You may be an abuser’s ally if you think…

Vet your feels w/ this list of things NOT to say to an alleged victim

Logan M. Isaac
Sep 6, 2018 · 8 min read

I’m heading down the rabbit hole of alleging an abuse by a powerful old white guy, so I figured I could help his powerful (and not so powerful) friends keep from looking like they’re bandwagoning behind him by, well, showing them the bandwagon. While I borrow heavily from an excellent New York Times article by Shaila Dewan, there were a few ‘reasons’ I felt were left out, so I added a few of my own.

Here are a few things you might find yourself thinking about an alleged victim of abuse if you know the alleged abuser. I explain why you ought to do yourself a favor and don’t let them escape your lips.

1.They don’t act like a victim…

When allegations surface of harassment and abuse, sometimes people close to the victim are dumbfounded; they would not have guessed the victim was, well, a victim. Although this can be a perverted kind of compliment, perhaps the person believed the victim was very strong and admirable or something, but it can serve to illegitimately discredit the victim. After all, if they don’t act like a victim, they must not be one, right? More often than not, this sentiment is a weaponized version of “I know it when I see it” kind of situtation.

Why shouldn’t you let this sentiment slip? If you read Justice Stewart’s quote, you’ll see the problem. He contradicts himself a few syllables earlier, saying he could not intelligibly define the thing he thought he knew at first sight. So… he doesnt know it when he sees it! Also, nobody knows what ‘a victim’ acts like because no two victims act alike. As Dewan put it, “victims act in a variety of ways.”

2.But they’re still friends with each other!

Often the victim and abuser, by necessity, must spend time together or be seen in public. That does not mean they’re friends, it just means they’re friendly. Many abuses occur in the workplace or in the home, each places where social decorum often mandates undesireable behavior (like showering or burshing your teeth. What, just me?). The reality is that the appearance of a cordial relationship does not really indicate any real trust, intimacy, or camaraderie.

Why shouldn’t you let this sentiment slip? Even if what I claim above isn’t persuasive, friends abuse friends all the time. In fact there is a prevailing idea that abusers are stranger-dangers and alley-dwelling randos, but it’s bogus. Statistically it’s most likely that an abuse is perpetrated by close friends and loved ones, not the other way around. Don’t be the person who normalizes abuse between friends. Before you know it, you won’t have any left to abuse…

3.Why did they only come forward now?

This has got to be the most popular sentiment, by far. Maybe it has something to do with how it just rolls of the tongue; “why now?” It’s like butter, but like if butter could threaten to never let you enjoy chocolate cookies anymore unless you agreed to let it sit around unwrapped all the time. Because most abusers are known by their victims, we know that the abuse can come as a shock, something that takes time to process. Often the victim doesn’t even recognize the abuse until half a million tweets make Alyssa Milano trend in a day, and 4.7 million Facebook users average three posts per person in 24 hours, and like 150 million Americans know someone who talked about abuse and… shit now my head is spinning!

Why shouldn’t you let this sentiment slip? Face it, logic just does not dictate the rate at which the mind and body process trauma. Neither do you. Statutes of limitations, however anyone feels about them, are in place to protect the accused, not the victim. Who said there’s an expiration date on the immorality of abuse? It’s like Twinkies; put that shit in a time capsule and unwrap at user discretion.

4.Their story has holes in it.

This senitment is often reserved for cases that go to, or appear headed to, legal proceedings. Cuz we know that being sworn in magically makes all the problems of actual human memory disappear. This is actually really important, because courts do expect a certain unattainable neuro-perfection that abuse circumvents. The very experience of an act that triggers your body (which includes your brain) to enter a defensive state disables acute recall. To put it in words the body would understand, “Who da fuck needs memory right now?! We tryna stay alive!” I think that’s actually what the synapses say to one another.

Why shouldn’t you let this sentiment slip? What story doesn’t have holes? Even the Bible is holy! (ba-dum-ch) Seriously though, the Gospels are a great illustration; four witnesses, four different stories. Whether they contradict one another, or corroborate a story they each saw in part, is less a reflection of them and more a reflection of us. No one story is complete or perfect, nor would we expect it to be. “If thou wilt be perfect, go and” fuck yourself. A victim’s story doesn’t have to be any more perfect than an abusers or anyone else for that matter. That just not how humans are made.

5.Why didn’t they resist?

This one comes up mostly in sexual assault cases, as though the percieved nonresistance is tantamount to consent. After all, we know it’s standard policy for victims in a lot of crimes to be instructed to resist, like car-jacking, armed robbery, and school shootings. You know, other kinds of assaults. PSYCH! No, they’re not… In all seriousness though, there’s also a lot of good work coming out challenging the idea that the body responds with only either the fight instinct or the flight instinct. Scholarly consensus now is that there is also a freeze instinct, because science. And we all know that alliteration makes everything true.

Why shouldn’t you let this sentiment slip? Let’s be honest, we think this in our heads because we know we would resist, right? Were fucking fighters! And we’d beat the shit out of those assholes cuz we know karate. In our heads. This is actually a thing, of over-estimating our own abilities and projecting that unrealistic self-assessment onto another person. But put in that position ourselves, chances are 1 to 3 that we’d do something other than fight, even if we want to believe otherwise. Me? I killed all those enemy bastards in Iraq! On my Xbox. Playing Halo 3… way more than I’d like to admit.


The above are all regurgitations of Shaila Dewan’s article, below are a few more I felt were important to mention. Notice that none of the above or below sentiments anywhere refute an abuse occurred, it is more about discrediting the victim than about getting at the facts.

6.The behavior isn’t widespread.

All the below seem of a type, specifically the type that assumes or projects the idea that perhaps something happened but it isnt that big of a deal. The problem with this sentiment is that, besides acknowledging guilt, even one time events can be abusive and wrong. It can also be called the “nothing to see here” sentiment because it carries an inherent aversion to public scrutiny. Don’t be that person who endorses a few abuses just because you think they’re limited in scope; “Don’t worry about ‘ole Tom, his cannabalism ain’t widespread. He just nibbles on people every third Sunday.” Think about it: whose interests are served by not talking about it? Tom’s.

Anyway, here are the ways this overall sentiment can be broken down into subordinate parts.

A. It was a one time event. Besides this sentiment endorsing evil so long as it only happens once (like, say, The Fall), it also is simply not reliable. All kinds of abuse were one time events until #MeToo, which showed beyond any shred of a doubt that dominant culture suppresses other events from being disclosed, often by the very sentiments I’ve listed here. In other words, you’ll eat your words as soon as a second instance surfaces. Be careful not to swallow your big toe, it’s a doozy! Also, use baking powder toothpaste to get that foot taste out of your mouth, it’s worked for me.

B. It was a personal matter. When members of a dominant culture insist that something is “personal” it implies that it is private rather than public or political. Feminist scholars and activists have said it best, that “the personal is political,” which is one way of saying that there is no place that abuses are somehow acceptable, that even intimate events must be reasonably subject to public intervention. This sentiment is sometimes coupled with insinuations that the victim is out to “get back at” or “destroy” their abuser as a scorned partner or is seeking some gain other than justice, like money or celebrity. Like most of these sub-sentiments, it sidesteps the actual allegations and effectively protects the alleged abuser, whose own money or celebrity is somehow an assurance of their good character. Even if there is some animus by the victim against their abuser, that is perfectly reasonable if there is no disputing that the events occurred.

C. It can’t be corroborated. This is a version of the ‘holes in their story’ sentiment which is used in some circumstances not to undermine the character of the alleged victim but to object to public intervention. As before, this senitment does not deny that the events occurred, it just conintues to demand more and more and more and more and more evidence. It ignores the fact that witness statements, including those submitted by a victim who witnessed the abuse, are also perfectly acceptable forms of evidence. In other words, the right and proper expectation of corroborating evidence does not necessarily undermine the veracity of any evidence that’s already been submitted.

D. They brought this on themselves. This one stings, every time. This is a victim-blaming sentiment, an infantile “they did it first” defense that pushes any and all responsibility from the alleged abuser to the victim of the abuse. This is big ass fucking NO, nope, na-uh. Every human being, victim and perpetrator alike, are responsible for their own actions and feelings. When I was in Iraq, I’d have been responsible for my own animus against people who shot at me. They’d only be responsible for having shot at me and their own reasons for doing so, many of which were totally legitimate. Abusers are not the victims just because their little feelings got hurt. If I can own my guilt or responsibility for shooting at brown people just because I was told to, not-fucking-body is exempt from blaming the victim. Fuck that race-to-the-bottom bullshit; everyone has moral agency, so nobody gets to skirt it by trying to give it to others in order to evade accountability.


What do you think? Are there other go-to sentiments I need to differentiate? Let me know by highlighting and commenting above!

Logan M. Isaac

Written by

Veteran Author, Advocate, & Entrepreneur. My real passion is education; I love to teach almost as much as I love to learn. Founder, @CenturionsGuild & @PewPewHQ

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