Healing Through Confrontation and Accountability

CW/TW assault/rape

Recently a couple of brave women in my life spoke out against a culture, a narrative, and without naming names, some men in our community and yes, one of them used the word rape to describe the behavior of one of the men.

This is something that has been brewing for a year or more, and sadly, it’s pervasive in the both the industry and the micro community within our mid sized midwestern city that these men are a part of. These men are in positions of power, that see you at moments when you are vulnerable. These men are all yoga instructors.

I came back to yoga a little more than a year ago after more than a decade away. I have taken classes with one of the instructors who is accused of improper behavior. He didn’t hit on me. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t a victim, I believe the women who were.

In the weeks since the revelations a silent sit has been held, and female instructors are determined to organize, hold space, and stay trauma informed so as to not cause further damage to victims. It’s a start, and a step toward the right direction in changing a very toxic culture.

My story

I was sexually assaulted, in college. When the stories in the yoga community came to light I felt for the victims. I know, intimately, the trauma one endures when one is assaulted by a prominent member of a community who is in a leadership role. I was a member of a sorority who was assaulted by well known members of a fraternity on my campus. It took me years of therapy, to admit to myself that it actually happened and decades to get to a place where I felt healed enough to tell my story.

I know how hard it is to come forward and confront your accuser, knowing that it is often one person’s word against another, and that law enforcement is slow to press charges. I didn’t report my rape. I didn’t even tell my best friends at the time. I was humiliated. I felt like it was my fault, and I feared repercussions.

The response from law enforcement is exactly why so many women don’t report assault. It was why I didn’t report my own. My rape occurred on a college campus. My perpetrators were friends of mine, and well known members of the greek community. I was intoxicated. I didn’t fight back. I may have even mumbled something that resembled consent but I don’t remember. I know I didn’t consent to being raped by two men. I wasn’t an excited willing participant. I was asleep. I woke up in the middle of it only to pass out again. Immediately after my rape I was embarrassed, and sore but only had fuzzy memories of what happened. I thought I brought it on myself. The reality is that I was in no condition to give consent. I was asleep.

Men, you need to knock this shit off.

I would love to say my rape was an isolated incident in my life, that I never again felt like a victim. Unfortunately that isn’t true. As I have ventured into dating as a middle aged woman I have received unprovoked solicitations for casual sex, unsolicited inappropriate pictures, and most recently a video of a man touching himself.

This time? I called him out. He was someone I went on a date or two with but ultimately friend zoned. We were exchanging texts, none of which were all that flirtatious, because, he was in the friend zone. I gave him zero indication that I wanted a video like that, in fact I’ve told him several times I didn’t care for that kind of thing. In the moment I was shocked and played it off like it wasn’t a big deal, but after I slept on it, decided I needed to confront him. I woke up feeling weepy, dirty, and humiliated. Sending me that video wasn’t okay. I didn’t ask to receive it and I definitely didn’t want it.

There is power in confrontation. I won’t report the unsolicited video to law enforcement (Honestly? Why would I? He didn’t break any laws beyond possibly indecent exposure, and like I said, he was my friend) and I will probably not even tell our mutual friends about it friends unless they ask why we don’t speak anymore. When I confronted him he professed remorse and apologized profusely. I explained that an unprovoked video like that can be super triggering to an assault survivor. He apparently had no idea how jarring that sort of thing, unexpected and unprovoked could be, and again apologized. I accepted his apology, then I blocked his phone number. I can forgive his transgression, and decide that I don’t want him in my life.

Trauma is a funny thing.

Confronting him was healing. It was like a switch flipped. I stopped feeling shameful, the shakiness and tears went away and I stopped wondering what I did to provoke him. I handed his behavior back to him. I started to feel bad because he was embarrassed and sad. I stopped those thoughts. He probably should feel shame and embarrassment. I felt my own feelings and dealt with them. Now, he has to do the work to forgive himself. I’m sure I’m not the first recipient of an unsolicited video from him, but I do hope I am the last.

This situation in the yoga community is a yoga problem, but it’s also a male problem. To that end, it is a societal problem. It needs to fall on the industry to change the narrative, men to own their behavior, and women to demand better from them. Men are part of the problem, and they must be part of the solution if healing is really going to happen.

Accountability is key

In the yoga community accountability looks like what I think of as “soft accountability” it looks like mass exodus away from those instructors. It looks like women reporting these men to studio owners, and law enforcement when necessary if only to establish a pattern. It looks like choosing studios that don’t tolerate this sort of behavior. Soft accountability provides a fortress of safe spaces for women and men to heal.

Away from the yoga community it looks like calling men out and refusing to tolerate bad behavior. We need to report behavior that is illegal. We need to warn our friends, and believe them when they do tell us who to stay away from.

If societal healing is truly going to happen, then we have to confront this wire brush in hand, clean it out and encourage real healing, for everyone involved, the victims and the perpetrators.

Update: I did tell our mutual friends, including the person who set us up. Establishing patterns is important, and that can’t happen if we stay quiet. I chose not to stay silent.