Dear Ms. McCaughey,
Imagine, if you will, a fall afternoon many years ago when two neighborhood boys stop by your house after school. You’re at work, of course, so your (hypothetical) 16-year-old daughter lets the boys in. She doesn’t think twice about it because she has known them both for eight years and they have come over before. They grew up together. They’re friends.
They talk for a while in the kitchen and somehow end up in your daughter’s room. They’re still talking, but then one of the boys picks up a wire clothes hanger that was on the floor and playfully hits your daughter on the leg with it. Then the other boy picks up a hanger and hits her as well. Then the hits stop being playful and start hurting. Your daughter is feeling nervous, but these are her friends. There’s no need to worry, right?
Somehow, they throw her on top of her mattress. Remember when she decided not to have a bed frame or box spring? She wanted the mattress on the floor. You warned her that it would be bad for her back, but she never listens.
So, now she’s on her back, on her mattress on the floor, and wondering how she got here. One of the boys holds her bed pillow over her face, while the other boy is attempting to unbutton her jeans. She can’t breathe under the pillow, she’s kicking her legs, she can feel that her pubic hair is almost exposed, and she can’t believe that her two friends are seeing that part of her. She’s so embarrassed. They can also see her stomach pudge. She knows it’s there because last summer an older boy at the beach laid down next to her, put his hand on her tummy, made it jiggle, and said, “you better tighten that up.”
She can’t breathe, she’s confused, she’s scared and she’s embarrassed.
The boy down below is jamming his hand farther down the front of her jeans, while the boy who is holding the pillow over her face is laughing and saying “get them off!”
Then the phone rings. The sound of that phone lights a fire in your daughter and she starts fighting back harder than before. While wildly thrashing about, she manages to yell out “my best friend is on her way over. You’re going to get caught!” That was enough. They stop.
She doesn’t ask them to leave right away. Confusion and shame hang heavy in the air. Did she do something to cause this? Did she say something suggestive? Why didn’t she fight harder earlier? She feels like she doesn’t want to be rude to them. She’s always been accused of being too nice. It’s not like they actually raped her.
Should she tell you? Would you believe her? Would you blame her for letting them in? Would you ask her “what did you do to cause this?” Would you talk to their parents? What would happen then? Would everyone find out? Would they get in trouble?
She doesn’t tell you.
The boys no longer stop over. She doesn’t see them that much anymore. She thinks about that day all the time. “How did I let that happen?” plays on repeat in her mind.
Three years later she runs into one of them on the street. She asks him “Why did you do that to me?”
He replies, “Do what?”
As the years pass, you wonder why she struggles with her weight, and why she chooses not to wear makeup when you know that just a little bit of blush would make her look so much better and she will then finally attract a boy. Why doesn’t she date? Why does she wear baggy clothes when she has a such a nice figure? What’s wrong with her?
I ask you, Ms. McCaughey, would you have believed her if she had told you? Or would you have accused her of “man shaming?”
You and the Trumps are setting an unconscionable precedent by blaming the accuser(s). Young men are listening to you and believing that they will not be held accountable after they assault someone. They are going to grow into adults who will believe that they will never be held accountable.
It is wrong to be touched by someone without your consent, no matter if that someone is a friend or a famous person. It’s wrong and it has lifelong ramifications. Sexual assault should not be “locker room talk” and it should never be “a fact of life.”
I am begging the victims to speak up.
I am begging the perpetrators to own up. Those who don’t acknowledge their wrongdoing are weak cowards. If you don’t own up, I can only hope that the ghosts of victims past and present will begin to haunt your days and nights.
I am begging for the perpetrators to face consequences.
But most of all, I am begging for the end of sexual assault.
Sincerely,
Amy C.
Cc: Donald and Melania Trump
Newt Gingrich
Rudy Giuliani
Bill Clinton
Brock Turner
Donald Trump, Jr.
Alec Cook
Every person who brushes off sexual assault and/or blames the accuser.
