It’s not about football. And it’s
not about scandal. It’s about children who were sexually assaulted. Despite the
fact that these children “told,” nothing was done to stop what was happening to
them.
The fact that the perpetrator in
the Penn State case was a football coach and that one of the people who
protected him was an even more highly-esteemed football coach has led to all
sorts of speculation about whether the sport is somehow at fault.
It’s probably un-American to
dislike football, but I despise the sound of football games on television.
Despite my lack of affection for the sport, I feel compelled to defend it. As I
said, this case is not about football.
The truth is that even if the
perpetrator had been an unknown man with little or no power in his community,
people still might not have acted on the information that he sexually assaulted
a child. People will protect a perpetrator for all sorts of reasons that have
nothing to do with that person’s fame or standing in the community. The needs
of the child are rarely considered.
People say that victims should
speak out, but I wonder if any of those who advise doing this have ever tried
it. Kids can tell, but unless somebody responds with action, the child might be
better off keeping quiet.
I know—because it happened to me.
I was that child. I told, but things did not get better.
I told my mother about the
assaults after a particularly frightening episode in which my assailant held me
down in the woods, pulled off my clothes and molested me. It was not the only
time he’d touched my private parts, but it was the first time I realized that
he was not trying to make me feel good.
I was thirteen. The man who
assaulted me was my father.
That day in the woods stands out
in my mind not only for the level of fear I felt, but because of the epiphany it
brought. The truth hit me between the eyes like a hand smacking me on the
forehead: this had been going on for years, and I had been a willing
participant.
I remember crawling onto the couch
next to him as he watched football on TV. I was small, maybe around nine years
old, maybe younger. My mother was somewhere, but I have no idea where—perhaps
she was right there, dozing in the rocking chair. Perhaps she saw what he did
and deliberately chose to not pay attention to what was happening to her little
girl.
As we sat, the roar of a game
blaring from the television set, his hand would gradually make its way under my
nightgown and into my underpants. He would probe and fiddle with my genitals
and I remember wondering what he was trying to find—it always felt to me like
he was looking for something there. I sometimes got bored or tried to pull
away, but I think I also liked the way it felt.
When he grabbed me in the woods
that day when I was thirteen and held me down, I suddenly realized my part in
it. I had liked it to some extent. I wasn’t sure if I’d sought it out, but I
hadn’t struggled very hard to make him stop. The feeling that hit me between
the eyes was guilt, pure and simple—I had asked for it, just like my mother would
say, later.
That day in the woods was
different. Whatever he was up to this time, I didn’t want it. I squirmed and
flailed around, trying to free myself from his grip. He was a lot bigger and
stronger than I was. I began to panic. I don’t remember screaming or making any
noise. I also don’t remember how it all ended. My memory stops mid-event, and
still, forty-four years later, I do not know how I got away or even the full
extent of what happened.
I’ve asked him, but he only admits
to the parts I remember. He has never denied that he did it, but he’s also never
tried to help me fill in the missing details in my memory. He continues to
maintain that it didn’t hurt me, and I should let it go and quit talking about
it.
After I told my mother what he was
doing, she promised to “talk to him,” but the assaults continued. I went back to
her, begging her to make him stop. She said, “He told me that he stopped. Are you sure he’s still doing it?
Besides, you’re sitting too close to him on the couch. You’re too old to do
that now.”
It was my fault. That’s what she
said, but that’s also what I thought. I believed I had caused this to happen,
so I had no right to complain about it now.
Apparently, I planned to run away.
She said she stopped me as I was leaving the house—I don’t know why she wanted
me to stay there, since he continued to molest me. He eventually stopped
touching me, or perhaps I learned to stay out of situations where he would have
the opportunity to do that.
The pattern changed. When I got a
little older, he started exposing himself to me. I would be standing in the
kitchen at the stove or the sink and would glance down the hall to where his bedroom
door was wide open. He would be standing there, stark naked, full frontal,
looking at me.
I was sixteen.
That year I met a boy at school.
We began to date and, soon, were “going steady.” Kissing led to light petting
led to heavy petting, but I never wanted to go much further than that. I said I
was afraid of getting pregnant, but the truth was I didn’t want to feel the
things his touches were making me feel. I see now that I was already learning
how to shut down my sexual response, to avoid ever getting into another
frightening situation like the one in the woods.
I knew something was wrong,
though, and I talked to my mother again. She encouraged me to go to the
minister of our church, Rev. Martin. I suppose that he was the closest thing to
a “therapist” one might encounter in 1973.
I stayed after church one day and
asked to see him. He said he would give me a ride home and I could talk to him
while we drove. I told him what had happened and when we got to my house, he
parked the car, shut off the engine and said, “I have to think about this a
little more.”
Then, he asked me specific
questions about the abuse. He wanted to know if my father had “just” touched
me, or had he raped me or tried to rape me. I said I had no recollection of any
rape or attempted rape. Rev. Martin’s response was, “Okay, I guess it wasn’t
technically incest, then.”
I was dismissed. The relationship
with my boyfriend did not improve. I graduated and left for college. I never
intended to return.
Rev. Martin died soon after I left
home. I have no idea if he ever reported anything to the authorities. If he
didn’t, I don’t know why, since clearly what I had told him about was a crime,
whatever it was called.
The laws were different in 1973.
Perhaps Rev. Martin broke no laws by not reporting what I had told him. Or,
maybe he did report it, and lacking any physical evidence, nothing was done. I have
no idea, since nobody ever talked to me about it after that.
My parents acted like it had never
happened. I tried to put it out of my mind and focused my attention on school
and my own life. I never doubted that the abuse had occurred, but I wanted to
believe that I had not been hurt by it. I wanted to prove, to myself and to the
world, that I was okay—that I was better than okay.
I met a man who shared my
interests in science and encouraged me in my studies. I graduated with a degree
in Chemistry and, with his encouragement, went off to graduate school. We got
married and, soon, had two kids. I got my PhD and, then, a job. I had a life.
And, from the outside, I looked better than okay.
I never forgot what had happened
with my father, but I began to believe that it had not affected me, despite the
fact that sex was difficult. I often ended up in tears and when asked why I was
crying, I never had an answer. I never had orgasms, a fact that left me feeling
greatly ashamed, as if I was deeply defective. I didn’t see either of these
things, nor the fact that I’d been suicidal more than once, as related to my
history of abuse.
I had almost convinced myself that
I’d emerged from childhood undamaged until a book saved me. Its title, “The
Courage to Heal,” and subtitle, “A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual
Abuse,” made me simultaneously want the book but fear buying it in front of
anybody I knew. A few days later, I went to the bookstore alone and sandwiched
it, upside down, in a stack of other books, hoping to hide the title from the
cashier.
That book finally got me to see
that I had, in fact, been hurt by what happened. I suffered from obvious sexual
dysfunction, but I also had lots of trouble trusting people and I had been
depressed for years. I started therapy, joined an incest survivor’s group and
began to get the help I needed. I was told that it was important to talk about
what had happened, so I practiced doing that with my therapist and support
group, then moved on to my family and friends.
People who counsel survivors of
child sexual abuse seem to think that talking about it will solve everything,
but the truth is it creates more problems. My news was never welcomed. I was
told that what I was saying was going to “kill” my grandmother, although it
turned out that she lived to be 99 years old, and died for reasons that had
nothing to do with what I said about her son.
I told my sisters early on, since
both of them had young daughters. I told other relatives, thinking that
everybody who might potentially bring young children into contact with him
should know. I continue to do that, but my news is never welcomed. I felt alone
before I told. I felt even more alone afterward.
More than forty years after the
events that launched my own sad story, I watched the situation at Penn State
unfold. Child molesters still attack children and the people who surround them
continue to do nothing to stop it. The kids talked, but nobody listened.
I still hate the sound of football
games on television. But, like I said, it’s not about the football.
