I recently received beta reader feedback (on my query, not the book) that most agents will reject the manuscript immediately once they get to the trigger warnings (SA, abortion, suicide).
That's kind of the job of trigger warnings, and that's fine. I spent years avoiding SA triggers specifically and I totally understand why we have them. Then, after years of therapy, started poking the bear. I listened to the Lolita Cast by Jamie Loftus. I read MY DARK VANESSA and barely slept until it was finished, and then did almost nothing but sleep for two days. I read NOBODY'S GIRL and THE WOMAN IN ME. I read SADIE and cheered out loud at the end. I re-read LOLITA, re-watched FREEWAY and HARDCANDY. Back in the day, it was Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, and Bitch Magazine that at least pointed me in the direction of the idea that I wasn’t alone.
There is an undercurrent of reality that's there, whether you engage with it or not. We exist and our experiences resound within the world, and we don't get trigger warnings on lived experience. My biggest haters from my hometown have said that I spoke out for attention. What is attention worth? $0. What has it cost? My childhood, my family of origin, thousands in therapy, years of my life, and loss of friends who knew me before 2015 when I left for good. At times, my sanity. On a couple occasions, almost my life.
I’m always sorry to bring this up. I know I’m supposed to stick to a brand. That it’s safer to build my platform on the positive, valuable information pertaining to farming, sustainability, and all that which helped me take over my own life. But I have to believe there’s value in this, the dark side, too.
My previous post about this topic, Accountability, Backbone, and Change: The ABC’s of Transformative Justice did numbers like nothing else I’ve ever put out. That both saddens me and let me have the only taste of justice and being believed that I ever had from the community where it happened. And well, it’s my substack, so I’m gonna cry if I want to:
I’ve been called everything in the book. A liar, a slut (and many creative versions of that), a heartbreaker, a siren (intended complement), and my favorite, a crazy b*tch. People who don’t even know me have compared me to my mom, just because they think it’s the best way to hurt me. Women and other survivors have been some of the worst, doing the dirty work for the men they feel attached to. To me, the only unbelievable thing from Virginia’s memoir was the coming together of Epstien’s survivors in a loving, accepting way. It’s a nice thought, but from where I sit, it looks like most people just privately admit to themselves or their communities that some woman they once attacked was right. Then they move on without saying a word to the ones who spilled their guts to try to make a difference. In my absence, I became a target to which people could pin their projections on and take aim, rather than looking inward, or using critical thinking to assess the truth. Today, I am a talking point, a piece of supporting evidence for those who want to act like they couldn’t have known better before.
It’s really easy to write off your own hypocrisy that way. At least until we show up on your screen or on the pages and remind you that we are human beings that exist in the world, not just as constructs of the story you tell when we’re not in the room. We are not a boogeyman. We are not a monolith. I can be a lot. Too much, for some. But more importantly, I am the inconvenient reminder that I was child. We were kids. And he wasn’t. They weren’t.
If my critics were right about anything, it’s that he wasn’t doing anything that so many other men did and do. He wasn’t even the only one for me. My diaries are full of soft-lit scenes of blanket forts, trampoline sleepovers, and bike rides followed by graphic descriptions that no trigger warning could prepare anyone for. In handwriting that looks as childish as I was.
I let it go when I could. It’s hard enough to stand up to one man. I weighed the cost-to-benefit analysis: is he doing this to others, or just me? Can I prove it? How debilitating was it ultimately, compared to everything else? Naming multiple men would have made it harder to argue that it wasn’t my fault, because after all, I was the common denominator. So, I picked the one that took the most out of me. The most blatant example. But I, and hopefully we, now know that doesn’t make it any less devastating. No less painful than the question of, why me? What is wrong with me? Why does this keep happening? Why do I keep lashing out? Why can’t I love him back?
The answer I had back then still hangs around: that maybe I am a little crazy. Or worse, that I have some uncontrolled supernatural quality that made them do it. A Lolita complex. Daddy issues. That I wasn’t strong enough, brave enough, stubborn enough, disciplined enough.
A truer answer is probably that I was just vulnerable. And it was obvious for all of them to see, like a tattoo on my forehead. Without going into detail, I did anything to not be at home, and many needs were regularly going unmet. Buying me food at Denny’s was enough. And once I was on their turf, I didn’t have the means to leave. No driver’s license, and no bus to take from Hillsboro back to Springfield. No safe place to go even if there were.
One thing I’ve wondered about is the fact that they all knew each other. Before me, and through me. I’ve heard at least one of them say “join the club”. Were they comparing notes? Did it give them a sense of comradery, like, say, Epstein’s ring? If I had to guess, I’d say that the same shit taken to the extreme by those with resources to burn exists in small town, bum-fuck versions all over the country. They cover for each other. Listen from the other room. Trade photos. Keep secrets. Reassure each other. They just don’t dedicate entire islands and extravagant parties to it.
Today, maybe people find it a little easier to acknowledge abuse. I sure so. When the chickens come home to roost, as they always do, those who excuse harmful behavior will find out that they are not immune to being harmed by the same shit, same person, or same situation as someone else they considered disposable. If anyone had listened to kids, to women, to the unhoused and poor, to the disabled, to the sex workers, I will argue that we could have avoided the fascist take over America is currently embroiled in. We had time, plenty of evidence, and opportunity. We had better conditions to make changes. We failed. We chose comfort and consumption and vanity and excuses. The same ones eating babies are making it impossible for you to afford a house, and they’re coming for your drinking water as we speak.
So yes, arrest the disgraced former Prince. Arrest and convict every single pedophilic, kidnapping, war mongering, murderous leech making billions off of the working class's manufactured scarcity. Before it’s too late.
Thank you, Virginia. Thank you to all who sacrifice so much to tell on the assholes. I wouldn’t be here if those stories hadn’t found me just in time. When one of us finally gets believed, whenever a single meager consequence is finally handed down, when the world can finally agree to do SOMETHING to make it safer for the most vulnerable among us, we can all breathe a little easier. Even if we still have so far to go.
I don’t know what it will take for some people to take this personally. I’m afraid the real end of the world won't be because of a few failures or a handful of bad actors. It will be because all of us didn't care enough to interrupt our lives and be moved to action by the stories, evidence, and proof that's been there all along. All the resources and scientific and indigenous knowledge it would take to stop the genocides and stabilize the climate exist. There is no problem we have without a solution. The writing on the wall is painfully clear, and we have the means to save ourselves, future generations, and the world from mass extinction. We simply don’t possess the will, collectively or individually, to be the ones to do it.
Apathy is an existential threat.
I think I’d prefer a zombie apocalypse.