One of the themes of this blog is that women are typically socialized for a more private role and often do not get taught the same skill set boys get taught for how to navigate the public sphere effectively. It is a theme of this blog because it is a thing I personally have struggled with greatly for many years.
And yet one of the savvier things I have done in my life was savvy because it elegantly solved a complex issue concerning where to draw the line between public and private on a very sensitive topic.
I was sexually abused as a child and I began seeking help for that in my teens, while still a legal minor. Starting at the age of seventeen, I began buttonholing people and telling them my story, anyone who was willing to listen.
I was in my twenties before I was healed up enough to realize that I was traumatizing people by doing that and I thereafter became more thoughtful and selective about sharing my story. I still shared it, but I stopped randomly dumping on people who weren't really prepared for that.
I grew up with the idea that the shame was on the rapist, not their victim. That doesn't mean I didn't carry the emotional burden of shame that victims carry over what was done to them, but I likely experienced it somewhat differently.
I do remember telling one of my therapists that I felt like if people "really knew me" they would "run from me" because I felt so damaged by what happened and so tainted, like there was no washing off what someone else had done to me. And yet this emotional burden failed to prevent me from buttonholing people and crying on a lot of different shoulders about what had happened to me.
Most victims of molestation or rape -- and I am a victim of both -- don't share that information with just anybody. Sharing it ends up being a mark of trust.
They keep it very private and that fact ends up making such information about them a kind of intimate information. I treated what was done to me more like telling people "I was mugged."
Exact details of what happened are private, but the fact that I was assaulted is something I'm quite open about. And I do that as a political position because it was impressed upon me by someone I respected that the world shames the victims of rape and this needs to change.
So I have always handled this from the perspective of "I have nothing to be ashamed of. The person who did this to me should be ashamed of themselves."
But the thing is I told people I had been sexually assaulted but did not name or identify who had done this to me when I spoke of it online and I shared such details with relatively few people for a lot of years.
That was savvy because it gave me the freedom to tell MY story -- what happened to me, how I felt about it and so forth -- without needing to "prove" anything. Had I been naming people, then you potentially have a lot of drama on your hands because now some man's reputation is on the line and he may want to dispute what you are saying.
I didn't need to prove that a specific person did this to me and was guilty of a crime. That was not my goal nor interest.
I had two goals: 1. I needed to find ways to heal and 2. I wanted to be free to educate other people on a sensitive topic and do so in part by using first-hand testimony.
I was free to do that because for a very long time I was not publically on the record as to who had assaulted me. I just told MY story and did not drag anyone else's name into it.
This meant I had nothing I needed to "prove." You can take my word for it that a bad thing happened to me and this is how I feel about it and these are my opinions on the topic without any need to get into "Yes, but, how does that impact [person being named as the perpetrator]?? And what if it's not true???"
I also never filed a police report, for various reasons I never felt compelled to "warn" other people that "X person did [bad thing] to me and you shouldn't trust them!" etc.
A lot of victims really wrestle with such questions because they feel someone "should" have protected them or whatever and if they won't speak up and name names, who will? I did think about such things but came to different conclusions about how best to handle it.
I know there are bad people who habitually do bad things and actively seek to arrange such, but I came to other conclusions about best practices. Those conclusions fall outside the scope of this post and this is being mentioned here solely because not filing a police report and not trying to "warn" other people about "x person" ultimately became a conscious part of my policy of telling MY story (without naming names publically) with maximum freedom to handle that part of it as I saw fit until I felt ready to say more.
It let me control the narrative about my life and my experiences. That control was a precious thing in part because sexual assault involves a loss of control. Telling my story without naming names helped me take back control of my life and my sexuality, something many victims seem to never really achieve in the aftermath.
Using specific terms for specific relationships -- spouse, brother, sister, mother, father, my first boss -- can end up identifying a specific individual (or very short list of specific individuals). You likely aren't as anonymous online as you think you are and it is possible for someone to track down the identity of the person listed in such a fashion even though you didn't outright give their actual legal name.
I recommend the term relative as the most anonymous means to indicate this was particularly bad because it was someone related to you. That's what I came up with as my solution and stuck with it for a lot of years before I was willing to say which relatives. (Possible alternatives that are even more anonymous: Someone very important to me; someone I trusted a LOT.)
When in doubt, err on the side of more anonymity. You aren't required to indicate it was a relative (coworker/whatever) if that is uncomfortable. That info can be added later if you change your mind but it's hard to walk back once you've put it out there.
It's YOUR story to tell. Tell it as YOU see fit.
And yet one of the savvier things I have done in my life was savvy because it elegantly solved a complex issue concerning where to draw the line between public and private on a very sensitive topic.
I was sexually abused as a child and I began seeking help for that in my teens, while still a legal minor. Starting at the age of seventeen, I began buttonholing people and telling them my story, anyone who was willing to listen.
I was in my twenties before I was healed up enough to realize that I was traumatizing people by doing that and I thereafter became more thoughtful and selective about sharing my story. I still shared it, but I stopped randomly dumping on people who weren't really prepared for that.
I grew up with the idea that the shame was on the rapist, not their victim. That doesn't mean I didn't carry the emotional burden of shame that victims carry over what was done to them, but I likely experienced it somewhat differently.
I do remember telling one of my therapists that I felt like if people "really knew me" they would "run from me" because I felt so damaged by what happened and so tainted, like there was no washing off what someone else had done to me. And yet this emotional burden failed to prevent me from buttonholing people and crying on a lot of different shoulders about what had happened to me.
Most victims of molestation or rape -- and I am a victim of both -- don't share that information with just anybody. Sharing it ends up being a mark of trust.
They keep it very private and that fact ends up making such information about them a kind of intimate information. I treated what was done to me more like telling people "I was mugged."
Exact details of what happened are private, but the fact that I was assaulted is something I'm quite open about. And I do that as a political position because it was impressed upon me by someone I respected that the world shames the victims of rape and this needs to change.
So I have always handled this from the perspective of "I have nothing to be ashamed of. The person who did this to me should be ashamed of themselves."
But the thing is I told people I had been sexually assaulted but did not name or identify who had done this to me when I spoke of it online and I shared such details with relatively few people for a lot of years.
That was savvy because it gave me the freedom to tell MY story -- what happened to me, how I felt about it and so forth -- without needing to "prove" anything. Had I been naming people, then you potentially have a lot of drama on your hands because now some man's reputation is on the line and he may want to dispute what you are saying.
I didn't need to prove that a specific person did this to me and was guilty of a crime. That was not my goal nor interest.
I had two goals: 1. I needed to find ways to heal and 2. I wanted to be free to educate other people on a sensitive topic and do so in part by using first-hand testimony.
I was free to do that because for a very long time I was not publically on the record as to who had assaulted me. I just told MY story and did not drag anyone else's name into it.
This meant I had nothing I needed to "prove." You can take my word for it that a bad thing happened to me and this is how I feel about it and these are my opinions on the topic without any need to get into "Yes, but, how does that impact [person being named as the perpetrator]?? And what if it's not true???"
I also never filed a police report, for various reasons I never felt compelled to "warn" other people that "X person did [bad thing] to me and you shouldn't trust them!" etc.
A lot of victims really wrestle with such questions because they feel someone "should" have protected them or whatever and if they won't speak up and name names, who will? I did think about such things but came to different conclusions about how best to handle it.
I know there are bad people who habitually do bad things and actively seek to arrange such, but I came to other conclusions about best practices. Those conclusions fall outside the scope of this post and this is being mentioned here solely because not filing a police report and not trying to "warn" other people about "x person" ultimately became a conscious part of my policy of telling MY story (without naming names publically) with maximum freedom to handle that part of it as I saw fit until I felt ready to say more.
It let me control the narrative about my life and my experiences. That control was a precious thing in part because sexual assault involves a loss of control. Telling my story without naming names helped me take back control of my life and my sexuality, something many victims seem to never really achieve in the aftermath.
Footnote
If you go this route, you likely need to take some time to think through the kind of language you will use when speaking publicly about such things. "Not naming names" doesn't work if you take it too literally.Using specific terms for specific relationships -- spouse, brother, sister, mother, father, my first boss -- can end up identifying a specific individual (or very short list of specific individuals). You likely aren't as anonymous online as you think you are and it is possible for someone to track down the identity of the person listed in such a fashion even though you didn't outright give their actual legal name.
I recommend the term relative as the most anonymous means to indicate this was particularly bad because it was someone related to you. That's what I came up with as my solution and stuck with it for a lot of years before I was willing to say which relatives. (Possible alternatives that are even more anonymous: Someone very important to me; someone I trusted a LOT.)
When in doubt, err on the side of more anonymity. You aren't required to indicate it was a relative (coworker/whatever) if that is uncomfortable. That info can be added later if you change your mind but it's hard to walk back once you've put it out there.
It's YOUR story to tell. Tell it as YOU see fit.