The Victims, the Power Brokers, and the Perpetrators — The Rest of the Story

by Marnie C. Ferree, M.A., LMFT, CSAT 

The swirling news stories of sexual harassment, exploitation, unwanted pursuit, and assault have hit close to home. Like millions of women (and, yes, some fewer, but no less impacted, number of men), my name is included in the hashtag #metoo. I began speaking publicly 24 years ago about my experience of long-term sexual abuse when the Tennessean, Nashville’s most prominent newspaper, published a ground-breaking five-part series called “Spoken Secrets.” Four other childhood and adolescent sexual abuse victims shared their stories on the record, using their names and pictures, which was possibly a journalistic first, at least on that scale. Feature-length articles about their experiences and the long-term impact ran front page above the fold on consecutive Sundays. As the author of the series, I told my story of years of sexual abuse by a dear family friend in the fifth installment.

Readers responded to the newspaper by the hundreds and almost always positively. I received hundreds more personal notes and calls, and I continue to be affirmed for telling the secret. Recently, after years without contact, I got an email from one of the women who was featured in “Spoken Secrets.” Prompted by the current number of victims who are speaking out, she expressed deep gratitude for the freedom she began to feel from exposing her truth in 1993.

Since then, our culture has become more knowledgeable and appropriately outraged at the perpetration of childhood sexual abuse. And for good reason! What responsible, compassionate adult can ignore, excuse, or worse, implicitly condone the sexual abuse of innocent children? Sadly, there are still those who for nefarious reasons like “the greater good” of this or that purpose will fail victims, who are usually now adults. Yet overall, we have come a long way in addressing the travesty of childhood sexual abuse, which is certainly positive.

But that’s only a third of the story.

POWER

The second part of the narrative begins with power and its misuse. Finally, we’re engaged in a national conversation about adult sexual abuse, which requires a much more nuanced understanding than the abuse of children. What has been missing for decades, likely eons, is an understanding of the concepts of power and consent. We grasp, of course, the harm of a violent attack that involves forced sexual activity by a scary stranger wielding a weapon. We are less clear about culpability if the victim is drunk or high and are apt to point blame for “her part.” Until the exploding (welcome) current exposure, our culture has been publicly clueless about the imbalance of power and the harm that is at the core of these now-newsworthy acts of perpetration.

As a survivor of adult sexual exploitation as well as childhood perpetration, I still find it hard to describe the intangible, paralyzing power of a man in authority, even for an adult. The power differential is more obvious in the commanding, one-up position of relationships such as a physician with a patient or a president with an intern. Yet culturally, we have a history of ignoring (or worse, denying) the power of a counselor or lawyer with a client, a boss with a subordinate, a decision maker with a supplicant, or a pastor with an adult parishioner.

In many recently reported cases, power was overtly, even forcibly exerted, minus only a physical weapon, which destroys the stand of even the most ardent disciple of ambiguity. Less clear is the inherent, compelling, but covert power of authority figures, which is always present, but often unrecognized by the victim. These relationships may feel “consensual” to the victim at the time, and many of the currently accused insist they were just that.  Recently one especially courageous woman stepped into the national spotlight to declare that her relationship with a powerful TV morning-show anchor was both “consensual” and “an abuse of power,” which is a striking and path-breaking moment of cultural awakening. While such a relationship may be consensual in that no overt force was exerted, the power differential outweighs the perceived consent, which is an extremely complicated dynamic. This woman’s voice eloquently explains why she “kept returning” to contact with the exploiter and even sought him out.

The perpetrator’s power-of-position holds the key to something so tantalizing, so important to the victim -- like a promotion or long-desired opportunity -- that she believes she is a “willing” participant in the activity. She relinquishes her body and her voice because she thinks that is the only or easiest path to an important goal. The exploitation of power is paramount here and often ignored. This situation is routinely mislabeled an “affair,” especially if there is an ongoing relationship, and, thus, the victim is held equally responsible. In cases of professional helpers like counselors or clergy, the spiritual exploitation of trust is especially heinous. The legal system has yet to adjust to this reality; in most states, only physicians face legal prosecution for having sex with those under their care. It is usually considered unethical for lawyers, counselors, and clergy to be romantically or sexually involved with their clients or congregants, but it is not illegal. What a travesty, as this oversight leaves victims without criminal recourse.

Patriarchy and Impaired Consent

The power isn’t just by position; it is also by gender. Sadly, this reality is virtually invisible to the power brokers. Like white privilege, patriarchal privilege -- especially of highly educated white men, who are the ones in our country with the most power -- is astonishingly invisible. White men fail to recognize their status, even when it is clearly pointed out, simply because it is their only known reality. To the powerful, the situation is just the way things are (and how they should be). Influential white men believe they have earned their power by their hard work or even by inherited status. Many have, indeed, worked hard to “get ahead.” The hidden truth is their birth circumstance of being male and white offers them bias and privilege unavailable to those who are female and non-white.

Women, too, surprisingly buy into this hidden patriarchy. In a Washington Post opinion piece (Dec. 11, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/roy-moore-s-white-female-voters-are-part-long-history-ncna827976), Marcie Bianco offered a cogent explanation of the “cognitive dissonance” of “internalized misogyny.” She unpacks why women, especially white women, tend to align themselves with white men instead of with other women, particularly black or brown women. Bianco posits that white women understand their best chance to gain rights and privileges comes from the people who already possess them: white men. Bianco is writing about women’s support of President Trump and now-defeated candidate Roy Moore, but her premises far transcend the political landscape. Moore blamed the mothers of the teenagers he molested by saying, “I don’t remember dating anyone without her mother’s permission.” If true, and it probably is, this maternal betrayal is part of the cognitive dissonance of sacrificing even a daughter’s safety for curried favor of a powerful man.

The persistent patriarchy flourishes within religious communities, which has been my painful history. Many religious men and institutions believe the Bible endows them with inherent, “God-given” authority. I believe the Bible was written in a time when women had little to no status, and it simply reflects that culture. Irrespective of that debate, religious environments tend to view women as responsible for maintaining sexual boundaries, and thus women get blamed when a pastor “falls,” or a self-proclaimed Christian politician succumbs to a female’s “seduction.”

In short, culturally we have the male wolves guarding the (female) hen house, and the overlooked -- even condoned -- slaughter is everywhere. We have been ignorant about the real meaning of consent, as if a 17-year-old could truly consent to sexual activity with a powerful male twice her age, or a 40-something could consent to sacrifice her body to someone who is bigger, stronger, older, or more powerful as the means to a professional end. Culturally, we mistake a lack of overt resistance in the moment as giving consent. Responsibility for maintaining sexual boundaries always lies with the person in power. Period.

The CERTS Model of healthy sexuality, as defined by Wendy Maltz (The Sexual Healing Journey, 2012, 3rd edition, New York: William Morrow), outlines that healthy sexual activity involves consent (a considered, specific yes that is absent any payoff), equality, respect, trust, and safety. Each concept is significantly more complicated than it might appear. The absence of a stated “no” does not necessarily mean a “yes” to sexual conversation, innuendo, advances, or activity. For years I’ve been astonished and disheartened by the pervasive lack of understanding of what to me is a clear -- even a well, duh! -- concept. This principle isn’t rocket science, and for those who have been blasted by its violation, the psychological physics are obvious and certain.

One of the most painful times of my professional career was when my own church home and its all-male governing body refused to listen to qualified clinical professionals, and instead they followed their own (male) thinking about how to frame a situation of sexual misconduct. These men allowed a predatory male pastor to admit to an “affair” with a female church member he had systematically groomed starting when he counseled her for marriage problems. They allowed the church, including most of the women, to blame the victim without correction. Because she was not physically coerced (except for one instance that was seemingly rejected as coercion because no weapon was in evidence), the church powerbrokers decided the congregant had given consent and held her equally responsible. Sadly, this ignorance about power and consent is more the norm than the exception.

There remains, though, an equally misunderstood side of the perpetration triangle: the perpetrators themselves.

PERPETRATORS

The final third of this important conversation must be about the those who engage in sexually exploitive behavior - the offenders. (Note that “offender” is a legal term, not a clinical one, although here I will use them interchangeably.) A part of me is overjoyed to see so many powerful men exposed as violators. It’s validating and encouraging. I am thrilled to see corporations and organizations move swiftly to remove sexual perpetrators from their ranks, even when such a move is presumably costly in terms of name recognition and expertise. Finally, the pendulum has swung so that the public relations fallout is more damaging for failing to remove an accused offender than is brand damage, even when the offenses were decades ago. It’s about time!

Equally welcome is the trend to remove a sexual harasser for “only” one legitimate complaint. Gone is the slow train of investigation and substantiation that is driven by (again) men close to the accused who lack any clinical training, and who let their own best (unconsciously biased) thinking carry the day. Predictably, when one brave victim dares to accuse a powerful person, others typically come forward with similar stories. Sexual harassment, unwanted advances, and perpetration are not isolated incidents. Unless the powerful person is exposed very early in his abusive history, which is quite rare, there are usually multiple victims. I’m glad we must no longer wait for their voices to substantiate the experience of a courageous person who is first to speak.

Caution, though, is in order. Actually, compassion is in order, which may sound surprising, especially coming from a sexual abuse survivor. In the rush to judgement, we can quickly paint perpetrators as monsters. (I admit my own bias that the hands-on sexual abuse of children is a different, “worse” offense than the abuse of adults.) Yet, abusers, too, are multifaceted and complicated, and we err when we paint them simplistically.

THE REST OF THE STORY

Accurate, measured portraits of the perpetrators are the rest of the story.

Perhaps more than most, I understand that picture. Every time I hear or read another news report about a man accused of sexual exploitation or other form of violation of an adult, one clear face jumps onto my internal screen. I visualize one headline, also printed on a Sunday, above the fold. I experience a catch in my breath and a drop in my heart. My stomach roils and I wonder when and who will remember my family’s story and connect the dots between then and now.

In 1985, my father was publicly exposed for his sexual relationships with male students on the Christian college campus where he was an administrator. My dad was a charismatic, popular, brilliant teacher and academic dean. He was also a beloved minister who poured himself out for his congregations. He was a captivating story teller who made Biblical and historical stories come to life with the dramatic flair of a theatrical narrator. A consummate over-achiever, my dad had won every honor and accolade imaginable, from graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt to multiple historic and civic awards. More important, he deeply loved and sincerely wanted to follow the God he worshipped and preached. His influence had positively affected untold thousands of people. (In one setting in the early 1960s, an estimated 90,000 people gathered over a week for a gospel meeting he and a colleague presented as the opening event of Nashville’s first massive civic center.)

The rumors of inappropriate activity had circulated about my dad for years, and on rare occasions, a peer had challenged him about his close relationships with male students. He always had a believable explanation, accompanied by promises to avoid potentially concerning situations, and the matter was always dropped. It seemed impossible to think that this generous, humble servant, a widower for over 25 years, would engage in inappropriate sexual pursuits. At worse, there must have been some misunderstanding.

Forty years after my dad set foot on this same college campus as a freshman, one of his former students was insistent enough about his experiences to break through the years of rumors and denial. Eventually, many others quietly, privately shared with college officials about the popular dean’s advances, and the secret was out - front page on a Sunday. My father resigned from the college and from the large church he was pastoring. He apologized that “a private sin has become public,” and the community quickly forgave and embraced him. What he didn’t get was what he needed most in a practical sense: specific clinical treatment for his behaviors and for the personal trauma that drove them. I’m not sure such a treatment opportunity even existed back then. If it had, I think he would have refused to participate out of misguided emotional self-protection. Shame likely supersedes all other motivations, I believe, and my father was the most shame-driven person I have ever known.

The scandal quickly passed and my dad crafted a second successful and useful career that lasted another 25 years until his death. His servant heart, generosity, and sharp wit made him easy for any community to love. And with his whole heart, my father loved any community that loved him.

My dad’s scandal eventually opened for me the floodgates of memories and clarity. I am forever grateful for understanding my own experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of one of my father’s best friends. I could also understand and eventually recover from my pursuit of “love” in the form of sex and compulsive relationships, which I can clearly trace to my childhood trauma. Healing from both sexual abuse and sexual addiction was a painful, but enormously freeing, journey. It has even been redemptive, as for 25 years my professional work has been as a licensed marriage-and-family therapist who directs a Christian-based, clinical treatment program for sexual addiction and underlying sexual trauma.

The biggest challenge of my healing process concerned what to do emotionally with my father. At the outset of my healing process, I was beyond angry at his failures, the greatest of which I judged to be his introduction of perpetrators into our home. After the death of my mother when I was age three, I was especially hungry for loving attention, which my dad’s workaholism prevented him from providing. For years after I entered recovery I dreaded my father’s death because it would mean a huge funeral, where I expected people would line up in droves to tell me and my siblings how wonderful our dad was. And they did when he passed away in 2011 -- over a thousand of them. I am grateful that my healing journey allowed me to receive and affirm these positive statements about my father, for they are, indeed, fully true.

This reaction was possible because of a shift away from my black-and-white thinking. After the endowment of a deep spirituality and connection to the loving God of my understanding, this change has been the best gift of healing. Instead of the either/or of my dualistic mind -- things are either all good or all bad, all positive or all negative -- today I embrace the non-dualism of both/and. This perspective is most clear regarding the primary perpetrators in my life: my father (whose abandonment of me to dreadful danger I consider passive perpetration), and his dear and favored friend, who was sexual with me from the time I was five until I was 20. My relationship with this special friend, including occasional sexual encounters, continued in adulthood until I entered recovery at age 35, when I came to know the truth about his exploitation. With the help of my therapist, I ended all contact with him.

Eventually, I came to recognize -- indeed, to be immensely grateful -- for the gifts I received from my pain. Even in a very practical sense, I was schooled to write and speak by my primary abuser, who was involved in performance theater. Those skills benefit my work every day and bring me great joy. From my dad, I learned to love the Bible and other people and to stand with grit in the face of difficult circumstances.

As I learned more of my father’s story, I gained compassion for the wounding he experienced as a child and the desperate drives he felt as an adult. In turn, compassion fueled forgiveness and acceptance. I came to see that both parts of my father were equally true: he was a gifted, sincere, generous, and good-hearted teacher and minister; and he was also one who exploited young men’s devotion by asking for sexual favors. He deserved to be held accountable for his failings (which is itself a form of grace), and he deserved to be honored for his positive attributes and achievements, including evidences of his faith.

Lessons

I certainly am not the only one who needed to learn and grow. Our society will better cope and heal from the tornado of sexual assault when we expand this perspective to all perpetrators. Yes, I fully support swift justice for victims by holding offenders accountable. When possible, I want the legal system to enforce that justice. As odd as it may sound, though, I believe that better understanding perpetrators serves a greater good.

Victims themselves benefit, as do potential victims. Multiple news reports have detailed the arrogance, misogyny, and bullying that accompanied most perpetrators’ behaviors. Women (and men) have described the demands they experienced and the pressure they felt in areas outside the actual sexual exploitation. When potential victims can identify these frequent precursors to unwanted sexual behavior, they are better able to protect themselves.

One of the hardest issues for a victim is gaining freedom from the shame of sexual abuse, especially when the event itself was nonviolent. Victims often blame themselves rather than blaming the perpetrator. When a victim understands concepts like imbalance of power and true consent, she or he can hold the proper person accountable. The victim can also realize that the offender had issues far beyond his interactions with her. This perspective helps her forgive herself for being vulnerable.

Men can learn from perpetrators, too, provided they are willing to stop thumping their chests and asserting they would never do similar things. Most men must come to grips with the principle that the sexualization of others is unequivocally not okay. They need to grow beyond the blasé, childish explanation that “guys are just being guys” and instead treat all people with respect. They can stand against exploitation of women by calling their brothers to be better. They can challenge the patriarchy within themselves and within the culture by recognizing male privilege. Mature men can admit that they may also struggle with entitlement, arrogance, or bullying, and that they expect women to give while they can freely take. Perpetrators can teach men that they are not necessarily fundamentally different from someone who overtly offends.

The pain caused by sexual perpetrators is part of the larger pain caused by the denial and simplification of the pain of the original offense. Sadly, women themselves are part of that systemic dysfunction. When women better understand the concepts of power, consent, and patriarchy, they are equipped to link arms in support of other women rather than subjugating themselves to powerful men. Women need to join in solidarity for safety and respect for everyone. Perhaps the sheer numbers of the #metoo movement will shock women into action on behalf of their sisters.

Understanding perpetrators helps the perpetrators themselves. Too often perpetrators fail to get the help they really need -- especially true in the penal system. Most sex offender treatment programs employ a shame-based approach that addresses only overt offending. Perpetrators need and deserve to understand the deeper issues relating to their choices to offend, which often include a history of their own violation. Some of my colleagues are providing cutting edge, respectful treatment of nonviolent offenders (or those at risk to offend) with amazing results that improve public safety as well as personal mental health for the offenders.

Finally, developing an informed and multi-faceted portrait of perpetrators helps us all. While rightfully shocked, individuals can grow beyond horrified blame to a deeper understanding of personal brokenness, including their own. Our society can closely examine itself and wrestle with the insightful question posed by a colleague: What did you expect? Why are we surprised when we have a generation of porn consumers and a rabid culture of sexualization and objectification of self and others? Why did we think we would be spared the natural consequences of such an environment? In biblical terms, you reap what you sow.

In a sense, individually and as a culture we are belatedly emerging from a dank pit that insulated us from the truth about critical social constructs like power and patriarchy. For too long we have been bound by archaic notions, blind ignorance, and inchoate fear. Finally, we are experiencing the freedom that comes with the many layers of insight now being brought into the light. As people and as a society, we can either squander our burgeoning clarity and embrace the fetid darkness from which we are emerging; or we can seize the moment and grow into something more caring, wise, beautiful and compassionate.

Our sustained response determines the rest of the story.

Marnie C. Ferree, M.A., LMFT, CSAT