the system that built it. Well, it sounds like my brother. There are people who know him, know his tendencies, and know his ways. And yet, they do nothing, they say nothing. Their silence and complicity make them guilty too. Isn’t it questionable, thought-provoking, that this one guy, someone’s friend, co-worker, and brother, has been accused of abuse and of sexually violating women by more than one person now? The first time, she was a liar. The second time, the third, the fourth, that should make you stop to wonder. But you’re doubtful that it does. You know how bro code works. They just carry on with their fantasy football leagues and let the disrespect continue. And that is the sickening part of all of this. The abuse ensued, and his community stood by, some even knowing in specific detail what took place, recording sex without her knowing, and those who knew did nothing.
These men, his friends, family members, and co-workers, all have sons and daughters. Would they change their behavior if it involved one of them? Aren’t they teaching their sons that this behavior is acceptable? That’s how we got here to begin with, because the men who commit these acts somehow learned it was ok to violate women, and then we as a society learned it was ok not to believe them, the women that is. When did saying what happened, saying the words I was violated, raped, or taken advantage of, have no weight? You know that’s your reality, too. That speaking your truth isn’t enough. It will hardly move the needle on this larger issue. Nevertheless, you won’t stay quiet. And you sure as hell won’t contribute to the narrative that teaches his sons that violating and abusing women is acceptable behavior. He may be willing to teach them that, but you will not.
Where do I go from here? How do I heal from this? You plead to your therapist in the midst of the session. Your voice is heavy with emotion. Your eyes are filled with tears. You put your head down momentarily and stroke your forehead. Until this week, you managed to bury this memory. The recent news triggered a piece of your story you want to forget. It wasn’t just verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse. It was sexual abuse, too. I’m sick to my stomach. You add.
Until now, you felt like healing was somewhat manageable, something you could heal over with enough time. Another wound is excavated, another violation to observe.
You’re doing it now, your therapist answers. By naming it.
You sigh and ponder her words. Naming it. And you think, But I don’t want to name this. I don’t want this in my story. You remember what it felt like to name the abuse in the first place, the way your stomach dropped and nausea rose in your throat. And yet it brought you relief that this dynamic had a name, that you weren’t going crazy.
Those sensations are present again: the nausea, the pit in your stomach, the anxiety. But the relief is absent. There is no relief in knowing you were used in the most vile way possible by someone you loved and trusted. Right now, there is only pain and betrayal.
He did that. He committed one of the most sinful and immoral acts imaginable. A regular guy, someone you might not expect it from, someone who is a father, a brother, an uncle, and a friend; someone who has a sister, a mom, nieces, and sons. If he sounds like someone you know, he probably is.
