Make them Precious Again - Part 1

Rising from the rampant fires of abuse against women

Dear ones,

I’ve been researching and gestating this article for months now, waiting for not the inspiration, but to find the framing that will help create context, meaning, and healing for a very difficult topic.

So a note before we go further: this is part 1 of a 2 part series on the rampant fires of sexual violence against women. They will be rough articles to read. And I’m going to do my best to bring heart, presence, and care to a topic we all need to be wrestling with in our own way. For some of you who have experienced sexual harm, please be extra gentle with yourself if you choose to continue to read. I love you. I see you.

If you are trying to figure out how to metabolize the immensity of current news — the Epstein files, Motherless, sex trafficking, missing and murdered women, child pornography, rape, just to name a few horrors — then let’s walk together into this dark alley, hand in hand. Let’s face the very real boogie man in our midst, be witness to the harm, be inspired by the strength of survivors.

I feel my job is to not flinch from researching and gathering data: reading in-depth articles from investigative journalists and reviewing reports, watching videos from survivors, listening to stories of women harmed in so many horrific ways. Opening to gather the voices of the silenced, the groomed, the hurt and the healed. Holding everything within me to simmer, to allow some insight or wisdom or moral to soften and reveal itself, to become digestible.

What I’m finding is that it is not digestible, or possible to metabolize this level of harm. But it is possible to see the roots of misogyny. To name the infection of patriarchy and power over. To speak up and out. It is possible to heal. It is possible, and I believe imperative, for us to reclaim our pleasure. In spite of. Because of.

Let’s feel our rage and our terror. Let’s grieve what has been lost. Let’s be confused by incomprehensible actions and crushed by the weight of it all. Then let’s rise like phoenixes with clear eyes and the heat of fury tempered into bright love running through our bones. Let’s reclaim the sunshine of our sexuality and sensuality on our terms. Let’s continue the hard work of rising above and visioning possibilities, together.

Thanks for walking with me through this fire.

Note: While this article will focus on sexual abuse against women by men, this is not to negate or minimize the sexual harm toward men, transgendered, and nonbinary people. Nor am I saying that women are never perpetrators. Unfortunately power over, violence, and sexual abuse occur in all expressions, ages, and body types.

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Several years ago a man who was more acquaintance than friend, but someone I had worked with professionally, run into and happily hugged in a foreign country, and had several heart-to-heart conversations about relationships and life over the years — was arrested for possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material.

Not just one or two, but thousands of sexual images of children were found on his personal computer.

Like many of my friends that knew this human, I was in shock. The persona I knew and what was happening behind closed doors caused a rift inside, a-how-is-this-even-true cognitive dissonance.

He was publicly kind, supportive, dedicated to his spiritual path.

He was secretly addicted to child pornography.

As someone commented in the newspaper article about him:

I know this guy personally… have spent so much time with him in his home and traveling in groups…. The VERY scary part is he is incredibly charismatic, kind and nice to be around. I can’t understand how this would happen. He is very involved in the spiritual community, wanted to be a healer and addiction to child p*rn? How does this happen?

We want to believe that the men who sexualize children and trade images like playing cards or men that drug and rape their wives or men that sex traffic children not be our neighbors or friends. That they are not walking amongst us, that we could point them out by how they look, or acted.

When we believe this type of magical thinking it allows us to believe we can stay safe, that the horrors we read about are somewhere else, far from us.

Unless you have experienced it personally. Or are paying attention.

Women especially are taught to believe: if you are just a good girl you will be safe. If you marry the “right” man you will be safe. If you dress appropriately you will be safe. If you are on a spiritual path and thinking positively you will be safe. We freeze, we please, we get small, we get hardened.

We are taught to make it our fault, to hold the perpetrator’s energy inside of us, to be in shame, to not share. Or we take the experience of sexual harm and let it define us, mold us into a shape that become familiar, but keeps us trapped in the past.

But we are speaking out. We are standing up. We are rising from the ashes. We will not be contained, held down, shamed any longer.

Together we can fight the infection. But first, we must open the wound so we can clean and heal fully.

This is part 1 of Make them Precious Again; next week I’ll share part 2 with you.

Honoring the strength and fiery torch of Gisele Pelicot; here is a short video of a recent interview about her new book, A Hymn to Life.

A question: What are you struggling with or what harm are you rising from? Email me directly or share in the comments below. All shares held with tenderness.