In Possession Of A Heart

“Each of us is both a revelation and a secret.”
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I wrote that in a comment thread on my Facebook wall on Monday night, and over the last few days it has replayed several times in my mind.  Not only has the week given birth to revelations of multiple secrets, but it has amplified the complicated, caring and callous nature of human beings.  Secret facets have been revealed -- some surprising, some inspiring, some ugly.  As people have been kind, so have they been cold.  As they have been open, so have they been closed.  As they have been understanding, so have they been myopic.  As they have been supportive, so have they been ignorant.  I have learned that there are people with whom I would not ever want to sit on a jury, or god forbid ever want to be on mine.  What a week.  An unexpected beginning, an elusive truth, rapidly forming sides, threats of unfriending friends and demands that others unfriend, the elevation of the word “reactionary” to new heights.  Then, a social media bloodbath the likes of which I haven't seen in seven years on Facebook.

It is heartening to see people stand up and fight for those whom they believe have been victimized; it is the core of decency upon which social justice relies.  It is a drive that I feel on a constant level, so much so that I have often had to step back and re-establish balance in my life.  The desire to make accountable those who have inflicted injury on others, and to alleviate that injury, is one of the most admirable human qualities.  The pursuit of this, however, should never be run off the rails.  When it begins to feel like it is about vengeance, scandal or sensationalism, it reduces us to the level of that which we say we despise.  Trial-by-Media is a horror show where cornerstones of our society like due process seemingly have no place.  ​It is revolting to behold and it should frighten everyone, as none of us can predict when the person on trial in that bloodthirsty cavern may be us or someone we love.  I opted to listen, then to withdraw.  The rate at which some can adopt definitive stances is breakneck and, to me, worrisome.  I find it irresponsible and inappropriate, particularly when dealing with the potential decimation of someone's life and career. 

I readily admit that one anonymous statement is not enough for me to condemn someone.  Nor is four.  But let me make it clear that that is not because I assume that if someone is anonymous, that he or she is lying.  I understand that people may make that choice for a number of reasons.  The reason why it is not enough for me to condemn someone is because unless we've all been asleep, we have each seen repeatedly in recent years what the veil of anonymity has allowed people to do to others, particularly online.  Annihilating someone en masse is effortless now.  We've all heard of the “I Hate ___________” groups.  It would be incredibly easy to join forces with three or four of five other people with the goal of bringing someone down, systematically engaging in rumours and defamation in a calculated campaign of character assassination, and facing no repercussions.  There are those who will be angered or disillusioned by my saying that.  People will say that it is dismissing women, or will ask how an activist in this realm could have a moment of doubt.  The answer to that is simple.  I am mildly obsessed with justice.  This means, inversely, that I am also passionate about stemming the potential for the miscarriage of it. Others may fly the guilty flag early if they wish; I cannot bring myself to do it while I feel in my gut that there is the slightest chance that something else could be at play.

Then a moment comes when the feeling changes.  Or it doesn't.  It is different for everyone.

I still cannot claim certainty.  But this is what I feel that I can say.  Yesterday the earth shifted under my feet. I felt the wounds of others in my skin.  Yesterday I heard stories claimed and owned.  When someone says “My name is Lucy, and this is what this person did to me”, the difference in what follows -- not necessarily in its truthfulness but in its resonance – is staggering.  Someone who has far more to lose than to gain putting everything, everything on the line in order to bring something into the light -- that is deeply impactful.  I walked with those wounds throughout the day and I carried them into the night, bearing witness on Twitter to more testimonials, unrelated to this case but numbering in the hundreds.  Tweets from friends, including one of my dearest.  Testimonials from total strangers and words of support from men, each under the hashtag #‎BeenRapedNeverReported, reminded me of what I already knew in a profoundly intimate way – that this is not about a single story.  This is about a global story, at the fore once again due to a single name. 

And that name, in my humble opinion, belongs to a very unwell individual.  It is sad.  This is the same individual who has sat with Eve Ensler more than once and passionately interviewed her about her commitment to ending violence against women.  This is someone who has reiterated how much he admires her cause and her work.  Is that insincere?  Or is it a sign of complete disassociation between an understanding of violence and an understanding of one’s own actions?  No one who can do what is purported to have been done is healthy.  No one who can do what is purported to have been done is sound.  It is​ conceivable to me that a person whose conduct strongly suggests megalomania or narcissism, if one is indeed so afflicted, could infer ​mutuality of desire where there is none simply because NOT being worshipped and craved -- to the megalomaniac mind --​ is an unfathomable notion.  There may not exist malicious intent, or even thorough psychological understanding of one's compulsions, offenses, or offensiveness.  Of course, that makes no difference to those whom I believe were hurt.  The scars are the same.  The scars are deep.  Whether or not intent to hurt existed, what ALWAYS exists is responsibility for one's actions and the obligation to accept it. 

This is someone who needs help.  He needs it badly, and we should not willfully turn a blind eye to that glaring reality.  It gets more voluminous and becomes more disturbing by the day.  The facts must be vigorously sought and pursued through an airing in actual court, not the ravenous and festering Court of Public Opinion.  Both the alleged transgressor and the transgressed upon should be heard, not from a place of pre-determined and subjective allegiance, but a place of objectivity and a vested interest in the unearthing of the truth.  In the end, there should be NO goal that supercedes the attainment of justice and -- where it is possible -- healing.  Punitive avenues are one part of that equation; rehabilitative avenues the other.  Where there exists transgression there exists, intrinsically, a chance for transformation.  Such transformation is impossible though when rather than emphasizing one's need for accountability and honesty, we instead advocate for his or her destruction. 

Maybe -- just maybe -- we become more thoughtful before we speak.  Maybe we don't call traumatized women who claim to have been sexually assaulted lying sluts and filthy whores.  Maybe we act like we're in possession of a heart.  Maybe when our 'friends' who have just lost a parent face horrifying allegations that we think may be true, we take them to task and rail at them and tell them they're dead wrong and beg them to admit what they did and threaten to help the prosecution if they don't and say we're ending the friendship -- privately.  Maybe we realize that it is a trusted soul, a friend, to whom the truth might actually be spoken.  And maybe if that person has been truly good to us, regardless of their other failings, we don't demolish them publicly because – guilty or innocent – we don't want to be the thing that makes someone we claim to care for put a bullet in his head.  Maybe we act like we're in possession of a heart.  And maybe when someone says that she never called the police, instead of thinking that if she didn't report it then it couldn't have been SO bad, we can imagine the devastation and shame that paralyzed her and the fear of being traumatized again in the telling, and praise her bravery for owning her experience now.  Maybe we act like we're in possession of a heart.

And maybe we teach our children about sex in a whole new way, so that they grow up to respect it – and themselves as its keepers – more profoundly.  So they do not use it as a weapon or a bargaining chip, so they understand their autonomy over their bodies, so they are bold and fierce and strong and can bellow so loudly when trespassed upon that it shakes the earth.  So that they could never conceive of taking what is not theirs to take, and could never dream of accepting abuse because stopping it in its tracks would be "awkward" or "uncomfortable". So that if they are mistreated, they feel no shame in roaring “My name is ________ and ________ did this to me”, because ownership is power and phantoms cannot bring sex offenders to justice.  Maybe we remember that fewer than 10% of rapes are reported, which means that there are thousands and thousands of such phantoms walking around with a secret pain the weight of which you cannot imagine unless you've borne it.  Maybe we remember that under 3% of rape allegations are false, which means that the overwhelming majority of women who say they have been assaulted HAVE BEEN, and have carried or continue to carry and relive that horrifying experience every day after.  Maybe we remember that that 3% is not a negligible stat the way it is always dismissed as, but represents flesh and blood suffering of a different kind.  Maybe we affirm that it is devastating that anyone's son's or husband's or brother's or uncle's or father's life has been unjustly ruined, and we can remember that NO injustice is inconsequential.   Maybe we act like we're in possession of a heart.

Maybe we stop to breathe, and stop acting so afraid of our particular view being negated, and understand that recognizing the other “side” (and I hate that term as I find it reductive and antagonistic) does not mean that we’ve compromised or given up ground on our own.  Maybe we learn to become more responsive and less defensive.  Maybe we make honesty the greatest and most uncompromising of all virtues, and no victim is ever doubted again because feigning rape is as unconscionable as raping, and simply does not happen.  Maybe we eradicate a culture that is getting so bad that soon our girls will come to expect at least one sexual assault in their lives, and will feel lucky if they get by with only one.  Maybe we stop bombarding kids with the contradictory messages that sexuality is special and crime horrible, while routinely combining the terms “sex and violence” as if between the two there is a natural marriage.  Maybe we rewrite the script to educate, edify, elucidate, embolden.  Maybe we act like we're in possession of a brain.

My head feels like a top.  Spinning, spinning, spinning.  The speed dizzying.  The din deafening.

I have been taking some time away from the noise.  I have found the energy on Facebook this week toxic; I can only speak for myself.  I couldn't hold it in my body and I didn't wish to touch it.  I was questioned as an anti-violence-against-women activist about my thoughts and didn't respond, because I don't feel that my thoughts are more significant than anyone else's simply because I have made this cause my clarion call and its warriors my chosen family.  I have been waiting until I felt that I could speak not as producer of V-Day Toronto, not as an activist, not as a former rape crisis counsellor, not as a survivor, not even as a woman.  I have been processing it all until I felt that I could speak simply as a human being, observing and attempting to understand other human beings.  For some reason, in this case, that felt important to me.  I know that those biases still exist within but I can honestly say that in this moment, as I write this, that I do not feel them.  There is a feeling of clarity minus the burden of expectations both external and self-imposed. 

Is it not the role of the public to substitute itself for jurisprudence.  That said, egregious violations of the law must be confronted and addressed and we must not allow the infliction of abuse -- be it ignorant or conscious -- to stand unchallenged.  We cannot permit the mistreated to feel unseen and unheard, nor can we propagate a mindset that perpetuates the repeated subjugation of a gender to the ranks of unyielding victimization.  How long???  We fail each other as citizens when we allow this.  We betray each other as lives sharing space on this planet. Those who impart suffering MUST be answerable for their wrongdoing, must recognize its destructive and prolonged impact on others, and must accept the consequences of their behaviour.  This is non-negotiable.  Likewise, those who suffer, especially who suffer in silence, must be acknowledged when that silence is at last broken.  To demand anything less than that is to allow for the diminishing of each person's right to respect and dignity, and to become a tacit participant in the unravelling of a civilized society.

Years ago I was having a conversation with friends about a workshop I wanted to create and lead for survivors of sexual assault.  They unanimously thought it was a wonderful idea.  I then added that eventually I wanted to do the same thing with a group of rapists in prison.  Everyone froze.  I could see how jarring and disturbing they found the idea, and they asked me if I wouldn't be scared.  I said that I was more scared of the prospect of not doing it.  We cannot ignore the inevitably of the cycle.  Sick, broken people beat and rape and degrade women.  It in no way lessens their culpability.  It simply is.  The human mind has far more square footage to roam than prisons do.  Perhaps if we unlock the vast, rough terrain of the former, we won’t need to lock so many up in the latter.   And we won't need to throw away quite so many keys.

The following is a fact.  Until predators are treated and healed, there will always, always be fresh prey.
   

In the eyes and voice of every female victim of sexual assault I see someone who could be my niece.  The thought is beyond chilling.  I know that if she were to look me in the eyes and say “Auntie, he raped me”, I would believe her without question or pause.  In the eyes of every male abuser I see someone who could be my nephew.  The thought is beyond chilling.  I know that if he were to look me in the eyes and say “Auntie, I swear to God, I didn't rape her”, I would believe him without question or pause.  I would hold my niece and rock her gently and tell her with tears streaming down my face that I would not sleep until she knew justice.  And if my nephew was in fact guilty, I would take his hands and hold his face and tell him with tears streaming down my face why it was right that he go to prison.  But I would want to know that neither of them – victim or perpetrator – would be destroyed.

We can be more contemplative.  We can be more compassionate.  To everyone.  We must aim to contextualize and counsel the totality of human beings.  And in so doing, maybe we can create a less violent and mistrusting world.  We must consider ALL of it, because the truth is the sum of it all.  

- TT