My mother was always very protective of me. When I became older she would speak to me about instances when men would attempt to take advantage of her. She was an incredibly beautiful woman so I always believed her when she told me that she often had to fend off unwanted advances. She was a scrappy woman who generally knew how to take care of herself. She often attributed her courage to being the youngest child in a family of eight that included four brothers. She claimed to be streetwise and proved her point by raising me and my brothers alone during a time when women when were still mostly under the thumb of men.
I sometimes grew weary of her warnings about how I should protect myself because for the most part I was generally treated with great respect by the men and boys. There were a few times when men got out of line with me but luckily nothing too awful happened. Nontehless, those moments would haunt me because I somehow wondered if I had done something wrong to incite their horrific behavior. Eventually I matured enough to understand that mine was a common feeling that women often have. It is the reason why they sometimes hide the traumatic events from anyone’s knowledge.
The first time something untoward happened to me was when I was very young. My mother had gone next door to procure something from a neighbor. She promised to be back home before I even knew that she was gone. She wanted me to keep the door locked and to listen for the cries of my baby brother who was taking a nap. She also told me not to answer the phone because she did not want anyone to know that she was not there..
No sooner had Mama gone than our phone began to ring. I knew that I was supposed to let it go but I worried that the sound of the ringing might awaken my brother so I picked up the receiver and quietly said, “Hello.” It was a man whose voice I did not recognize and he somehow seemed to know that my mother was not there. He explained that he had called to talk to me. He began to instruct me in how to take a bath with my brother. I knew that what he was saying was nasty but I was frozen and did not even have the good sense to hang up at first. I just kept listening to his ugly suggestions feeling sick inside as I did so. Luckily finally I came to my senses and slammed down the receiver just before my mother came back into the house.
I should have told her what had happened but I feared telling her that I had disobeyed. Somehow I also wondered if I was a bit guilty for listening the the vile conversation and I did not want anyone to know that I had done so. I never in all of my life told my mother or anyone else what had happened. I instead reverted to the kind of behavior that is quite common among victims of sexual abuse.
When I was a bit older a man exposed himself to me on a pier where my cousins were fishing. As I ran to meet them he stopped me and opened the fly of his pants. Instead of going past him to the safety of my cousins I instead ran back to where my mother and aunts and uncles were sitting in lawn chairs conversing. Once again I felt shame and never told any adults about the horrific man on the pier. It has only been in recent years that I have been able to bring myself to talk about it. I now know that I did nothing wrong and that it would have been a better idea for me to report him to the adults to keep him from traumatizing another child. In that moment I was simply stunned into a sickening silence. To this day I can see the lurid grin on the man’s face as he shocked me. It frightened me so much that I did not even want to utter the words to describe his sickening deed.
The last incident that happened to me involved a teacher from my high school. He was young and somewhat handsome and he seemed to like me as a student. One afternoon he grabbed me in the hallway and pulled my back toward his chest with a kind of stranglehold. All the while he was whispering in my ear suggesting that if he were a boy in the school I would be his choice as a girlfriend. I felt as though I wanted to vomit or scream or run away but I was frozen in disbelief and hardly moved.
Eventually I freaked out and came to my senses. I got away by lying that my mother was going to pick me up and was probably already waiting for me outside. He let me go immediately and from that moment I avoided him like the plague. Once again I never told anyone what had transpired because I wondered if I had been imagining that he was being inappropriate. I just made sure that I I did not want to ruin his reputation or his career if I was just imagining things. From that moment forward I handled it by only being around him in large groups.
Years later I learned that he had also abused another student only in that instance things got really out of hand. He molested her and threatened her with violence and death if she told anyone. It was only then that I came forward to tell the story of my own encounter with the man who quite obviously did indeed have bad intentions with me.
We keep hearing so much about the Epstein case and the files that supposedly name men who took advantage of young girls. It would be easy to place some of the blame on the girls and even to ask why they did not immediately seek help. What I know is that such events are so disturbing that a girl or even a grown woman begins to second guess herself and to wonder if somehow she is guilty of causing the negative attention. It is an horrific feeling that might not make sense but feels very real. There is also a huge fear of coming forth and not being believed so we bury such moments in our hearts but we never forget how dirty and ugly we felt.
I have been lucky to only have superficial encounters that were more suggestive than brutal. I sometimes wonder if my mother’s advice helped me to steer clear of questionable situations. I don’t think I would have been able to avoid greater harm without her talks that made me realize that there is a dark side to many humans that we must be able to observe and get away from when needed.
I have lately been thinking of those young girls who were recruited and used by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. I know it had to take great courage for them to ultimately come forward to tell their horror stories of sexual abuse by wealthy and powerful men. I hope that one day everyone who ever did this to them will be revealed and that those people will earn our disgust and long overdue punishment Those who were harmed were not just underaged women, they were children! The crimes will never be fully resolved until all of the people who hurt the innoceny are finally held accountable. The women who have to live with the memory of being treated so horribly deserve our support. Those who harmed them in any way deserve our fullest disdain regardless of whom they may be or what excuses they may try to give. I wonder if we will ever learn who all of them are. I truly hope it happens one day.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 