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One in three and one in six [1]

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Date: 2025-07-29

This is going to be brief, but I’ve been watching the Netflix movies about Epstein and Maxwell and weeping over them all afternoon. I felt I needed to comment.

This morning I was reading another article in DK (as I do every morning), once again about DOJ apparently (allegedly) dangling a possible pardon in front of Ghislaine Maxwell. Reading into the comments, I saw a number of readers questioning why this particular issue seems to be sticking with his base, and they won’t let go of it. Isn’t the wholesale destruction of democracy more important than an international sex trafficking ring? Yes, of course, and I wouldn’t be surprised at one or maybe two such comments. But there were more. And there seemed to be more in other diaries as well, questioning why this issue should have such a hold on Krasnov’s base.

I wish it were not the reason that sticks with his base. I wish that everyone felt as passionately as we do that democracy is worth defending. But here we are. And my title speaks to perhaps a reason why it sticks: recent statistics (I wish I could remember where I saw this) indicate that one in three women and one in six men has experienced sexual assault in their lifetime.

Let me say that again: one in three women and one in six men will experience sexual assault in their lifetime. That’s a whole fuckton of us, if you want to use technical language.

Now, I am not a survivor of Epstein, nor was I trafficked. I was instead subjected to assault by a parent when I was four, and when I was 16 I was raped by a boy from church who I dated. The survivors of Epstein (and perhaps some who did not survive) are legion: I will never discount the trauma, pain, and altered life circumstances that likely resulted from this trauma. And there are legions of us who have survived other kinds of sexual assault, by persons known and unknown, wealthy and poor. While we call ourselves survivors, we also know, in detail, how our lives have been altered by these experiences of abused power.

I’m old: I coped with heroin first, then therapy later. I survived. As most (I hope all) of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims survive. But we don’t forget. And the rage and grief are sometimes just beneath the surface. I can feel the passion of the legions of survivors who are watching this, holding our breath to see, will anyone at long last be held accountable for somebody’s suffering?

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