“Things were different 40 years ago” (when rape was not rape, I guess). My 14 y/o body was raped 40 years ago by a 28 y/o neighbour, but hey – things were different in the 70’s! Statute of limitations is UP!
He wasn’t *all bad*, so what he did doesn’t count. Not “is balanced against the good”, but cannot be spoken of. Once you’re dead the tarnish is unfair. (Ignore that when alive it didn’t count, either, because money and power and patriarchy kept the silence.) 40 years, man, just let it go. He matured. He learned better. Men will be men …. what were you wearing? Did you look older? Are *you* perfect?
(I can assure you I am not perfect. I can also assure you I have never committed sexual assault.)
Either all humans are nuanced, or they are not. Insisting we applaud the shiny while denying the tarnish serves only the perpetrators in this society. But you can’t fight the deity of celebrity. The similar deities of time and memory serve those with power, too. Serving those who historically have had and will continue to hold the power, until we dismantle the patriarchal system.
When someone’s gifts only flourished because we buried their flaws under the bodies of young women, is that balanced? Is that our willing trade off? Apparently our answer is “yes”.
There is no statute of limitations on being victim shamed and blamed. Thank gods we’re post rape culture. I can feel the difference from 40 years ago ….
LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 
Still processing all my many and varied feelings around this topic, the humans (in general), and my human self (in particular). Cognitive dissonance to level 11.
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I was okay until I saw a friend (a social justice activist friend) post something to the effect of “the lines we draw in the sand are different than 40 years ago” and it hit me that 40 years ago is when I was raped. It brought things up in me I thought were erased.
I don’t want effigies burnt. I want society to change to where people are held accountable as their life plays out , like it does for you and me.
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Thank you for writing this – it’s a brave thing to do. As I sit here reading post after post just oozing with love and adoration, I was getting more and more angry. You’ve given a voice to that anger. The illusion runs so deep, I feel like I’m the only one that is seeing this for what it is. Yesterday a friend posted that one article floating around about the girl losing her virginity to DB. She posted it with the commentary of “she’s so brave and not shaming herself” – and I lost it. I didn’t comment or anything, but I seriously felt like a hot coal was making it’s way through my body. It’s deep. It’s so deep and I am so tired of wading in it.
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You’re welcome. I’m trying to allow space around the grieving masses – people get to be who they are – but I’m finding it rather difficult.
And don’t even get me started on artificial construct of virginity. And use of the term “deflower”. Some other time, it’s a tangent, but boy does it showcase patriarchy in a particularly accurate way.
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