So
I was at a Super Bowl party this past Sunday, hosted by some of my closest
friends. I'm not really a big sports fan myself; I was going for the social
aspect, since just about all my friends would be there to, of course.
The hosts were Jerry and Alex, who are roommates and together rented a large apartment (really more a house) which was generally the hangout spot for my (which is also theirs, all intertwined) close-knit group of friends, they themselves were also among my closer friends, in particular Jerry.
Anyway, I was in the kitchen talking with another close friend, Blue (who, for the record, is Red's younger sister). Blue is fairly drunk, although as drunks go, she's a fairly cognitive and lucid one. Jerry, who has already been drinking before, comes in for some of the vodka that was in the fridge. A couple minutes later, does so again for some more.... By the third time round, Blue and I were both actively preventing him from getting some of it, which I suppose to him became a kind of funny game. Eventually, not wanting him to have more of it, and also tiring of the interruptions to our conversation, I hid it and told him I didn't think he should be having any more and that I had hid it. At that point, he started getting a teeny bit more upset, and Blue herself also said that, as it really was his, I shouldn't be hiding it from him. At which point I went into the other room where the game was playing (although it was during commercial break when I went in) and asked everyone there what they thought I should do. I had been kind of thinking/hoping that people there would say no, as a lot of them did not like people getting drunk at these hang outs. However, there was a unanimous yes. So I gave it to him.
Apparently though, this wasn't enough for him, as he came back in the room. He just really wanted to be talking/hanging out with her, it seemed. Since we were having a (or trying to have) a private conversation, this was kind of annoying, so we went into another side room. Didn't really help. I had kind of mostly given up on it at that point anyway, so we just talked about stuff anyway. At some point, another friend, Sam also came in to join the conversation.
Now, my memory of event chronology is bad. I remember what happened, but I'm not always as good with the order of events (for the record, in case you were wondering, I was completely sober- actually, never have been drunk in my life. I have drunk alcohol in the past, but not on this occasion.)
Long story short, Jerry basically started feeling up/molesting Blue. There was a progression to it, "smaller" touches to start, etc.
The most egregious came when he was lying next to her while she was sitting on the bed in that room, and kind off started feeling up her thighs and making gnawing motions at them, and afterwards, grabbed her between the legs and pulled her on top of him. That was the point where I got up and wrenched his hands off her. Later, I was lying on my stomach on the bed, she was sitting next to me, and then he came to sit next to her and was every so often putting his hands by her thighs/butt, and I would be moving his hand away. At some point later she went to the bathroom, and I told him, well, I can't recall the exact words I used, but it was something along the lines of "you need to stop, you're crossing a line." After which, he did stop and went to the main room and talked with people there and was fine the rest of the night.
When he originally started she did sort of try to tell him to stop and remove his hands, but at the end of the day, she is an extremely non-confrontational person, and stopped trying for the most part. When I took his hands off her, she said (a couple times over the course of the night) to "[don't] be violent with him." Never once did she say anything even remotely resembling consent though.
Later, once the party was over, I ended up walking her home. During the course of the walk, she mentioned how she was upset that he had, at some point, told her the reason he was "going after" her was because she was there, easy, and required the least amount of effort.
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I didn't sleep that night (not that staying up all night is unusual for me, I am a terrible sleeper). And while I had class the next day, didn't even bother going in. That (Monday) night, I called Red and told her what had happened. I suppose I felt I needed to talk to someone, and that she should know also, given the fact that, well, it was her sister who had been attacked. She, of course, was pissed, although not nearly as shocked and surprised as I was (more on that later), she is a much more cynical person then me.
Also, she had told me a long time ago that Alex had molested her in the past as well...part of the reason that while I suppose I was friends with both of them, I had always been a lot closer and liked a lot better, Jerry over Alex.
As it was very late at night (actually, more early morning) and she at least had a busy morning schedule for Tuesday, we decided we would talk about it more in the morning. But before we did that, I wanted to talk to the three other people besides me who were there.
First I called Blue, and asked her how she was doing. I said "I wanted to know how you are doing, considering you were basically molested Sunday night" She tells me that she's fine, that what he said bothered her more then what he did, and that these things happen, it's not a big deal, she wasn't really paying that much attention to it, it was in the back of her mind, that maybe she was kind of responsible for some of it... If you ever read blogs or stories about survivors of molestation or rape at the hands of friends or relatives, she pretty much was matching up with their descriptions perfectly- freezing, dissociation.....
Here's what I knew about Blue. She had a history of being in abusive relationships and in being afflicted with anxiety and depression. She did have some sort of liking for Jerry (in a relationship possible sense) before, and it may have been kind of mutual, but that went out the window when he told her he was only (making moves on her?) because it required the least effort. What happened there was DEFINITELY not consensual- there were sort of “nos” at first, then just letting it happen, and not a single anything resembling a "yes." She was clearly hurt by the entire thing - there was a short period during this where she was lying in a fetal position on the bed alone in the room, I walked in and she started talking about this till Jerry came back in; and when I walked her home she was highly agitated.
While I was on the phone with her I mentioned that I had told her sister, and she said something along the lines of "well, he made a choice, and now he'll have to deal with the consequences of that choice, with people knowing..." although it should be noted that, as far as I know, she hasn't told anyone herself.
I then called Sam to get his view of the entire event, as he was also there for most of it. Furthermore, he had also talked to her afterwards (after Jerry stopped with her but before I walked her home). He pretty much confirmed everything I said,
Finally, I called Jerry. What I got from that conversation was A) he did remember everything that had happened that night, B) he didn't/hadn't viewed it as molestation, C) he did not want to tell me in detail exactly what he remembered from last night, and D) he would talk it over with her.
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I called Red to update her on said conversations, and then later in the day she came to my house to talk it over with me in person.
One of the major things we were talking/worrying about was that in the past their (he and Alex) apartment had often been used by several of our (including them, remember, tightly knit social group) female friends to sleep over (because said friends lived out of town to us). Now, as far as either of us knew, none of them had ever been hurt, or anyone else, but well, now it was apparent more to us that this might be a danger.
(Actually, while I never would have thought that Jerry might do such a thing, or even Alex, though I knew he had in the past....anyway, I had made a point to sleep over there as often as possible when there were people sleeping over, possibly because I was worried about something I never thought would happen...).
There were two friends in particular who often slept over there fairly regularly; Rowena and Helga. Both were close friends of mine and theirs. So when Red was over, we called Rowena and told her that someone had gotten molested there and we didn't think it was safe to be sleeping there in the future. Her response "oh my god..." pretty much echoed my general thoughts on the matter even to now.
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Now it's Wednesday morning... and I need to find some way to tell Helga. And I have no idea how to. The fact is, Jerry and Alex are two of her closest friends. I know this for a fact because I am that weird person who actually asks people (sometimes) who their best friends are. And in Helga's case, well Jerry , Alex, I and two other girls are her closest friends.
How the hell do I tell her that it may be dangerous for her to continue to sleep over at her best friend’s house? How? She will be shocked and horrified. I don’t even really know how she will take the information. And, also, I HATE it when friendships breakup- especially if they are people I know and care about. And by telling her, there's a good possibility that I might be doing just that. But then....she might be in danger....
I don't know.
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The thing is, I don't think, and definitely don't want to think, that he is a predator or a danger. I want to think, and I think I do think, that he thought of it as consensual, and now that he realizes it wasn't, would take EXTREME precautions to make sure it never happens again. I want to say that I don't think it would ever happen again to anyone else (or to Blue herself, for that matter) that it was a onetime thing in those particular circumstances that will be learned from and prevented. I want to say, and I think I think that none of our friends are in danger from him. I want to say that I really believe that this would never happen again to anyone else.
And yet, had you asked me a week ago if I thought Jerry would have done anything like this, my answer would have been a 100% no....and now, well.....
What do you do when one of your really close friends, someone you actually liked and cared about and thought really highly of; molests, sexually assaults another close friend?!!
And it was a clear case of molestation, of a perpetrator and victim, of someone taking advantage of a very vulnerable person. And I saw it all. It happened right in front of my eyes.
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I share some responsibility for it. I let him have more alcohol, even though I knew he had already had a lot. I legitimized it to myself because I had seen him really drunk before and nothing like this had ever happened. But I knew he had already had a lot, and I let him have more.
I also didn't stop it right when it started. I could have stood up when he first started touching her thighs, could have stood up right then and taken his hands off her, told him to stop. Apparently that was all it took, because he stopped when I did that later.
But no, I didn't stop it then. Perhaps because I wasn't sure, early on, if maybe she did welcome it- I knew there had been mutual interest in the past, and she hadn't done anything at that point to indicate wanting him to stop - but there was no consent given either. Perhaps because I had missed signals in the past when two people wanted to be alone together, and I wasn't sure at first if they both wanted something here. Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. The fact is, I saw it starting and continuing and let it continue long past where I should have stepped in and stopped it, long before it got to the point that I actually did.
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And so here I am, still wondering how and what I'm going to tell Helga. Wondering and reasoning and second guessing myself over and over again if I should or shouldn't. Wondering how I will handle my own relationship with him, with Alex. I'll definitely be seeing them, we go to the same school, and Alex, Helga, and I are actually in a class together this semester.
Part of me just wants to hit him, part of me wants to hit myself, part of me wants to just yell at him and ask him how he could have done that....
And I still don't know what to do. And assuming/when I do tell Helga...then what? Do I tell every female friend they have that gets close, or that stays over at their house?
And how much of my hemming and hawing is from the endemic victim blaming and perpetrator protecting that goes on predominantly in my half of the population?
Red is done with them. And I fully understand that, and logically pretty much agree with it. He hurt her sister. As far as she is concerned at the moment, Jerry is dead to her. (Red, in case you haven't noticed, is the polar opposite of her sister when it comes to confrontation - although, note that she hadn't particularly done anything way before when Alex had molested her).
But...as I said in the first post of this blog, people aren't all evil or good. And I've seen so much good from Jerry in the past. But now I've also seen this. And I'm having trouble reconciling things emotionally, a lot of trouble.
So I don't know what my relationship will be like with him (and Alex) going forward. I don't think I can simply cut off it, I'm not even sure that's necessarily what I should do, but I don't think I would (be able to) do it anyway. But I don't know if I can have normal civil conversations, or ones like we used to anymore either.
I just don't know.
What do you do when a close friend molests another close friend?
The hosts were Jerry and Alex, who are roommates and together rented a large apartment (really more a house) which was generally the hangout spot for my (which is also theirs, all intertwined) close-knit group of friends, they themselves were also among my closer friends, in particular Jerry.
Anyway, I was in the kitchen talking with another close friend, Blue (who, for the record, is Red's younger sister). Blue is fairly drunk, although as drunks go, she's a fairly cognitive and lucid one. Jerry, who has already been drinking before, comes in for some of the vodka that was in the fridge. A couple minutes later, does so again for some more.... By the third time round, Blue and I were both actively preventing him from getting some of it, which I suppose to him became a kind of funny game. Eventually, not wanting him to have more of it, and also tiring of the interruptions to our conversation, I hid it and told him I didn't think he should be having any more and that I had hid it. At that point, he started getting a teeny bit more upset, and Blue herself also said that, as it really was his, I shouldn't be hiding it from him. At which point I went into the other room where the game was playing (although it was during commercial break when I went in) and asked everyone there what they thought I should do. I had been kind of thinking/hoping that people there would say no, as a lot of them did not like people getting drunk at these hang outs. However, there was a unanimous yes. So I gave it to him.
Apparently though, this wasn't enough for him, as he came back in the room. He just really wanted to be talking/hanging out with her, it seemed. Since we were having a (or trying to have) a private conversation, this was kind of annoying, so we went into another side room. Didn't really help. I had kind of mostly given up on it at that point anyway, so we just talked about stuff anyway. At some point, another friend, Sam also came in to join the conversation.
Now, my memory of event chronology is bad. I remember what happened, but I'm not always as good with the order of events (for the record, in case you were wondering, I was completely sober- actually, never have been drunk in my life. I have drunk alcohol in the past, but not on this occasion.)
Long story short, Jerry basically started feeling up/molesting Blue. There was a progression to it, "smaller" touches to start, etc.
The most egregious came when he was lying next to her while she was sitting on the bed in that room, and kind off started feeling up her thighs and making gnawing motions at them, and afterwards, grabbed her between the legs and pulled her on top of him. That was the point where I got up and wrenched his hands off her. Later, I was lying on my stomach on the bed, she was sitting next to me, and then he came to sit next to her and was every so often putting his hands by her thighs/butt, and I would be moving his hand away. At some point later she went to the bathroom, and I told him, well, I can't recall the exact words I used, but it was something along the lines of "you need to stop, you're crossing a line." After which, he did stop and went to the main room and talked with people there and was fine the rest of the night.
When he originally started she did sort of try to tell him to stop and remove his hands, but at the end of the day, she is an extremely non-confrontational person, and stopped trying for the most part. When I took his hands off her, she said (a couple times over the course of the night) to "[don't] be violent with him." Never once did she say anything even remotely resembling consent though.
Later, once the party was over, I ended up walking her home. During the course of the walk, she mentioned how she was upset that he had, at some point, told her the reason he was "going after" her was because she was there, easy, and required the least amount of effort.
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I didn't sleep that night (not that staying up all night is unusual for me, I am a terrible sleeper). And while I had class the next day, didn't even bother going in. That (Monday) night, I called Red and told her what had happened. I suppose I felt I needed to talk to someone, and that she should know also, given the fact that, well, it was her sister who had been attacked. She, of course, was pissed, although not nearly as shocked and surprised as I was (more on that later), she is a much more cynical person then me.
Also, she had told me a long time ago that Alex had molested her in the past as well...part of the reason that while I suppose I was friends with both of them, I had always been a lot closer and liked a lot better, Jerry over Alex.
As it was very late at night (actually, more early morning) and she at least had a busy morning schedule for Tuesday, we decided we would talk about it more in the morning. But before we did that, I wanted to talk to the three other people besides me who were there.
First I called Blue, and asked her how she was doing. I said "I wanted to know how you are doing, considering you were basically molested Sunday night" She tells me that she's fine, that what he said bothered her more then what he did, and that these things happen, it's not a big deal, she wasn't really paying that much attention to it, it was in the back of her mind, that maybe she was kind of responsible for some of it... If you ever read blogs or stories about survivors of molestation or rape at the hands of friends or relatives, she pretty much was matching up with their descriptions perfectly- freezing, dissociation.....
Here's what I knew about Blue. She had a history of being in abusive relationships and in being afflicted with anxiety and depression. She did have some sort of liking for Jerry (in a relationship possible sense) before, and it may have been kind of mutual, but that went out the window when he told her he was only (making moves on her?) because it required the least effort. What happened there was DEFINITELY not consensual- there were sort of “nos” at first, then just letting it happen, and not a single anything resembling a "yes." She was clearly hurt by the entire thing - there was a short period during this where she was lying in a fetal position on the bed alone in the room, I walked in and she started talking about this till Jerry came back in; and when I walked her home she was highly agitated.
While I was on the phone with her I mentioned that I had told her sister, and she said something along the lines of "well, he made a choice, and now he'll have to deal with the consequences of that choice, with people knowing..." although it should be noted that, as far as I know, she hasn't told anyone herself.
I then called Sam to get his view of the entire event, as he was also there for most of it. Furthermore, he had also talked to her afterwards (after Jerry stopped with her but before I walked her home). He pretty much confirmed everything I said,
Finally, I called Jerry. What I got from that conversation was A) he did remember everything that had happened that night, B) he didn't/hadn't viewed it as molestation, C) he did not want to tell me in detail exactly what he remembered from last night, and D) he would talk it over with her.
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I called Red to update her on said conversations, and then later in the day she came to my house to talk it over with me in person.
One of the major things we were talking/worrying about was that in the past their (he and Alex) apartment had often been used by several of our (including them, remember, tightly knit social group) female friends to sleep over (because said friends lived out of town to us). Now, as far as either of us knew, none of them had ever been hurt, or anyone else, but well, now it was apparent more to us that this might be a danger.
(Actually, while I never would have thought that Jerry might do such a thing, or even Alex, though I knew he had in the past....anyway, I had made a point to sleep over there as often as possible when there were people sleeping over, possibly because I was worried about something I never thought would happen...).
There were two friends in particular who often slept over there fairly regularly; Rowena and Helga. Both were close friends of mine and theirs. So when Red was over, we called Rowena and told her that someone had gotten molested there and we didn't think it was safe to be sleeping there in the future. Her response "oh my god..." pretty much echoed my general thoughts on the matter even to now.
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Now it's Wednesday morning... and I need to find some way to tell Helga. And I have no idea how to. The fact is, Jerry and Alex are two of her closest friends. I know this for a fact because I am that weird person who actually asks people (sometimes) who their best friends are. And in Helga's case, well Jerry , Alex, I and two other girls are her closest friends.
How the hell do I tell her that it may be dangerous for her to continue to sleep over at her best friend’s house? How? She will be shocked and horrified. I don’t even really know how she will take the information. And, also, I HATE it when friendships breakup- especially if they are people I know and care about. And by telling her, there's a good possibility that I might be doing just that. But then....she might be in danger....
I don't know.
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The thing is, I don't think, and definitely don't want to think, that he is a predator or a danger. I want to think, and I think I do think, that he thought of it as consensual, and now that he realizes it wasn't, would take EXTREME precautions to make sure it never happens again. I want to say that I don't think it would ever happen again to anyone else (or to Blue herself, for that matter) that it was a onetime thing in those particular circumstances that will be learned from and prevented. I want to say, and I think I think that none of our friends are in danger from him. I want to say that I really believe that this would never happen again to anyone else.
And yet, had you asked me a week ago if I thought Jerry would have done anything like this, my answer would have been a 100% no....and now, well.....
What do you do when one of your really close friends, someone you actually liked and cared about and thought really highly of; molests, sexually assaults another close friend?!!
And it was a clear case of molestation, of a perpetrator and victim, of someone taking advantage of a very vulnerable person. And I saw it all. It happened right in front of my eyes.
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I share some responsibility for it. I let him have more alcohol, even though I knew he had already had a lot. I legitimized it to myself because I had seen him really drunk before and nothing like this had ever happened. But I knew he had already had a lot, and I let him have more.
I also didn't stop it right when it started. I could have stood up when he first started touching her thighs, could have stood up right then and taken his hands off her, told him to stop. Apparently that was all it took, because he stopped when I did that later.
But no, I didn't stop it then. Perhaps because I wasn't sure, early on, if maybe she did welcome it- I knew there had been mutual interest in the past, and she hadn't done anything at that point to indicate wanting him to stop - but there was no consent given either. Perhaps because I had missed signals in the past when two people wanted to be alone together, and I wasn't sure at first if they both wanted something here. Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. The fact is, I saw it starting and continuing and let it continue long past where I should have stepped in and stopped it, long before it got to the point that I actually did.
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And so here I am, still wondering how and what I'm going to tell Helga. Wondering and reasoning and second guessing myself over and over again if I should or shouldn't. Wondering how I will handle my own relationship with him, with Alex. I'll definitely be seeing them, we go to the same school, and Alex, Helga, and I are actually in a class together this semester.
Part of me just wants to hit him, part of me wants to hit myself, part of me wants to just yell at him and ask him how he could have done that....
And I still don't know what to do. And assuming/when I do tell Helga...then what? Do I tell every female friend they have that gets close, or that stays over at their house?
And how much of my hemming and hawing is from the endemic victim blaming and perpetrator protecting that goes on predominantly in my half of the population?
Red is done with them. And I fully understand that, and logically pretty much agree with it. He hurt her sister. As far as she is concerned at the moment, Jerry is dead to her. (Red, in case you haven't noticed, is the polar opposite of her sister when it comes to confrontation - although, note that she hadn't particularly done anything way before when Alex had molested her).
But...as I said in the first post of this blog, people aren't all evil or good. And I've seen so much good from Jerry in the past. But now I've also seen this. And I'm having trouble reconciling things emotionally, a lot of trouble.
So I don't know what my relationship will be like with him (and Alex) going forward. I don't think I can simply cut off it, I'm not even sure that's necessarily what I should do, but I don't think I would (be able to) do it anyway. But I don't know if I can have normal civil conversations, or ones like we used to anymore either.
I just don't know.
What do you do when a close friend molests another close friend?
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