Friday, January 15, 2016

Spotlight, Marc Gafni, Bill Cosby and the legacy of sexual abuse

Starting at age 5, I was molested. Last year, at age 36, was the first time I spoke about it. 31 years of suffering in silence. And not just suffering on my own, but sometimes causing pain to others as a result of my wounds. Now granted, I didn't abuse anyone, and I probably didn't do lasting harm to others, but I definitely developed some self-destructive addictions. And when I hit bottom with those, I landed in a 12-step program.

In "Program" as it is called, I've learned how to stop the cycle by focusing on myself, my healing and the things I have control over. And sometimes I've sat in meetings with sex offenders and people who did real harm in their addictions. It has opened my eyes and given me a perspective I wasn't expecting when I entered the rooms, and I've come to believe that the kind of punishments we dole out as a society, from "correctional" facilities to public shaming, really aren't solving anything. I believe we need to recognize these things for what they are - a disease - and encourage real change. Otherwise we are just perpetuating a cycle of abuse and congratulating ourselves for punishing a few extreme cases.

One of the things I love about the movie Spotlight is the character of the grandmother. She shows us why some good people look the other way - they're just trying to cling to some guidance and grounding they have experienced in life. Another thing I thought was excellent about the film was the portrayal of the various victims who are interviewed by the journalists. The eating issues, drug addiction, depression, difficulty with healthy relationships, the terror. The effects of abuse are devastating, lifelong, and those survivors who are shown are the "lucky ones" because those who couldn't stand it had already taken their own lives.

In Sara Kabakov's article on Marc Gafni, she talks about the various times she tried to tell trusted authority figures about her horrifying experience. Each time, they didn't want to hear it. Sexual abuse is so hard to talk about, there's already so much shame associated with it, and when people hear about it, many don't want to believe it. How many people have swept Bill Cosby's abuses under the rug or brushed them off because they can't reconcile someone so wonderful doing such horrible things? Most abusers are charismatic. They create a persona that makes abuse by them seem unbelievable. They surround themselves with enablers, and when that doesn't work, they use threats, or they move. There are hundreds of examples of this. Two of my favorite quotes from Spotlight: "If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse a child" and "this is how it happens, huh? A guy leans on a guy and the whole town looks the other way."

Let's not look the other way.

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