and hadn't realized until Lawrence told her that pressing charges was still an option.
I think she knew she wouldn't press charges--recoiled against the idea--before she knew what was behind her decision. Most likely her real reason had more to do with what she said next: that she blamed herself because she went into the dressing room with him. Although she says that her work as an advice columnist has helped her drop the self-blame, she acknowledges that it's still there to some degree.
She has also said that she doesn't want to go through what Christine Blasey Ford and others have gone through.
And there may be something else. She was abused a lot, beginning when she was a child.
She writes: James was 7 and a half or 8, a bloodthirsty, beautiful, relentless boy. He ordered everyone around, even the older kids. To me he said, “I’m going to shove this up you again.”
We’d played this game before. Our families had gone on a camping trip to Pokagon State Park, and I learned that an object could be shoved up the place where I tinkled. I don’t remember now what it was, probably a stick, or maybe a rock. It felt like being cut with a knife. I remember I bled.
“I don’t want to,” I said.
And then there was the camp counselor when she was twelve. And more.
And I think she has survived all of this by walling herself off from the severity of what she's experienced and telling herself it's no big deal (even though she never had sex again after being raped by Trump.)
So when she says that pressing rape charges against Trump would be disrespectful to detainees, I think she means that what she experienced was so minor compared to their experiences that it doesn't merit a court case--that it almost doesn't merit being described with the same word--but that this has more to do with her ability to disconnect from trauma than about whether prosecution is warranted.
= new reply since forum marked as read
