When The State Fails (why survivors need solidarity, not shame)

Mj Hughes
Mj Hughes
Aug 27, 2017 · 6 min read

Trigger warning for discussions of sexual assault and police responses.

This is a call for solidarity. It is a story I tell at great risk, but with great urgency. I am just absolutely dismayed at the need for it to be said, but if it has to I will.

Currently there is a knot in my stomach and the familiar feelings of anxiety are floating around my chest threatening to burst out. I can never quite shake it and in the last few weeks, it’s been almost overwhelming. A few weeks ago I learned that a man who I thought was gone from my life had a another victim. Her presence — although welcome, made him present again. He became what we discussed, his tactics, his presence in our lives and the lives of our friends, and the way in which he continues to affect us. He assaulted and harassed me on numerous occasions, and has engaged in predatory conduct to many different people within the Melbourne theatre scene. This isn’t a piece which addresses him by name, I already have done that, and do not wish to again. It’s a piece talking about why we do what we do, and asking for solidarity.

The woman reported him only a few weeks later, and received notification from the police that no charges would be laid. It’s a gutting response, but one that is extremely common and one I am altogether too familiar with. It is my firm belief that the police do not believe, despite knowing his crimes, that he is a danger to anyone, and that any abuse of women he perpetrates is trivial. The trust we place in the state is so routinely broken it is a form of betrayal in itself. We’re often left with the sense that it is our job as survivors to stop our abuse. It is no longer acceptable, and here’s why.

After sexual assaults are reported in the media, they are often followed with a plea for survivors to contact the police. The hollowness of the call to come forward was writ large in the case of Lauren Ingram, a respected journalist who was raped by a member of the New South Wales Greens. The New South Wales Police were found to have misplaced evidence that was tantamount to their investigation. Lauren did absolutely everything the police tell victims to do, and they still completely failed her. In light of this and as a result of numerous known failings of the police, Lauren named her assailant online. Lauren has written extensively about this herself, and her words speak better than any I can offer. However, it is important to know why survivors do this.

Simply put, it’s because we have nothing left.

I honestly believed my abuser had left my life, and that he never would be accountable for his actions. It is so exceptionally rare that survivors achieve formal mechanisms of justice, so, we take our own. There are over a thousand people in a local Melbourne Facebook group who now know my abuser’s name ( Obviously the name of group won’t be disclosed to protect the privacy of its members and also the integrity of the disclosure itself) in a 109 comment thread, many women also disclosed untoward experiences with this man, and expressed dismay that he continues to be able to abuse. These experiences range from excessive messaging, inappropriate comments on their appearance, and persistent contact after contact had been ceased. And that’s just it. If it had not been a concerted effort on our part, no one would know about him. People who’ve had untoward contact with this man would continue, as I did, to believe it was only them who were subjected to it. Every system is open to abuse, but survivors rarely have anything to gain and everything to lose by naming their perpetrators. Even as I write this and get ready to share it, I am filled with “what ifs”. what if no one believes me, what if someone I know betrays my trust and shares it with him. But these things cannot be worse than knowing the alternative is to be silent. And I simply won’t be. Is what I am doing right or ethical? That remains subjective, but the irony is not lost on myself and other survivors that we hear so often when we discuss our perpetrators by name that they are “innocent until proven guilty” and that online naming amounts to defamation. Let it be known that as I have said previously, online naming occurs because of a lack of action by police. It occurs because there’s literally no other recourse, and we must absolutely get our brains around the idea that when we arrive at that point as survivors, almost every other formal mechanism has been exhausted. It is also not lost on me the fact that it is seen as so easy to “cry rape” and survivors must be out to “ruin men’s lives” when it’s our lives that are often ruined, at least in the immediate aftermath. If that were truly our intention, there would be easier and more effective ways of doing so.

In the aftermath of the disclosure, myself and other victims have received an outpouring of support. I am so lucky I have friends that understand and support disclosures like this. However the fact remains that my abuser remains unaccountable for his actions. He remains a serial sexual predator, who’s behavior is escalating. It is of vital importance, that even if we have misgivings, the people around survivors wholeheartedly support survivors when they speak. It is also important that the culture of silence around abusive men in the arts and in any community for that matter is broken. If it is known an abusive man exists in your companies, is employed by your venues, or is anywhere where his victim pool can be widened, he must be stopped. All too often, men who occupy high profile positions turn a blind eye to the abuse that their fellow men commit, because it simply does not affect them. They are priviledged enough not to be able to witness the trauma victims are left with, and simply do not see past the often superficial charm perpetrators exude. I was discussing this with a psychologist, one who’d also had experience working with offenders in prison situations. I have been seeing this woman for upwards of six years, including when the abuse itself was happening and it is only this week I have been able to acknowledge the fact that he manipulated everybody , including me, into believing he was one of the good guys. He even posted feminist statements on International Women’s Day, because of course, men who are feminists could not possibly be abusive. She said, that is this superficial charm is as unnerving and damaging as outright violence, and often a lot more dangerous. And I believe her.

What I would like, is to be able to write plays, do auditions, and feel a part of a community again. I would like to be able to put on work without feeling like I need to be on guard he will turn up in the audiences. I’d like venues to not employ him as a reviewer, which I know some in Melbourne still do. I’d like to be able to walk around without the feeling of anger and anxiety churning in my gut, and the grief at the lost potential. He has taken so much from me, and the depths of it will never really be acknowledged. Most of all I’d just like for us to collectively undertake to believe, hold, and nurture every single survivor who dares to take on the people who harm them. Because in the absence of state responses, we are all we have.

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Mj Hughes

Mj Hughes

Somewhere between poet and professional boxer, writing about mental health, surviving trauma, theatre and everything else.

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