A Sexual Assault Survivor’s View Post Election

Those who abuse power are given the world

Photo by Carolina Heza on Unsplash

Trigger warning: Sexual assault.

---

I recently spoke with a friend from the theater community who was celebrating the results of the presidential election. “Freedom has won!” he said. He followed it up by sharing his gratitude for those who didn’t let a difference in opinion ruin their friendships.

I gently reminded him that as a victim of sexual assault, I can’t fathom remaining friends with someone who supports (and even celebrates) a convicted and admitted sexual abuser.

I got crickets in response.

I meant what I said. I no longer feel a true friendship between him and I. It’s gone.

Since November 5, I’ve shared my raw, honest thoughts with only a handful of people. For the most part, I don’t have the heart to say much of anything.

The truth is, despite being a career writer, I don’t know how to describe my feelings in a way that accurately expresses their depth.

In a chaotic universe overloaded with opinions, deceptions, and fragmented digital communication, my words seem meaningless and trite.

Why say anything if my story will never convince anyone who has already decided they disagree or don’t believe me?

I’m still grieving, still processing, and still figuring out how to deal. Spoiler alert: I’m not figuring it out at all.

Despite my pessimism and a disheartened spirit that begs me to remain quiet for my own peace and wellbeing, I still can’t quite manage to keep my mouth shut. Obviously I can’t, or you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

But it’s so hard to raise my voice and scream against injustice when part of me is, so very darkly, not surprised.

Another sexual predator in power

Who’s the better option for government leader and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States?

Option 1: A politician with decades of experience and an education in law. Someone who has served as an elected senator, district attorney, and vice president.

Option 2: A business owner and reality TV host who carries a wealth of failed dealings, scams, side ventures, and lawsuits?

The majority has chosen, and they’ve collectively said, “Financial failures, felonies, and sexual abuse be damned — at least our new president isn’t a woman.”

How can one feel both monumentally bewildered and simultaneously not surprised? So a woman’s never been president. That’s old news. Little Holly, sitting in first grade and learning her American history, could tell you that.

But this goes beyond qualifications for the job. It goes beyond political party preference.

Here’s what it’s really about for me, and for the countless women, men, and gender nonconforming people everywhere who have experienced sexual assault, violence, or abuse.

When you break it down, 55% of our nation’s men and 45% of our nation’s women feel comfortable putting a man who was found liable of sexual abuse in a court of law in one of the most powerful positions in the world.

My next president will be a sexual predator. Some days I’ll look at him and be immediately transported to my own traumatic sexual assault. Whenever I see his image on TV or social media, whenever I hear his supporters praise him, whenever my own family brings up the fact that they voted for him — a deep, dark part of my mind will travel back to a time when I was raped by an abusive man who similarly held a great amount of power over me.

The only power I have is knowledge

I never pressed charges after I was raped. In fact, I stayed married to the guy for four years.

The strict religion we followed taught both me and my husband that I was his property. As the man and head of the household, he was the one who got to decide when sex would happen — regardless of whether or not I wanted it.

One night, he came home drunk and used his authority over me. I said no. I cried. I physically tried to stop him. I eventually gave in, wanting to get it over with. We had gone a long time without sex because I was recovering from a miscarriage and wanted nothing to do with intimacy. But his patience had run out. I was 19 years old.

I’ve written about it in detail, if only to give my dark feelings a place to go other than inside my own body.

In the wee hours of November 6, when it became clear who our next President of the United States would be, my mind went back to that night with my husband. I followed that grim trail of unwanted thoughts and eventually arrived at E. Jean Carroll.

I knew she had also written about her personal experience as a sexual assault survivor, and that Trump happened to be her abuser. But I didn’t know all the gory details.

In retrospect, reading a graphic article describing Carroll’s sexual assault allegations against Trump and the resulting trial probably wasn’t the best thing for my mental health on election night.

What else was there to do but doomscroll? It seemed better than crying, something I’d already done way too much of that night. And sleep certainly wasn’t an option, as my racing mind wouldn’t let me body rest.

If I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, why not pass the time by becoming a bit more knowledgeable? Knowledge is power, and it’s the only power I have.

Tried and held liable

I looked at the cold, hard facts. Last year, a federal jury of nine deliberated and found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll. He had to pay her $5 million in damages.

When Trump countersued a year later, claiming that Carroll had actually defamed him by using the word “rape” in an interview, the jury shut him down. Carroll was awarded a whopping $83 million that time.

It was a battle of semantics. Trump denied everything that Carroll said he did, but he seemed to take particular offense with the word “rape.” New York’s penal law definition of rape is limited to the forcible penetration of a vagina with a penis.

Writers know how important and nuanced words can be. But no matter what is penetrating you against your will, whether you call it rape or sexual abuse, the violation is real, traumatic, and violent.

The jury believed Carroll when she said Trump kissed her and penetrated her with his hand without her consent. They heard corroboration of her allegations from Trump’s infamous comments to Billy Bush, bragging that he could assault women by kissing them, grabbing their private parts, or doing whatever he wants to them.

In my opinion, that recorded conversation was one of the few times Trump was being brutally honest. Carroll is just one of over a dozen women who have accused Trump of harassment or sexual assault.

That’s our president, ladies and gentleman. For the second time.

Glass is fragile

I didn’t fall asleep on election night until 7 a.m., when the hours-long episode of intense physical anxiety finally caused my exhausted body and mind to crash.

I can look at the silver lining and say with honesty: At least I didn’t binge eat or binge drink to drown my sorrows and numb the pain. (Those who have read about my struggles with addiction will understand what a big deal that is for me.)

As a woman, researcher, and writer of women’s issues, I believe there were many, many reasons why Trump should not have been allowed to run for office in the first place, let alone secure it. His lack of experience, his constant refusal to respect the democratic process and concede the 2020 election, misogyny, racism, and disrespect for people with disabilities, to name a few.

Once the results were in, I knew that all I could do was move on to the next step — sad, dark, cold acceptance.

We still can’t say there’s been a woman president. The same has held true since the start of our nation, despite Kamala Harris being the more qualified candidate.

Unlike some — who are too insecure, egotistical, and immature to concede — I know when it’s time to admit defeat. I recognize when a thing I so desperately want is so clearly out of my control.

All I can control is myself. But even my own bodily autonomy is at risk now.

Those who understand this helplessness know that we can’t give up hope. We keep going, keep trying, keep doing what we can to stay strong and help the world become a better place.

It’s what we’ve always done.

We know that the glass ceiling is not a brick wall.

And so we’ll keep chiseling away.

We’ll keep trying to create a world where the people who abuse their power will not be rewarded.

---

Thanks for reading. If you like this story, you can connect with me on Instagram or Medium.