‘You did things to my teenage body that had never, and should have never, been done’
A personal post.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
Today, I watched a video of a man standing on a pulpit, admitting that he had committed what he said was adultery many years ago. Then I watched as a woman interrupted the congregation’s standing ovation as she stepped up to that pulpit. She shakily began to speak, declaring that she had been the “woman” whom he’d committed adultery with. Only, she said, she had not been an adult when it happened. She’d been just 16. And the man had been her pastor. He’d raped (my word) and taken advantage of her for nine years, she said, some 27 years ago.
“You did things to my teenage body that had never, and should have never, been done,” she said, her voice cracking with tears. “If you can’t admit to the truth, you have to answer to God. You are not the victim here.”
A few months ago, I posed a question on Twitter: If a 15-year-old is sexually involved with a 26-year-old man, is that just gross, or is it rape? I was amazed at how the universal and furious the response was: It is rape, so many, many people wrote. The word “sex” shouldn’t even enter into the conversation. I took note of the approximate ages of the people who replied to my tweet; they were mainly in their 20s and 30s.
As the Twitter thread was growing with contempt that I could even be unsure about such a thing, on the side, I was having a few private conversations with women closer to my age, late 40s. They too were surprised by the nearly unanimous reaction. Because when they were teenagers and involved with older men, they didn’t think of it that way, and adults hadn’t reacted that way. Instead, the adults had looked away, dismissed such affairs as none of their business.
What that pastor did to that girl long ago caused her to have suicidal thoughts. She said that what he did to her decades ago had made her feel like she’s been living in a “prison” since. The man was in a position of power over her, making the assault all that much worse, and all that much more confusing.
Still, maybe, at the time, the girl felt special when he picked her. Maybe he made her feel seen. And by someone everyone loved and admired. Only later would she realize that he’d manipulated her in a time of life when she had no parameters as to what makes up a healthy romantic or sexual relationship.
Maybe what happened to her affected her sense of self-worth.
Maybe, for her, he’d made future romantic relationships more complicated and difficult than they should have been.
Maybe his silence all these years made her feel unworthy of even the simple recognition that something wrong was done to her.
Maybe she has felt all these things.
I know I have.
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I was also 16 when a 50 year old married man in a position of power and responsibility groomed me for sex. It was abuse but I didn’t realize that at the time. I needed years of therapy to deal with the consequences on both my emotional health and difficulties with relationships. I did confront him years later and got an apology - very unusual- he then confessed to his priest and I found out both he and his wife had been sexually assault victims as children and he’d never told anyone before about his abuse. It was a vicious vicious cycle of abuse that I broke open.
POWERFUL!