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Yesterday at work, one my co-workers was talking about the Ghomeshi case. This trial is about Ghomeshi’s alleged actions. Not about what three women did before they went the courts. But he mentioned that he didn’t understand why Lucy Decoutere and the other women who have so far testified in the case stayed in contact with their alleged assailant.
To be honest, I used to be like him: a guy who didn’t get it. Until I had the shit kicked out of me by someone who was very close to me.
The instant those fists railed against me was the instant I was on a path to understanding why so many women rally around those who publicly say they’ve been assaulted. Why? Because they fucking know what the deal is.
They do it because if it hasn’t happened to them (and it probably has), it happened to someone close to them. To so many people close to them. The amount of women who told me what happened to them when I told them what happened to me was staggering, if not frightening. Women I had known all my life who told me about how they had been assaulted, attacked, raped and just lived in fear walking down the street.
I still recall the day I heard Lucy Decoutere talk about what happened to her on CBC Radio’s “The Current.” I started crying because everything she said about what she did, and how, and why, made sense. No, you don’t believe what just happened and you will do everything in your power to rationalize and justify and excuse. Because in that moment, and moments after, that didn’t happen to you. It happens to other people. Not you. You won’t be, can’t be, one of those people who get hit. You wouldn’t be stupid enough to be with someone like that. Not you.
I am writing this anonymously, because I still worry about retribution. If an intelligent, articulate, and incredibly loving person like my co-worker can’t wrap their head around the hows and whys of the actions of an assault survivor, no matter how well-intentioned, then I dread to think how the general public would act. I dread to think how much I would be put on trial in the court of public opinion, even though all I did was survive. Every act I did before the moment when that person pounded my body with their fists, and every act I did after would be put to scrutiny.
I understand that they would be because people want to understand why. Why would someone do that to another person? That’s what I asked myself when I was left bloodied and my eye shut closed. I blamed myself. There is no way that the person who left me in need of stitches would be “one of those people.” There is no way that this person who had loved me, been so wonderful in so many wonderful moments, would be the one who left me in such fear that I couldn’t take public transportation for months or go to certain parts of the city without waves of punishing anxiety pounding through my veins.
Two days after my assault, I went to work with a huge black eye, and cuts and stitches on myself. The men at my work asked me, “What does the other guy look like?” while the women around me looked at me with worry and concern. I walked around jumping at every little noise, scouting crowds for look-a-likes of the person who gave me these bruises. At one point I walked into a store, and a clerk, who barely knows me, looked at me with concern and extended a hand gently to ask me, “Are you okay? Do you need help?”
I’m not here to “mansplain” anything to anyone. I think the women who are talking about this (and the individuals of all genders who support them) are doing amazing work. I bow to them and thank them for their thankless jobs. It’s the rest of us who need to listen more intently.
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This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2016.
How is a guy supposed to defend himself if a grown woman decides to chase him first and if she is not successful, wait another 10, 12 years to say something? Does the guy have any chance of a defence? For christ’s sake.
Though I see the point the author Is attempting to make between battered women’s syndrome and Lucy De Couteres testimony the problem is that they only went on a few dates .They were not in a long term relationship.so using the mentality of battered women’s syndrome or something close to why the witness did not either walk away or come forward does not cut it
Truly abusive men with which I have been involved would NEVER EVER lay his hands on a woman during the first ,second or even third date .Doesnt work like that .Domestic batterers are very.smooth and will wine you and dine you for the first three to six months before ever laying a hand on you .The point is to get the emotional hook in there so the woman is so besotted she won’t leave no matter what he does
One date does not classify as getting ones hooks into a victim to explain them coming back for more I am afraid
Yes he can state the time she gave consent.
It’s not fair to have published your story to justify Lucy DeCouture’s testimony when the circumstances are vastly different. The number of dislikes represents the emotional response rather than a rational comparison of the two. This is particularly disturbing as the overwhelming emotional responses of the past have only helped to create poor public policy.
What is happening here? Am I to understand that all these women are in a conspiracy? That all the witnesses of this man and his antics are also involved in said conspiracy? All the people( men and women) who have come forward from his social circle to tell you the public about what kind of terrible person he really is are suddenly, now, conspirators against this poor semingly innocent man? I do not buy it for a second!!!
Let’s not pretend all abusers will act exactly the same way.
Strange how Ghomshei has admitted to this type of behavior and how his defense never really questioned the actual acts he’s on trial for, just the women’s actions before and after.
Two points.
1. If it was assault (and I’m not saying it wasn’t), then it wasn’t the kind to leave any physical traces, or even to leave the victims with any meaningful misgivings about spending time alone with him.
2. As others have pointed out, they weren’t in any kind of relationship at that point, so it’s hard to see how battered wife syndrome applies.
Ah, the court of public opinion. This is where ordinary people try to apply their own experiences to a complicated situation that is out of their realm of experience to come up with the “truth.” If it were that easy there would be no need of a judicial system.
You might believe Lucy, but the judge didn’t…
I lived with my rapist for 2 years after he tied me to a bed and … then said what he did was an accident. That lie was better than believing that he had raped me. It took me 20 years to acknowledge what had happened and it nearly destroyed me in the meanwhile. I don’t say I am a rape survivor, I did not survive. Something of me died- the liberty of desire, the delicate nature of intimacy- I have to work at these things now, so I say I WAS a rape victim and now I am something else.
( And even after all the therapy, when I am thinking about it, I sometimes still have to correct myself. I’ll think, “If I hadn’t let myself get raped…” What?!? No one lets themselves be raped- He raped me.)
And Lucy Lucy Lucy. I am sorry for how you were treated. My whole family thought about you and prayed for you. For all the public voices that decried you, so many more of us were at home crying with you. You are a good girl and don’t you ever think otherwise.