Not only are there emotional consequences to this story, there are legal consequences. Larry Nassar was sentenced to over 170 years in prison. The USA Gymnastics board was forced to resign. Politicians are calling for an investigation of USA Gymnastics and the administration of Michigan State University. These girls were the sacrificial lambs. But, with the help of the investigative reporters who broke the story, survivors came through in record numbers and with the speed of light. Brave girls and women once again are the heroines! Sex-abuse survivors are the warriors who are changing the culture every day.
Nassar’s case was a public exposure of a demented serial sexual abuser. But sexual abuse by mentors is happening every day in complicated ways. In this chapter we meet a girl whose parents stood by her yet still made her feel ashamed, and we meet a girl who was convinced she was having an “affair” with her abuser. We help you recognize mentor abuse and provide a clear path for you to get out if you are experiencing mentor abuse.
Sexual abuse isn’t something that happens only in families, but 90 percent of the time it happens with someone you know and were probably told to trust. Mentor abuse happens in an uneven relationship where the girls are much younger than their mentors, coaches, doctors. Many girls are lured, coaxed, or even forced into sexual liaisons with older mentors, such as priests, rabbis, teachers, coaches, and so one, sometimes in exchange for favorable treatment, sometimes out of infatuation, sometimes entirely against their will. These are men who have some power over the girls’ lives and who use their power to coerce girls into crossing inappropriate boundaries.
We have already seen how susceptible to pressure adolescent girls can be. And in Chapter 4 we looked at how having an unsupportive family can make you vulnerable to abuse. So it makes sense that sometimes a girl will fall prey to the manipulation of a man with great influence in her life—and often a very positive influence, as in the case of a coach, teacher, or clergyman. It can be all too easy to fall under his control. You like the attention of your coach, for example. It’s very flattering and makes you feel special. But is it okay if he puts his arms around you “to console you” when you’re alone in his office? Is it okay if he asks to kiss you? Is it okay to sleep with him if he tells you he loves you? No.
Of course, there’s a big difference between the kind of encouraging warmth coaches may exhibit—from an arm around your shoulder after you missed a play to a hug at the end of a defeat—and sexual abuse. For instance, however annoying it may be, a coach who is obsessed with weight and hounds you to lose a few pounds and gain muscle in certain areas of your body to improve your ability at a sport is not sexually abusing you. However, if he laughs and stares at your breasts bouncing up and down as you shoot a basket, or even if he makes lewd comments but never touches you, that is sexual harassment, and it’s not okay. Suffice to say that if you are feeling uncomfortable by the attentions of a teacher, clergyman, or coach, it’s okay to question the behavior, to say stop, to get help from someone you trust. If you’re confused about the line between inappropriateness and abuse, you can flip back to Chapter 2 for clarification. But trust your gut, trust your instinct. If you feel uncomfortable for any reason, tell a trusted friend or adult.
Mentor abuse is also all bound up with our male-dominated culture’s obsession with youth and beauty. Remember Lolita? Apparently, many men find adolescent girls “irresistible.” They think that when you are in your sports uniform or dressed up for church or trying out new teenage fashions, you are “asking for it.” A girl sticking chewing gum behind her knee for an audition (see the story about the director of the Lolita remake and Adrian Lyne in Chapter 3) can somehow turn into “a seductress” in the mind of an abusive man.
Just listen to what Cardinal Francis George of Chicago had to say during the meeting of US cardinals with Pope John Paul II in April 2002: “There is a difference between a moral monster like [the Rev. John] Geoghan [who engaged in sex with boys] and someone who perhaps under the influence of alcohol engages with a sixteen-or seventeen-year-old young woman who returns his affection.”
Talk about a “Lolita” complex! Don’t you know tons of teenage girls who want to sleep with their priests? Aren’t all girls just “returning their affections” or “asking for it”? And just think of all those poor, hapless men who can’t help themselves! Right?
The fact is, some men in positions of power will misuse that power through sexual abuse. As far as we know, it has been going on since the beginning of human history, and it happens all over the world. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay or that you have to go along with it.
When I would go home at night, I would busy myself, distract myself, organize something, make sure I did not have time and space to really think about what my coach was doing.
—a seventeen-year-old mentor-abuse survivor
The biggest difference between incest and sexual abuse by a mentor is that in this case you actually get to go home after the molestation. You do not have to live under the same roof as your abuser, and the sense of violation and shattered trust is not so primal as it is with a parent. But, like any form of sexual abuse, mentor abuse is a huge violation of trust and often leaves girls feeling very unsure about how to form healthy intimate relationships.
In this chapter we’ll look at how abusive mentors tend to work, first gaining a girl’s trust—and often, especially in the case of clergy, the trust of her parents and family—and then making their way toward a sexual advance. Of course, the abuse is not always premeditated. Some men just lose their sense of boundaries and feel entitled in the moment. At times a man will even apologize—when he’s not blaming you for being “irresistible.” But it’s still abuse, and it’s still not okay. To be clear, usually there is grooming, and these men scope out the family situation. If they see a weak link, an uninvolved parent, or perhaps a parent who is overly ambitious for their child to succeed in a sport or activity, these perpetrators will abuse. I have known girls whose coaches abused them after the death of a parent when they knew the girl was particularly vulnerable. An older man and a teenage girl cannot have a healthy sexual relationship, no matter how mature she is or how much it feels like love. There’s just too much power in his hands and not nearly enough in hers. Period.
In the case of mentor abuse, there are many different types of predators. We’ll hear a variety of short takes in this chapter and read some letters to my website from girls who were abused by their teachers, coaches, rabbis, priests, choral directors, professors, and tutors. Too many girls have kept these secrets. It’s time we lift the taboo on speaking out.
Before we hear from the girls, let’s stop and take a look at some of the most prevalent myths about mentor abuse:
MYTH: Pedophile clergy are only interested in boys.
TRUTH: The media may have jumped on the story of sexual abuse of boys within the church, but the truth is that, as with all forms of sexual abuse, far more girls than boys are the survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. In fact, according to Mary A. Tolbert, professor of biblical studies at the Pacific School of Religion, girls are three times more likely to be molested by clergy than boys. She suggests that it is a combination of a profound fear of homosexuality and a devaluing of girls that leads us as a society to be scandalized by the abuse of boys and turn a blind eye to the abuse of girls. A. W. Sipe, a former Catholic priest and psychologist who studied sexuality in the Catholic priesthood for twenty-five years, estimated to the Boston Globe that “over twice as many priests are involved with females than males.”
Of course, in our male-dominated society, the greatest public outcry is reserved for abuse of boys. When girls are abused, we tend to shake our heads and tsk-tsk; when boys are abused, we are outraged and want justice. And if these boys turn out to be homosexuals? Our culture says, now that would be a high crime!
The truth is, clergy can and do sexually abuse children, and their targets are predominantly girls.
MYTH: It is not against the law for clergy to molest m
inors.
TRUTH: Clergy are often exempt from laws governing conduct, and the church has always protected its priests against public exposure or criminal charges by moving them from parish to parish. It is very difficult to get the government involved in cases involving clergy.
MYTH: If your priest or other religious or spiritual leader is molesting you, it must be all right in the eyes of God.
TRUTH: Of course this is not true. Sexual abuse is always wrong, no matter what your priest might tell you.
MYTH: Clergy—ministers, priests, and rabbis—can’t be sexual deviants, predators, or pedophiles. They are pure and holy, called by God to be leaders within their communities.
TRUTH: People enter the clergy for all kinds of reasons, and, just as in the general population, some clergy are emotionally unstable and prone to sexual abuse. As the continuous and multitudes of scandal within the Catholic Church would suggest, priests are just as capable of abuse as anyone else. And they have a protective private society to protect each other.
MYTH: Your primary-care doctor (sports doctor, chiropractor, dermatologist, eye doctor) needs to do a vaginal exam during your medical checkup. Teen girls are required to have internal pelvic exams.
TRUTH: Obstetricians and gynecologists are the doctors who perform pelvic exams to check for cancer or STDs. You may also have your primary-care doctor and/or nurse practicioner perform this procedure on occasion. This procedure is an internal examination by inserting a metal or plastic device called a speculum into the vagina. Through the open speculum, the examiner can see the inside of the vagina and the cervix. A doctor or nurse may also do a digital exam (usually for first-time mothers during their pregnancy to feel their ovaries and uterus for lumps or other problems) by applying lubricant to her fingers (covered by a medical glove) and inserting two fingers into the vagina while pressing gently on the abdomen. You can always ask for another person to be present in the exam room during your exam. For many male physicians, it is customary to have a female nurse or chaperone present during a pelvic examination of female patients. You may insist on this. American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends that young women have their first visit with an obstetrician-gynecologist (OB/GYN) between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. For most teens, the first visit will include an external examination of the genitals but not an internal examination of the reproductive organs, which is recommended beginning at age twenty-one for healthy women. The only time an internal pelvic exam will be given to a teen girl is for symptoms of abnormal vaginal bleeding, painful periods, unusual vaginal secretions, or other problems that may be associated with your reproductive health. Again, you can always request another person in the room. And I recommend you do.
MYTH: Male preschool and elementary school teachers are attracted to the field for predatory reasons.
TRUTH: This is another instance of society’s gender prejudices: After all, what kind of man would honestly be interested in teaching and nurturing young children? I will tell you, often these are men who are caring nurturers and wonderful examples for young children. The truth is, most of the sexual abuse that goes on in schools is between male teachers and teenage girls.
MYTH: You have to do what your coach tells you to do.
TRUTH: Coaches sometimes exploit their position of power. You never have to have sex with a coach or let him touch you in a sexual way. Period. And it is appropriate to tell a trusted adult if that happens.
MYTH: It’s sometimes necessary, as part of the training, for your coach to get a little flirtatious with you, touching you in ways that make you uncomfortable, commenting on your body in a sexualized way.
TRUTH: As we said in the opening to this chapter, if a coach harasses you a bit about losing weight so that you can qualify for a sport, that’s not sexual abuse, although it also might not be true or appropriate. If he stares a little too long when you run, that’s harassment, even sexual harassment—but it’s not sexual abuse. You can still tell your parents and report him for sexual harassment. But if he touches you in any unwanted way, or even just makes sexually loaded remarks, that’s abuse and you can report him.
IVY
Now let’s meet Ivy, an Orthodox Jewish girl who was molested by her rabbi when she was fifteen years old. I didn’t meet Ivy until about six years later, when she was twenty-one. She was going to college in New York City, and one of her friends, a client of mine, brought her to see me. At that point Ivy no longer had much contact with her parents. She described her relationship with her family as “superficial.”
She was supporting herself and paying for college with student loans and had stopped observing Judaism, having become suspicious of all rabbis and of religion in general. This is pretty common in cases of clergy abuse. Girls will tend to generalize their bad experiences to all clergy and all religion.
Ivy thought she had pretty much put the abuse behind her, but then, six years after her molestation, she started having nightmares and developed a case of irritable bowel syndrome.
IVY’S STORY
I Tried to Forget
My family was very religiously observant and went to synagogue regularly. My parents were very close to the rabbi and his family. In fact, my best friend growing up was the rabbi’s daughter, Sara. We all lived in a small Jewish enclave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and I would often sleep over at Sara’s house. Sara was like a cousin to me, and she would come to my house often as well. We went to camp together, we were classmates, and we shared secrets. Sara did not seem close to her father, who was usually working at the synagogue, and, because he was so religious, he seemed to be observing one Jewish holiday or another, and he was not around much when I was at Sara’s house.
One night when I was about fifteen, I was sleeping over at Sara’s. Sara was already asleep when I heard footsteps approaching her room. When I looked up, the rabbi was standing over my bed. He looked at me and whispered “sha” (that meant “be quiet” in Hebrew). He was very quiet and sat down next to me on the bed and started petting my hair. I was so nervous, I pretended to fall asleep, hoping that would make him leave.
Before I knew it, he was lying down next to me and rubbing up against me and fondling my breasts. I froze. I prayed he wouldn’t notice that I was awake. I began counting to ten over and over again and keeping track of how many times I’d done it. By the time I had counted to ten about twenty-five times, the rabbi had gotten up and left. I just lay there in shock.
I could not sleep and just lay there awake until morning. Sara, on the other hand, appeared to sleep through the whole thing. When we woke up the next morning and Sara asked what I wanted for breakfast, I made up an excuse not to stay for breakfast and I ran home.
When I got home I told my parents right away what had happened. They did not believe me. They said I must have been dreaming, that our wonderful rabbi was not a “pervert” and wouldn’t have done these things. They said I should be ashamed of myself for such an accusation. They then marched me over to the rabbi’s house, forcing me to tell my “story” to him. Of course, the rabbi denied everything.
Now comes the twist. Sara must have been listening at the door, because she suddenly burst into the room and confronted her father about how he had molested her for years. In front of me and my family, Sara broke into sobs, saying that she’d been terrified to tell anyone but that she wasn’t going to let him get away with molesting her friend, too. Can you believe the adults didn’t believe us? Even with Sara there crying and everything? My parents just looked at their beloved rabbi and calmly asked, “Rabbi, how could this be?”
In the face of overwhelming evidence, the rabbi continued to deny that he had ever touched either of us. At that point Sara, who was usually so mild mannered, began to weep uncontrollably. And that’s when Sara’s father lost his cool and started screaming at Sara violently. It became clear, even to my parents, that there must have been some truth to what Sara and I were saying.
I went over to Sara and hugged her, and she fell i
nto my arms. I kept saying, over and over, “I am so sorry, I didn’t know.” Suddenly that one night with her father seemed like nothing in comparison to what he’d done to my dear friend, who had been hiding it all these years.
My family took me home and broke off all relations with the rabbi and the synagogue. I told them I wanted to help Sara and report the crime. They forbade me, and they told me to never mention it again. When I would see Sara in the hallways at school, she’d avoid me. My parents forbade me to go over to her house, and she did not even want to walk home from school with me. My family felt shame for me and asked me not to tell anyone. They finally said they believed me, but they didn’t want to talk about it. After a few months, the rabbi’s family moved to Israel, and I never heard from Sara again. I also never told anyone about Sara or her father or what he did to me. I just buried the experience deep down inside. I became more isolated. I did not trust anyone. I certainly couldn’t count on my parents, so I just kind of withdrew into myself.
When I graduated high school, I moved out and enrolled in college. I tried to have as little contact with my family as possible. But six years after this incident I started having nightmares and becoming depressed. That is when my friend brought me to therapy.
MY THOUGHTS
When Ivy came to see me, she pretty quickly made it clear that she didn’t want to talk about what happened with the rabbi as much as about how her parents had not allowed her to speak about it after they left the rabbi’s house. That’s what had hurt the most. Her parents had kept it a secret all these years. When Ivy once approached her mother to talk about the abuse, her mother said, “Look, it only happened once. Put it behind you.” This is a very common experience for girls. When you are abused “only” once, most people don’t understand why you are upset. But the truth is that one traumatic experience can upset you for years.
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