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A characteristic arc of the #MeToo-era story is that it begins in innocence, travels through serial abuses of power, and finally (and most importantly) ends. My relationship with the abuser is over. I left him. I left that professional situation. I realized I was being abused. I went to therapy. It’s over. It’s done. I never saw him again. These are stories of survival, escape, resolution, and catharsis.
Life rarely works so neatly, however. The cultural predominance of such narratives can be attributed to a willingness of people to speak only once they are safely finished with a professional or personal relationship. We lack ways to unravel the intricate complicities negotiated when experiencing or witnessing ongoing abusive behavior in the family, in the workplace, among our social networks.
A friend of mine sent me this long and thoughtful article, on allegations I had not seen regarding Paul Manafort pressuring his wife to participate in dubiously consensual semi-private cuck scenes with multiple black men hired to participate. (The allegations are from the hack of their daughter Andrea's texts, deriving mostly but not entirely from conversations with her sister.)
Even if US Politics isn't your current thing, though, I think the piece is interesting as a broader discussion of the way that media handles (and has in the past handled) sexual assault allegations, coercion allegations, and allegations of sexual misconduct--and it does grapple with how to handle things like this allegation, which happened a) without the participation or endorsement of the victim, b) comes along with very racially charged asides that inform the accused's political behavior, c) would have cost the victim much to bring up, including loss of face and possibly loss of livelihood, and d) has been almost startlingly untouched for months despite the scandalous nature of it. What's the media's role and responsibility when things like this come up?
As a total aside, I am also fascinated by the convention of rendering texts rather like lines of poetry, both in the blockquoted presentation of larger conversations and quotations of a few texts at a time.
