There is so much to write, think, and feel about regarding recent revelations of the grooming and sexual abuse of girls at my alma mater, my tiny little K-12 school, I’m almost overwhelmed. A community conversation has been started that is long overdue, and much needed; I feel relief and unsettled in almost equal measure. There are actual consequences in the works for actions taken by male predators for the first time in over fifty years, and the joy I feel in that single aspect of these series of events is incredible, and deeply emotional. There is also the increasingly long list of the most recent victims of the outed and ‘on administrative leave’ English teacher by way of his former student’s HuffPost Personal essay, again linked below this post, because it can and should be read and re-read, it’s that powerful and good. I could also spend an hour or more musing upon how wonderful it is that the written word of a student who was groomed and abused has and is being used to take down her writing teacher- abuser? Now that – that is pretty damned karmic and wonderful.
The girls, the women – are suffering, because anytime you bring up the abuse, or another victim comes forward, it awakens the event of abuse in practically any and every other victim. And, they are speaking out and reaching out. I know this because a few, not all, are reaching out to me, and I am listening to them, reaching out in turn. This is a way to heal, and to get justice. Justice.
But I won’t talk about those aspects of this nightmare-cum-day-mare here, today. Instead I want to address the blame game, which is on-going, as old as time itself, and is making me fucking nuts when I check in occasionally on comments on the original HuffPost piece, as well as online in other spaces, and in conversations I have had in the community at large. The perpetrators are to blame. Period. Full stop. The perpetrators are to blame. Period. Full stop. The perpetrators are to blame. Period. Full stop. Anyone who looked the other way knowing what was going on is complicit but not, ultimately, responsible for the actions of these men. Tragically for us all, most individuals will look the other way when courage is required; these look-away-ers are moral cowards, and I despise them, but they are still not to blame. Complicit, yes; responsible, no.
The victims are not, ever, to blame (why did you get in the car, asked one male commenter, who was quickly schooled, yay). The parents of the victims are also not to blame. Repeat: the parents of the victims are also not to blame. Sexual predators are usually highly intelligent, selective about who they victimize, why, and when, choosing a moment when they are aware that tensions at home are already high, the family has broken down, or is in crisis, all of which they learn because small town, conversations in school with students, family, or other teachers, journal writing assignments, etc. They groom entire families, institutions, and communities, relying on convention and conventional thinking as protection, which thinking leads to the generally accepted truth that students are safe with and around their teachers, which they mostly, overwhelmingly, are – but – not always. Conventional thinking says he’s a good Catholic or Presbyterian or…, and married, or is a good local guy everyone knows and likes, or that his wife is so attractive he wouldn’t do such a thing, that he’s just really close to, or great with, teenagers, especially the girls, that they’re just friends. Conventional thinking in our culture also endows teenaged girls with Lolita tendencies (such horseshit) or the intelligence and maturity to handle themselves in whatever situation they find themselves (also horseshit).
The wives are also not to blame. The wives are also not to blame. The wives are also Not. To. Blame. They live in a society and culture that tells them to love their men with all their might, and that to love unconditionally is the model and method. These women were and are chosen by their predatory husbands for their ability to love and look the other way, for their inability to see what’s going on right in front of their noses, for their adherence to convention and conventional belief (he would never! but we have so much sex!). The wives are also groomed, and – often and often – they are stuck. One of the men who assaulted me the summer I turned eighteen had three children under six years old at home at the time; she was on leave from her teaching position, and they were both Catholic. The rumor around town was that I was having a consensual relationship with this man, when I was seventeen and he was thirty-four or five. Yick. She treated me like the enemy, which I found bemusing and weird; she had been my middle-school math teacher, not very good (she could not control our class), but a decent person, I thought. I also thought they were both old and that he was gross (that greasy blond ponytail, abundant gut spilling over his belt, and walrus-style mustache), and when one of my mom’s friends told me the rumor we were ‘doing it’, I was equal parts stunned and nauseous. Never. Blech. Even if I had felt safe, loved, and respected enough to report the assault (I did not, and was not), or others of his victims had come forward, would she – his wife, the math teacher – have believed it, or ever considered leaving him, with a clutch of kids at home? Never.
Maybe if we were more honest about the intricacies of love, of marriage or of the very pertinent financial nature of many unions, the construct of finance and equity, routine and conformity. Maybe if we were more honest about family and convention, the structures that underpin most marriages, and relationships. Divorce is expensive. Painful. I just finished Maggie Smith’s (the poet, not the Dowager Countess of Grantham) excellent memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, which was instructive in the above, although I’ve seen and hand-held women friends going through it; it’s never, ever easy. Maybe if we were more honest about male desire, their full-on penis brains, and the flawed nature of much of humanity, especially men, especially men, especially men – who, in a patriarchy, are told and shown in a thousand ways from childhood that their wants, desire and aspirations are more important than the needs and desires of women and girls. Maybe if we were more honest about power differentials, in all settings, and the nature of sexual abuse, which – rape included – is always about power, not simply a case of hard-ons gone wrong, or unmet desires ‘at home’.
The perpetrators are one-hundred percent to blame for their actions, and we are all to blame in a culture that sexualizes children, girls especially, and normalizes relationships between young girls and older men. We are all to blame if we don’t say, at the very least, what’s up with that, those two, what’s going on there? Asking questions, particularly of the girls who are not in any way to be blamed, questions like: hey, are you okay, or – you know you can tell me anything, no judgement, right, or – is he, this much older man, pressuring you in sexual contact? There are many reasons why female children are drawn into relationships with older men, number one again – these men, these inevitably older men, are narcissistic, immature predators, grooming their victims, seducing them with attention and praise. But – we must also acknowledge that our institutions and policies, our laws and biases, are designed to protect perpetrators and the institutions they have created and run, while undermining women and girls’ ability to function safely and authentically in the world. If you feel powerless, if your society and culture, your family and religion, all tell you – subtly or out loud – that you are less than, or even just less safe, less capable than your brother, your male classmates (death by a thousand cuts, implicit biases in classrooms, living rooms, kitchens, boardrooms, clubs and on teams), why would you not cling to a man who seems powerful, if only by way of his having a car, a house, a credit card, and an ease you have never felt while moving through the world? Respect, even; they have respect, which you know you don’t because – why? Because GIRL. Often these predatory men are the most respected, most visible members of a community. Community, small town community in particular, can really work both ways, protecting and exposing you – it depends on who the community consists of, and who makes the rules. The rule makers have been – for a dozen millennia – men. Let’s change that, eh? And place the blame where it belongs, on the men, the men, the men who do these things and every single system they exploit to get away with it. Let’s change those, too. #SmashthePatriarchyAlready
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/grooming-high-school-teacher-sexual-abuse_n_65035f7fe4b08a9d3979b770