He Promised to First Do No Harm. Then He Did
But please don’t call me a victim of sexual abuse. I’m a survivor of it.
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I never intended to talk about this in public. For 26 years, I kept it stuffed way back in the recesses of my memory where no-one could get to it. Every so often, I went crawling back there, just to take a peek. I never lingered. The recollection was too blinding, even in the dark.
The memory of being sexually abused still sparks such a wild mix of emotions and reactions — anger, betrayal, confusion, disbelief, hurt, shame — I can never quite pinpoint what I’m actually feeling. The cauldron overflows every time another celebrity is revealed to be a serial abuser of women. It happened with Bill Cosby. It happened with Harvey Weinstein. It happened with Matt Lauer.
I try to look away. I retreat to that old dependable state of denial. When allegations first surfaced that the ultimate ’80s TV dad Bill Cosby had sexually taken advantage of a number of women, I asked myself and others: “But why now? Why are they all coming out with their stories years later, at the same time.”
I thought if I could convince myself they were wrong about what had happened to them and Cosby was innocent, I could convince myself I was wrong about what had happened to me.
I was scared. I was terrified of how people would react. I thought they wouldn’t believe me. Or they’d think I was asking for it. Or maybe they’d say I am a gay man, horny and sex-obsessed. I must have enjoyed it.
It wasn’t until Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment and abuse became trending news that the answers finally dawned on me. They waited so long for the same reason I spent decades walking around with a painful memory shoved deep inside of me, concocting excuses and justifications, inventing reasons why it couldn’t have happened to them, too.
I was scared. I was terrified of how people would react. I thought they wouldn’t believe me. Or they’d think I was asking for it. Or maybe they’d say I am a gay man, horny and sex-obsessed. I must have enjoyed it.
