No, But Really, We Care About Predatory Sexual Behavior
Trump surrogates keep deflecting by stating this isn’t an issue the American People care about.
Bullshit.
Since Saturday, when my friend and peer — jessica drake — was brave enough to come forward with her story of being harassed by Donald Trump, my social media has been a dumpster fire.
People get real mad when you defend a victim, that doesn’t fit their personal ideal of a “good victim”. Real mad. I’m not going to share them here because most of them seem to be desperate for my attention and the more I ignore them, the more furious they become.
Mute has become my best friend.
More on point, I stand with jessica drake. She’s my friend. She’s held my baby, when at the time almost no one beyond my parter and I had. He was entranced, and as kids know, he went right to her at a conference and they had a lovely moment. (No, I don’t have pictures. At the time I didn’t know her well and I treat well known people like they are people. Absurdity, I know.)
Over the following years, jessica was one of my favorite faces at conferences and events. She is one of the kindest, sweetest, big hearted, brilliant, incredible women I’ve ever met. As I’ve said to her, how she conducts herself is one of the models I follow as I make my way in the world. She carries herself with dignity. She has a soft but firm voice and will smile as she states firm boundaries or changes that need to be made. We went from mutual grins at each other to running down the hallway hugs and laughter.
No, we are not close personal friends. Not claiming she is my BFF, but she is my friend and she is someone I love.
The last time I saw her, it was the start of the worst year of my life. Custody battle was heating up and my terror over losing our kids filled my everything. Realizing that I shouldn’t have come to that conference because I was such a mess, I was trying to hide while having uncontrollable tears. It’s very hard for me to cry around people who are not my Mom or V. jessica saw me, took me into an empty ladies room and spent I don’t even know how long listening to me heave sob while unloading my terror that sex work, working in sexuality, being me was about to cost us our children. A hot mess.
She magically soothed me, she laughed off that there was now runny mascara on her white shirt, and empathized with the costs that come from doing what we do. I’m not going to share what she said to me then, but I was able to get myself together as we exchanged stories of the great costs and horrible experiences come with living our truth against the grain. One of the experiences she shared was one the world heard over the weekend. We had a “cone of silence” around that talk, but since it’s out there. Yes, I had heard this assault before.
It does not matter what profession a person — a woman — is in, does not matter what she does, she still retains bodily sovereignty. Her career does not remove her human rights, does not make her lesser, does not negate her rights and abilities to remove consent. To not give it in the first place for fucks sake.
While denying that he knew jessica, had ever met her, all of his usual lying bluster, dismissing her as a “porn star” and saying sarcastically, “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”
THAT IS NOT THE POINT
I have been grabbed, I have been groped, I have written about this already. None of that removes my agency, my bodily autonomy, gives a free pass for people to assault me again in the future. I have done sex work, that does not mean you or anyone else can touch me without permission. It does not mean that “I am for sale”. I am not a piece of merchandise.
Neither is jessica.
From my #WhyWomenDontReport piece:
I’m not actually a person — I’m an extra real Real Doll — to an astonishing percentage of the population. A customer when I was running Sex Toy Boutiques once tried to negotiate with the owner of the store how much it would cost to take me home that night — without ever talking to me — and the owner went along with it for a few because he thought it was funny.
That was one of the most painful, dehumanizing, utterly crushing experience of my life. The only one that doesn’t include sexual assault/rape.
So many furious tweets in my mentions state that jessica has no right to take issue or that she could be harmed/feel distress with that Trump offered her $10,000 to go to his hotel room.
If that is your mindset?
You have no idea what you are talking about.
You need to sit down, shut up, and read or better yet! Listen to women/survivors.
Sometimes that dehumanization is the hardest to get past. The sneering way they look at you as a living sex doll, devoid of emotion, intelligence, existence beyond how they plan on using you.
If you have never had that experience, I am very happy for you. I ask that even though this has not happened to you, it has happened to me, has happened to jessica, has happened to millions of other people — BELIEVE US.
jessica has made a shift into doing more and more sex education — which is amazing because she has such an incredible wealth of knowledge here. jessica is a consent educator, an incredibly effective one at that. If she speaks that her consent was violated -her consent was violated. Her life on camera does not matter. Her career has no bearing on her being assaulted.
So, Trump surrogates keep deflecting comments about the accusers to this BS line about how people don’t actually care about this. That Trump being a serial sexual predator isn’t an important factor — his vision of America and (lack of any real) policy is.
Bullshit
Since Saturday I have had a number of come to Jesus meetings with Trump voting family members. All of them are now either not voting or holding their noses while voting for Hillary. All of them have finally left over Trump’s sexually predatory actions and most importantly to them, that he doesn’t have any remorse or the slightest idea what he has been doing is wrong.
With some, yes, it was the fact that he had assaulted my friend. That one of them was my friend made it more real, but they were already at the edge. At the edge specifically because of his behavior here and lack of remorse.
(Now let me take a moment to give space and respect for the fact that it took them until white women were targets for them to care. That they stood firm through him doing, saying, and planting horrible seeds in folks minds that were worse than this.)
On twitter my DMs are open to everyone, so while thousands of people were trolling me endlessly, a few brave folks did come into my DMs to tell me that they were not unable to vote for Trump and could I help them be okay with voting for Hillary. Something I am happy to do at anytime, for anyone. (crista at gmail if you need this help as well.)
No, those messages were not on the same scale as the abuse. Maybe 4 dozen. Still, it’s telling. It gives me some hope. Some of these die hard Trump supporters *are* hitting the edge, saying they can go no further.
Because Donald Trump is a serial sexual predator. Serial and unashamed of his sexual assaults. Because he’s a star. They’ll let him do anything.
THEY.ARE.NOT.LETTING.YOU!
They are not letting you Mr. Trump. You are taking control of the power dynamics, taking control of their bodies, and intimidating them into silence. Terrorizing them. You are assaulting them. You are abusing them.
I need to stop myself before I go on a rant, I did that already over here: This is not normal & I will not hide how much it hurts.
Last night my Mother, who is the embodiment of “Wisconsin Nice” and is now very active in her very conservative community. who loathes Hillary with every cell in her being, was ranting about her fury. That jessica is still a lady, always a lady no matter what she does for a living, and you never treat a lady like that. My Mother has deep respect for adult talent and their business acumen. Mom clawed her way through life to make enough money for my sister and I, faced a lot of stigma for being a single woman with two kids. She has empathy for the stigmas they face, and respect for how they brand and market themselves. (Becoming friends with Jenna Jameson helped here too)
She will be letting her fury be well known.
We care that rape culture in a meat sack is running for President. We care that a sexual predator could possibly lead the world, gain such power to continue his assaults. We care. In that we are a number of Trump supporters.
The continued gaslighting, threats, trolling, venom spitting at myself and others talking about this does them no good. You cannot and will not troll us out of voting, but you can turn off and away people watching from your cause and candidate.
So, for fuck’s sake, STOP.
Edited to Add: Y’all? This isn’t fucking helping.
