Fair warning: The story I’m about to tell is about a sexual assault concerning children. And this story has a huge “ick” factor.
More than three decades ago, when I lived and worked on the other side of the country, I sat in on a trial involving a young girl, four boys, and an adult male. The incident happened in a city bigger than the one I lived in, but because of the notoriety of the case back then, the change of venue moved it into the high desert. One of my best friends and colleagues at the newspaper I worked for covered the courts, and when interesting cases were around, I would sit in and listen. The court system has always interested me.
But this case troubles me still.
There was a girl, 12 at the time of the incident, who was approached at school by four of her classmates, all boys, and asked if she would accompany them to a shed on a homeowner’s property near the school, and perform oral sex on them. Yes, this is the first of the ickiness of this tragic story.
Now this was in the early ’80s, pre-Internet, pre-Bill Clinton and pre-Monica Lewinsky. But even back then, we were told by a child advocate involved in the case (and I was told again about 20 years later), that these kids considered fellatio about as intimate as kissing. The gravity of their actions failed them at the time.
So the girl and her classmates went to this shed. As this encounter was going on, the 40-year-old male homeowner discovered the kids. He chased the boys away — but then forced the girl to service him also. Remember, she was 12.
Even though this didn’t “go viral,” this did make national news, as the man was arrested and charged with sexual assault. His trial was the one I sat in on.
Leading up to this, there were plenty of people weighing in on if a crime had actually been committed. She had willingly gone to the shed with her classmates — and of course, people said, she may have been 12 — but she looked 19!
The girl took the stand to tell what happened. First of all, she didn’t look 19. She was a bigger kid, not heavy, but big and a bit tall. But she didn’t look like, or have the mannerisms of, anyone older than the adolescent she was. The boys, who also testified (the juvenile justice system dealt with them separately), looked like adolescent children as well.
The man claimed he never participated in the goings-on in his shed. He claimed he merely asked the girl if she was OK. He explained away her lipstick on his underpants by saying he had touched her face to ask if she was OK, then apparently used the restroom afterward. But one of the boys had returned to the shed, looked in, and saw what really happened. The man was convicted.
Those children would be in their 40s now. I worry about her. I wonder how she felt, being vilified even before the trial, having to return to her life at school, being further slut-shamed (she had testified one of the boys tapped her on the head and called her “a scuzzy”), having to live with the consequences of being 12 and eager/desperate to be popular and liked.
As certain men in our government turn themselves into pretzels trying to keep from holding other men accountable for what they did when they were younger, but still old enough to know better, I find myself thinking back to that young girl, the boys who were given probation, and the man who is surely out of prison by now. Did she give her consent? Technically she wasn’t legally old enough to consent, and when you have four against one, did she even feel comfortable if she wanted to change her mind? Three of the boys were 13, one was 14, so they were all “older” to her.
I think of all the friends who have told me stories of date rape and how they just had to move past it, blaming themselves for trusting someone they only slightly knew. I think of an ex, who when I asked if he had ever forced a woman to have sex against her will, admitted, yes, he got rough once with a woman he brought back to his place, “but it turns out she liked it that way.” Sure.
I think of Anita Hill, whom I identified with, because I had been in that position of having a boss sexually harass me, and then having to get past it, because I had to keep working — until I could find another job. There were others who could have backed up Professor Hill in those Senate hearings. They got scared off by her treatment.
So what does a young girl who willingly went into a shed with classmates have in common with a 15-year-old at a gathering with a small group of friends, who finds herself fighting off a rape attempt? A lack of power. And too many people making excuses for those who wield that power, no matter what their age. And even if the stories have a horrible ick factor, they have to be heard.
No one would tell a man beaten to within an inch of his life, “if you can’t get away, relax and enjoy it.”
If your house is robbed, you’re not admonished for keeping valuables in it and then keeping the outside appearances up, so it looks as if you put some money into your property (what was she wearing, was she advertising?).
What is still not understood is why no one wants to hold men accountable for sexual assault. It’s a he-said, she-said, bad date, bad sex, scorned woman, she’s a (you-know-what) tease. In the documentary, “The Hunting Ground,” which chronicles the epidemic of rape on college campuses across the country, there was a particularly chilling segment of fraternity men yelling: “No means yes. Yes means anal!” Gee, their parents must be so proud.
Women don’t report because they will be ostracized and made to feel guilt, shame, humiliation — and blame.
Until we stand up to say not just #MeToo, or #Time’sUp, but #NeverAgain, this will go on. Stop making excuses for “youthful indiscretions.” People who commit sexual assault must unequivocally be held accountable. And until they are, we as a society are all guilty.
