Disclaimer: This entire diary comes with a serious trigger warning.
Disclaimer #2: I am a white male, with all that implies. Although I experienced sexual violation as a teenager (at the hands of an adult male), it was nothing compared to the severity of what my wife has gone through, or so many other women and men have gone through, including brave members of this community who have written extensively about their experiences. I have no right or privilege to "mansplain" to anyone about anything.
For five years, I worked in a Level Three lockdown facility through the school system. We were a "day treatment" center, where kids who couldn't succeed in the "normal" schools were placed to get the help they needed to get back on track to be successfully reintroduced into those schools. We served, at most, 30 kids in a single stretch. Our "faculty" was made up of teachers, psychologists, social workers, clinical therapists, and behavior specialists. We were a diverse group, with women in or close to the majority of staffers, and in most of the leadership positions. I was one of the English teachers on the staff. We had an incredibly diverse clientele of students, but one of the characteristics almost all of them shared was some sort of emotional, verbal and/or physicial trauma, often sexual in nature. Our kids ranged from grades 6 through 11.
I could write a book about this place. Short version: we were a close-knit and nurturing staff, looking out for one another and for our kids. Our story didn't end well: our site director, a tremendously decent man, was hounded out by school system and county administrators, and replaced with someone whose job was to shut us down and redirect our funding to her department, which she did in the course of a single year. We don't know how the stories of most of our kids ended. Some went back to "normal" school and did very well, others did not.
Today I'm writing about one student, a girl of 13 or 14 who I'll call Jane, for obvious reasons. We weren't allowed to know a lot about their backgrounds, but we usually found out some things. When we learned she would be joining us, the word went out on the down low: don't ever be alone with her in any venue, for any reason whatsoever. She was a pretty little African-American girl, soft-spoken and with big scared eyes. She brought out the protective instincts in all of us, but we heeded the warnings. We were very careful when we were around her, and we were diligent about always having at least one other staff member with us when she was in our classes.
Good thing, too, because in the month she was there, she made three different allegations that a staff member had tried to rape her.
I was a witness for one of those allegations. I met with the clinical director, the staff psychologist, and the educational director. The man who she accused of attempting to assault her, "John," was not in the room. The meeting was elaborately casual — "Tell me about how your class went today. How are you and Jane doing? How did Jane and John get along?" — but since I'm not stupid, I knew something was up. I told it straight. Jane was fine, not particularly engaged but well behaved and seemed to be in a good mood. John went over to her once when she seemed confused about the assignment, gave her some directions and some "You got this!" support, and in the process leaned towards her and placed the flat of his hand on the desk. As far as I could tell, if he touched her at all, it was with his shoulder leaning briefly against hers. That was it. After the questioning, the psychologist relaxed a bit and let me know what was up: Jane said that John had tried to rape her during the class. The allegation was, of course, false. John's story was the same as mine, and several other students confirmed what had, and had not, happened.
Side note: If the idea crosses your mind that I was covering for my fellow staffer, don't go there. I almost lost my job in another school system because I filed a complaint that female students were alleging their gym teacher was forcing them to expose themselves to him. The complaint went nowhere, and the gym teacher threatened to beat my ass. I told him to give it his best shot, and reported that, too. Still nothing, but one of the girls told me that he stopped telling his girls to pull up their shirts for him. I'd do it again, and press harder the next time. I hope that fucker died in a fire.
Jane wasn't a "troublemaker" or someone with an agenda. As we later learned, she had been the victim of multiple, extreme sexual assaults by pretty much every male in her family and possibly some of the women, along with family friends and whoever was in the house at the moment. In the words of the clinical director, she got passed around like a party favor. God knows how long it had been going on. She was so traumatized and abused that she interpreted virtually any touch from an adult as an attempt at rape. We also learned very quickly that she was prone to making very crude advances at any of the males around, students and staff alike, as abuse survivors often do. (For whatever reason, the male students shied away from her and didn't try to press the advantage.) I remember overhearing a very short piece of a very gentle conversation between Jane and one of the female behavioral specialists about the difference between acceptable interactions and sexual assault. Jane seemed totally confused.
During the conversation with the psychologist, she told me something Jane had said that made my stomach wrench. "Mr. John tried to rape me in that class," she said, "but that's okay, I guess. Men are supposed to do that."
Jane's story with us didn't end so badly. Our site director, the one who was hounded out of his position two years later, pulled some serious strings and got approval for the school system to fund her placement in a live-in private facility that he knew of, one with a very small student clientele and plenty of social workers, therapists and psychologists specially trained to work with children traumatized by sexual abuse. I truly hope she got the help she so desperately needed. I'm very glad she got the hell away from that bunch of brutal, criminal savages that masqueraded as her family. (Yes, multiple complaints with child protective services had been filed. We filed one. I have no idea what, if anything, happened as a result of them.)
I didn't write this to try to take a side in the ongoing conversation about sexual assault, or to say that this or that accuser or accused person is or isn't lying. I'm not trying to proclaim my virtue or any of that shit. I'm just writing this because it's an experience I had that is part of my approach towards the issue of sexual assault. It's something that happened, and a little girl who should have had a bright future had hers blighted, possibly for the rest of her life. Take it for what it's worth.