We’ve got a long way to go, baby
My friend Extreme Liberal posted a piece here awhile back titled “I was sexually assaulted as a child”. With Glenn Greenwald’s obscene comments about my good friend Angry Black Lady, I thought now might be a good time to tell my own story of being sexually molested as a young boy.
Unlike Extreme Liberal’s assault, I was, in fact, not aware that I had actually been assaulted until many years later. You may well ask, “If you didn’t know you were assaulted, how can you say you were?” You can trust me when I tell you that I have asked myself that same question.
The assault actually occurred in a public place. I was in fifth grade and was getting ready to join the school football team. As is typical, I was required to have a sports physical and the school system provided them at low cost for any boy that needed one. We simply had to pay a small fee, $10 or $15, and show up on a Saturday morning.
I showed up with my money in hand and waited in line with the other preteens in the boys’ locker room at the local high school. One by one, we went behind a curtain to receive our physical from a kind-looking older doctor, probably in his late 50s or early 60s. I had heard about the process from some of the older boys and knew to expect an uncomfortable moment when he would put his hands down my underpants, touch my privates, and tell me to “turn your head and cough”, checking for a hernia. This did, indeed, happen. Then this nice old man did something else.
“Lean over the table, young man,” he told me.
I did as I was told; he was the doctor, after all. He then lowered my underpants and without warning thrust one of his fingers deep inside my anus. He probed a bit as I squirmed, trying to be brave. He then removed his finger and told me we were through. He signed my form and sent me on my way.
I was ten years old.
I walked out and quickly brushed passed the other boys. I had to get out of there. I’m sure my face was blushing deep red. What had happened came and went so quickly that I hadn’t yet processed it. It seemed odd that he would do that. I had never heard of boys having to have that happen to them. But he was a nice old man and he was a DOCTOR. I felt conflicted because it hurt and I didn’t like it but I was going to be playing football so I needed to be tough and not a pansy. Besides, if a doctor did it, it was okay, right?
I never told anyone about what had happened until many, many years later. I never told my mother, a single mom going to school and raising a couple of boys, and there were really no men in my life to talk about it with. Besides, it was embarrassing and dirty. Still, I felt like a “wussy” for feeling like that. It was a doctor, for Pete’s sake.
In short time, I put it out of my mind. Entirely, in fact. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that the memory of that day floated to the surface. The instant it did, I realized that I had been sexually molested by an older man, a man with power and control over me and, most importantly, who had my trust. He had taken advantage of his position to satisfy his carnal yearnings for young boys under the guise of giving a 10-year old a rectal exam. So far as I know, he did this with every boy he saw that day.
It was a strange realization and I wasn’t sure what to do with the emotions that it raised. Even now, writing this as an adult, I wonder how people will view me for sharing it and I’m even considering not putting up on my own blog.
So, why write about it now? Unless I am in total denial, it didn’t leave any emotional scars on me. I have a normal life with a good career, a happy marriage and some mighty fine kids. Why should some privileged white dude like me have anything to contribute to the dialog about rape and sexual assault just because some pervert stuck his finger up my ass when I was ten?
I am writing about this now because the national conversation about sexual assault is a fucking train wreck. Over the past weekend, this became abundantly clear with the dust up between Angry Black Lady (Imani) and Glenn Greenwald over his tweet about her. The facts are there for everyone to see. Glenn Greenwald, a man with a national, hell an international megaphone suggested that Imani (with the implication that most Obama supporters would join her) would find it “justified & noble” if President Barack Obama raped a nun live on television. Another person even suggested that she would fantasize that it was her being raped.
Think about that for a minute. A national political figure is completely comfortable using such rhetoric and even defending it after the fact.
What I experienced with that doctor is only a minute fraction of the physical and emotional pain that many people, the vast majority of whom are women, experience when they are raped. I know this. I’ve had relatives, girlfriends and close acquaintances that were sexually assaulted and I have watched what they have gone through after the fact. They are humiliated during the attack and then again repeatedly after the fact by a society that questions what they did to incite it. Every person reading this knows someone who has been raped. You may not even know who they are, but you can be sure that you know someone who has gone through this cataclysmic, life-changing/life-damaging experience. It’s all around us, but we still don’t have a clue how to talk about it.
The fact that someone who calls himself a progressive can be complicit in suggesting that rape is something his adversaries would condone is beyond the pale. It is a screaming loud, flashing neon light telling us that the conversation about sexual assault in this country is completely off the rails. Make no mistake; Glenn Greenwald is simply one shining, in-the-spotlight example of it. He is joined by the person who first tweeted it and by the person who suggested Imani would want it. He is joined by every person who thinks it’s okay to use rape references to make their point about their opponents. He is joined by our media that not-so-subtlety glamorizes rape in advertising and in our television shows. He is joined by everyone who tells rape jokes or even laughs at rape jokes.
Glenn Greenwald showed his true colors this past weekend. He portrays himself as a moral leader, someone we can TRUST to show us all the horror in what others do, most specifically our president. But, his actions toward Imani showed us is that he is just as myopic and careless and ignorant as the piece of trash telling rape jokes in the lunchroom.
What he showed us, most profoundly, is that we have long way to go in this country in our national conversation about rape.
For more of Chris Savage’s writing, visit Eclectablog.
Thank you Chris. It is so important that people tell their stories, and every conclusion you draw is so true. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing Chris. I know how you feel about hitting that publish button on such a personal subject.
I didn’t even mention the Greenwald and then John Cole incident of the last few days to my wife, she’s been raped twice in her life and I just didn’t want her to have to think about it once again, she does that enough already.
But according to Greenwald and Cole, what’s the big deal about throwing around the rape metaphor, analogy, vile comment…whatever you want to call it?
We do have a long way to go, I’m not so sure we will ever get there to be honest. We have to keep trying, though.
Thanks for sharing Chris. I know how you feel about hitting that publish button on such a personal subject.
I didn’t even mention the Greenwald and then John Cole incident of the last few days to my wife, she’s been raped twice in her life and I just didn’t want her to have to think about it once again, she does that enough already.
But according to Greenwald and Cole, what’s the big deal about throwing around the rape metaphor, analogy, vile comment…whatever you want to call it?
PS I just wanted to add a link to this thing I did a couple of weeks ago, too, because of the studies it links to: http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/12/16/rape-as-a-defining-characteristic-of-american-society/
Men who rape think they’re normal. If that doesn’t make our breath catch in our throats, I don’t know what will.
Thanks, Emily. Great addition. The fact that so many male rapists think they are acting “normal” is aided and abetted by our national fucked up mentality about rape and sexual assault.
Thank you, Chris.
Such an important statement, Chris. Thanks so much for making it here with us. A very long way to go, indeed.
Thank you for sharing your story with us, Chris. It is tremendously difficult, as I can attest, especially in light of this current horrible situation. People just do not understand, and seem to be aggressively intent on continuing to not understand. Hopefully, stories like these can get through to some of them…though, sadly, I won’t hold my breath.
But again – thank you, and bless.
Thank you, great post. About a month ago I had a Christian conservative accuse me of “intellectual rape” and when I responded negatively was told, “it’s only a metaphor”. I had never heard anyone use this phrase before but since that time I have seen it repeatedly and almost always used by conservative bloggers. Wasn’t I right to be offended?
Yes, you absolutely were right in being offended. We need to change the way we talk about rape and make it completely unacceptable to discuss it in such flippant, careless terms. We’re all probably guilty of it at one time or another but, when we’re called on it, we need to correct ourselves, not double down defensively as Greenwald has done and is doing (with help from his legion of supporters.)
The support he is getting is ironic, isn’t it? They accuse supporters of President Obama of being unquestioning sycophants but are unable to see that they are doing just that very thing themselves.
Thank you for validating my reaction…I wasn’t entirely sure (and there’s my own long story behind why I even questioned my own reaction). But my gut definitely was offended. His use of the term was actually a response to a blog post of mine where I took on some of the criticisms that many Christian Conservatives use to question the President’s faith. I basically said the “criticisms” were based on racism and were hypocritical. His feelings were obviously hurt and so he used a hyperbolic rape term. I was nice enough about my response to him trying to explain why it was offensive citing the statistics, etc but he was completely incapable of seeing my point. I was just being “too politically correct” and “sensitive”. I guess that’s why he’s a conservative…open mindedness isn’t their strong suit.
Bravo, Chris. Thank you so much for telling your story and for saying so clearly what needs to be said – this country is long overdue for a serious discussion (or a hundred) on rape.
Wasn’t that to check for hernia? because that also happened to me when I went out for track.
We were told it was going to happen, so we wouldn’t deck the guy.
No, I’m pretty sure the “turn your head and cough” thing is for hernias. The rectal exam is used to check for prostrate problems in older men….but I’m not a doctor…. BTW, if they are going to do such a thing, they warn you, as they did in your case OR the doctor tells you ahead of time what he is going to do so you don’t end up feeling violated.
Rectal exams are done to check the prostate. My own doctor doesn’t do them until the patient is 50. This doctor did the hernia check, something I’ve experienced dozens of other times by doctors for physical exams, and then the rectal exam. This was not appropriate nor was I warned.
Heck, even if there’s a legit reason to check a ten-year-old’s prostate (which there isn’t), the fact you were not warned is enough to make it a violation/assault. My gynecologist talks through my pelvic exam procedure because she knows it’s better to never surprise a woman when her feet are in the stirrups in case something else is triggered. And she knows damn well I’ve been getting the things since I was 18.
Eclecta, thanks for posting this.
I’m sort of blown away by how extremely tasteless this whole wretched mess has been. It’s good to hear from people who are sane, and have something to contribute to the conversation.
Chris, thank you for sharing your story. I am so moved by your courage.
Thank you, Chris. Of course it took you many years to realize you’d been sexually assaulted. At age 10 you didn’t have the vocabulary or experience to understand what had happened. You suspected it was wrong but it was a DOCTOR! (The disgusting creep.)
Would you be a different person today if that pervert hadn’t molested you? Probably not — but who knows? It’s part of you now and you were not allowed a choice.
Thank you for sharing your story man.
It makes me mad and sick that this fucker has opened wounds to so many people by egging on this sick joke to make a point. And also, yet to apologize, or care how hurtful it was.
I hope you and all those who were wounded are at peace now, otherwise, nothing for me to say but sit and think
Thank you, Chris, both for sharing your story and for putting this whole thing in the right frame.
Thank you, Chris. If nothing else, we need to continue to shine a spotlight on the prevalence of sexual assault of women and girls but also of boys and men. Sexual assault among women is grossly under-reported and doubly so among men.
Keep up the good work in all you do!
This wasn’t the first time one of Salon’s writers showed extreme insensitivity to rape. Here’s a piece I posted last year on Open Salon about Justin Elliott’s nauseating trivialization of rape. Remarkably, it was not among Salon’s “Editor Picks.” Gee, I wonder why? As for Greenwald, this was the ultimate in his disgusting demagoguery.
Why $alon doesn’t rid themselves of this garbage is $imple.
http://bit.ly/yLHIdo
This may help you feel a little less violated…
“It would be up to the discretion of the doctor who was examining you. To do a thorough physical on an adult male, we doctors are taught throughout our training that a rectal examination must be included. Many doctors might suggest that a rectal examination in an otherwise routine sports physical might not be absolutely necessary, unless the examining doctor thought he/she felt some abnormality during the genital examination (which nearly all experts agree SHOULD be part of any sports physical). Perhaps the doctor felt something suspicious while examining your scrotum, and then did a rectal examination to make sure everything was fine. It sounds like by doing this more thorough exam the doctor was reassured that whatever he felt during your scrotal exam was actually normal. Of course, this is just an educated guess, without actually knowing what the examining doctor was thinking, but that is what I would have done in that situation.”
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110212094210AAKKT2X
Maybe the next time you go to your doctor you could explain what happened and ask if there is ever a situation where such an exam would be appropriate.
You’re very sensitive. Why no outrage about a monster trivializing goat rape? Coward.
The wha?