A CHRONICLE OF SHAME - CHAPTER 10 - ME TOO

 

My brother died just as I was finishing this book. Two or three weeks before his death, he sent me a short email telling me that he had several cancers, that his life was coming to an end, and that he was going to seek medical assistance to die. What killed him was smoking, which he had done for too long. “Several cancers, unrelated to each other, are smoker's cancers,” my doctor told me. We hadn't been in touch for 30 years, maybe more. The contact we had in 2000 was brief and only related to the anniversary of our mother's death. So you can imagine my surprise when I received an email from him with such tragic news. I was devastated and cried. I wrote to AS, who knows my story so well, that I felt “like the world was falling apart.” I replied to my brother's email that same evening, quoting the first sentence of chapter six of this novel, telling him that I was writing a book, something I had always intended to tell him, and reminding him, above all, that I had loved him very much. “I expected a lot from you because I loved you very much and your life was part of mine.” It was the first time I had dared to reply to one of his letters, in this case an email. He replied, reproaching me harshly for not thinking about others, specifically his wife, whom I had made cry a lot. It was not the first time, far from it, that he had blamed me in his letters for making his wife cry. In my last letter, I had wanted, it is true, to forcefully remind him of my existence as he was on the verge of death, focusing solely on the intimacy of our shared history. I didn't reproach him in any way. I didn't mention the sexual abuse he had subjected me to. But it was implicit, of course. The book I had announced was already telling a story in which he played a central role, that was obvious. And my brother understood that perfectly. The opportunity was too good to pass up to reverse the burden of proof and convince me of a serious offense, almost a crime. The process was fairly easy to set in motion in such tragic circumstances, and it almost worked. He was going to die with honor. I was going to remain the bastard. The day before he died, he sent me another email. He apologized for what he had written to me previously. He specified, in an incredible detail that singularly chilled me and brought me back down to earth, that he had “forgotten about it long ago and [had] forgiven [me].” It was up to me, of course, to receive forgiveness for my crimes, the ultimate absolution, almost from the afterlife.

My brother could be an excellent person, and that is just as true as the story of the narcissistic pervert obsessed with power and sexual domination that he was. I will always remember that he offered to help one of my friends move from Quebec City to Montreal, even though he didn't know him at all. “I did it because I believe that the good we do always comes back to us in one way or another.” He really believed that, like my mother, who had also believed in this kind of expectation for a long time—for me, it was a pipe dream. One day when he was at my house, separated from his wife, he told me he would like to live with me. Shortly before, he had sent me a long letter, which I still have, ending with the words, "I want to be close, very close to you. What's most extraordinary is that I feel I can love you without fear of losing my power, since I don't exercise it.“ He added in a postscript: ”And it's not over..." I didn't reply. But that was certainly the only time he told me that he loved me too, and that this love remained linked to our childhood ties, without erasing the sexual dimension or the temptation, difficult to repress, to exercise a certain power. He remained the conquering brother. In essence, it was to this letter that I replied on the eve of his death.

In the circular letter he sent me in January 2010—I was 58, he was 65—my brother wrote that he did not want to “exonerate himself” for what he had done to me (even though the entire letter was in fact a long denial) and that he asked me for “forgiveness.” Fifteen years earlier, my mother had also asked me to forgive him, saying that this was the path to salvation for me. “I beg you, Richard, to forgive. I'm not minimizing [your brother's] part in this, but I know that the more you try to dig deeper, the more unhappy you will be. Try to forget and be positive, you have everything to gain.”

I never believed—of course not—in this miracle therapy that forgiveness was supposed to be, so quickly said, so quickly done, a few inspiring words, and then nothing twisted anymore, guaranteed success every time, free of charge, a miracle. The method, so simple, to heal everything, more effective than prayers addressed to a hesitant, arbitrary God, criminally responsible for not acting when people are dying of heat, hunger, filth, deprivation, betrayal, hatred, exploitation, manipulation, abandonment, and incessant rape, among other things, and for many, including children. That's the great mystery, say the fools. Why should forgiveness be therapeutic, especially since it is inseparable from forgetting, so convenient for aggressors of all kinds, who thus never have to answer for their actions? It's forgiven and forgotten, something like that is priceless, when in reality forgetting has polluted my life and ruined it for a long time, forgetting that continues to cause misery across the entire planet. Must the victims of colonialism also forgive, having been bled dry, still suffering from serious consequences, broken national cultures, and chronic underdevelopment? Africa was not only conquered and carved up, it was exploited, stripped of its resources, and raped, sexually raped. Must the victims of racism also forgive? Forget the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or the memory of the huge plantations, the forced labor, the physical violence, the whip never far away, the masses of slaves generating such considerable surplus value that it was a real miracle, perfectly palpable, the work of God in all his glory? And here in Canada, must First Nations women and men forgive the scandalous practice of reservations and residential schools—and the repeated rape of women and children? The United States, Canada, and others will eventually pay for the widespread practice of an infinite variety of utterly insane forms of oppression. Nevertheless, despite possible attempts at redress, African Americans may be irreparably broken, prisoners of an anger that will not fade, of an unspeakable shame for having participated, even under duress, in a crime that was never theirs. This is just as true for Jews, for Native Americans, and on a smaller scale, for me and for all victims of sexual assault when they were powerless to do anything about it. Forgive, really? The harsh truth is that to get back on my feet, I had to pay a lot, without my brother even imagining that he could pay me back a penny before expecting any forgiveness.

Peraldi had already told me, about medication, “if it works, we'll take it, of course.” The same reasoning applies to forgiveness. If it worked, we would forgive. But it doesn't work. It doesn't heal anything. It just gives a clear conscience to those who seek forgiveness and hope for it desperately. I am well aware that forgiveness sometimes takes the form of extraordinary humanism, when parents, for example, forgive the murderer of their child, thrown from the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, an unimaginable, absolutely atrocious murder—and the parents did indeed forgive; they went to prison to meet the thug and formed a friendship with him. John Paul II also went to prison to forgive Mehmet Ali Ağca, who shot him in 1981 in St. Peter's Square in Rome. These are cases of exceptional kindness, more mysterious, in fact, than the mystery of God, which is so easy to understand when one considers the state of alienation of those who submit to it in order to ravage and kill. I certainly believe in kindness, but absolutely not in the virtue of forgiveness.

One day, I can't remember when, an attacker had the nerve (and the recklessness) to declare in court, before a judge who couldn't believe his ears: “I want to tell the victims that I don't blame them for reporting me.” He didn't blame them! No resentment, just magnanimity! How could you blame such a nice guy, who did what was necessary to “get back on the right track,” that is, to forgive his victims—who were responsible, I imagine, for attracting and seducing him. I made a note of this example of an inconceivable perversion of forgiveness. It is the kind of loophole that reveals and discredits what absolution too often is: a subtle form of manipulation of victims, who are once again called upon to compromise themselves and collaborate, in silence, totally submissive to the powerful and the established order that serves them so well. Cheers, Mr. Epstein!

Fifteen years ago, perhaps a little more, men and women who believed themselves to be on a sacred mission, inflamed by a morality that was all the more dangerous because it was totalitarian, took it upon themselves to plaster the names and photos of pedophiles on the streets, to stigmatize them, to exclude them forever from any form of social rehabilitation. What these people wanted, without considering the victims or seeking their consent, was to alert the neighborhood where the alleged predators lived, to turn them into pariahs and hunt them down as if they were criminals.

I'm not sure what therapy can do for people who are attracted to children and cannot conceive of a love life without them. I am wary of so-called chemical castration drugs. Perhaps long-term analysis can yield results, but I don't know; psychoanalysis is neither the Church nor the State, it does not produce good citizens on demand, nor does it serve the established order and the prison system. What I am certain of, however, is that even in a society radically transformed by the militant integration of people of all genders and sexual orientations, even in a society where the very practice of power would be outlawed, never would a child's body, or their emotions for that matter, be made to endure the violent sensations of a sexual relationship with the mouth, hands, or genitals of an older brother, a father, an adult—a mother, an older sister, a nun in need of love. Children must therefore be protected. And yet, I will never rally behind any form of summary justice, no matter how morally valid the pretext may be. Never, ever will I associate myself with obscene and unworthy campaigns against pedophiles. Never, ever will I publish photos of pedophiles in the public arena. Never. It is not just a question of law, it is a question of consequences: I fear that these barbaric practices of public shaming can only harm victims of sexual abuse, that the savage condemnation can force the victims, once again terrorized, into silence and withdrawal. The very horror of calls to the mob, the very violence that may ensue, can forever crush any victim under an overwhelming weight of guilt and lock them forever in a protective shell of strategic autism. Sexual abuse is an intimate matter. I know what I'm talking about. Just as forgiveness does not lead to liberation or revolution, neither does justice for show, outside any legal framework.

The victim's own words, describing what they have experienced and what they are still enduring, remain unsurpassable, the royal road to healing, when they are free, never overtaken by any ideology or calls for tribal revenge. But it is obvious that there is always a risk in speaking (or writing), because there is always a danger of being co-opted by fanatics.

In this respect, it often seems to me that the Me Too movement is only very exceptionally a genuine act of speaking out, and even less a detailed account of broken lives. Since the movement gained momentum, it has remained essentially an operation of denunciation, a very contemporary variation on the long-standing practice of publicly displaying names and photos. This movement is all the more spectacular, and potentially dangerous, because it uses both anonymity—the perpetrator remains unseen and unknown—and social media, where hundreds of thousands of people can read about these new forms of denunciation, be scandalized by them, and revel in them. I understand the justification, which is certainly valid, of people who have been betrayed by a justice system that is too slow and too poorly trained in the specific issues surrounding sexual assault. I know that under current law, many perpetrators who are reported and prosecuted get away with it. And I realize, as it is historically evident, that it was necessary to expose, with examples, the intersexual violence described, in the beautiful expression, as a “rape culture.” Right now, a special court is being set up to deal with issues of sexual violence to “ensure that the justice system does not become an ordeal for the victim.” At least, that is the intention of Quebec's Minister of Justice. I hope that this law will provide an effective response to the urgent need dramatically revealed by the Me Too movement. And I hope that the Me Too movement will fade away on its own, so that it will no longer be “an ordeal for the victim.”

I am not an expert in law or psychology. I have been a victim. I have undergone lengthy therapy—my doctor once told me, with a wry smile, that I certainly knew more than many licensed doctors, just as a hypothetical visitor who spent a single afternoon in Pericles' Athens would know much more when he returned to tell us about his extraordinary journey, than a historian specializing in Greek antiquity who had spent thirty long years of his life poring over a handful of documents. I obviously hope that a better justice system, one that is more respectful of the fragility of victims, more aware of their possible memory loss, and of course quicker to act, will eliminate summary convictions without presumption of innocence and without trial. Me Too has probably triggered a radical transformation in gender power relations, and if social media has served that purpose, then that is already a good thing. But—but—the disclosure of personal and criminal information by social media, against any human being, risks in turn committing a terrible abuse of power against the victims, and I am talking here about all victims, of both sexes and of all ages, who may feel violated because they are forced to speak out, who may feel guilty about the scandalous form taken by the disclosure of the names of the aggressors and the public hatred it arouses. When I read this type of denunciation, I am inevitably afraid, I look for a place to hide again, I think that perhaps I should not exist, and I want, once again, to remain silent, once and for all, and never publish this story. I am certainly not the only one to react in this way; on the contrary, there must be many of us who always react with fear, terror, and shame, especially if the denunciation is populist and fueled by sexual morbidity.

Tell the story, denounce it, possibly file a complaint, yes, certainly. Remaining cautious, taking care of oneself, so as not to deceive oneself or cause further harm, inevitably, yes. Obtaining compensation in court, before one's peers, when the victims are ready to take up the challenge of prosecution and believes that this is the best way for them to free themselves, why not, when the decision to accuse is freely considered, consented to, and accepted. All victims have the right to speak out and recount their long-endured suffering and to receive real, concrete, loving support from their loved ones and from the many people in society who stand in solidarity with them. That is what I am doing by writing this book. The truth has its rights, of course, when one names it, and precisely because it is named, the victim chooses to exist.

One day in the early 1990s, I was quietly on duty in my office, as all teachers were required to do to meet the ordinary needs of students. A student, very small, cute, with a nasal voice and a breath of inspiration, entered my office, checked that I wasn't expecting anyone, closed the door behind her (“Can I come in?”), sat down, and made her request, immediately and perfectly explicit. "I'm in love with you. I want to sleep with you. If you refuse, I'll say you assaulted me and report you publicly." I was stunned—there had been flirting by female students before, sometimes in person, but also through little notes slipped between the pages of term papers, and even through hastily written postscripts on the last page of an exam... But this was the first time I had been personally and dangerously threatened. There was no way I was going to tell this student about my private life (“Well, you see, I can't sleep with you because I'm gay”), it was none of her business. I was kind, tolerant, and very, very careful in my choice of words. I told her I was “honored,” I remember using that exact word, but that I had to decline the offer, that I was her teacher, that she was much too young for that kind of relationship, which was forbidden anyway, and that she needed to talk to the college psychologist about it, which she did. She came back to my office a few weeks later to tell me that the psychologist had praised my integrity. I knew she was a student journalist for a widely read Montreal newspaper, so I suggested she write an article about the impossible love a student could feel for a teacher who had impressed her. The article was published. I was relieved.

This incident had really scared me. I should have immediately called the department head, whose office was across the hall from mine, and reported the very serious intimidation I had just experienced. But because I felt involved—guilty, once again, which may seem incredibly twisted, but it's a fact, guilty, always, unable to detach myself from the aggressor—and because I was very worried, I preferred to get myself out of it alone, making as little noise as possible. As a direct result of this incident, I never closed my office door again, no matter what the students had to say to me. And when students wanted to meet with me with their parents, it always took place in front of witnesses.

I did, of course, tell my colleagues about this incident, without ever mentioning the student's name—there was no way I was going to rat her out. No one at the college ever mentioned an assault I had allegedly committed against a student who had sought to confide in me.

Just recently, at the very moment when I learned of my brother's imminent death and was finishing writing this book, a friend informed me that a former colleague, now very old, sick, abandoned by his loved ones, and no longer understanding anything, was nevertheless sharing his memories with anyone who would listen. One evening, while the two were talking on the phone, the old man accused me of intimidating, if not assaulting, a student many years ago, back when I was in my early forties (jeans, T-shirt, regular workout, impenetrable mask, intellectual facade, left-wing as you'd expect), precisely at the time when the overexcited student hadthreatened to expose an imaginary crime, but one that, if taken seriously, would have caused me great harm. My former colleague was in an inspired mood that evening and took the opportunity to denounce others who had accused him, for example, of rejoicing a little too much, a little too badly, over a trip to Thailand. I was shocked, to say the least, completely disgusted by this case of blatant defamation. It gave me more food for thought about the irresponsibility of making serious accusations without any proof. I thought about sending the old man a formal notice, threatening him with possible legal action. I was worried about seeing my reputation ruined overnight, even though I am gay, even though the accusation was implausible, because there would always be people who would believe such rumors, especially in this day and age. I questioned whether I should even write this book, as this story brought back so intensely the guilt (for no reason) that always follows (and lasts for a long time) sexual abuse experienced in childhood. I went to bed several times, curled up in a ball, hoping that the storm would pass and that I would regain some confidence. And I remembered the student who had understood the simple way to get someone under her thumb. I assumed that it was her, perhaps, who had embarked on an obscene information campaign at the time... I felt a tremendous need, in order to protect myself, to know the names, the alleged locations, and the exact circumstances of the accusation. “I want to know who it is, damn it, so I can take her to court and put her away for a while...” But I didn't contact a lawyer. I didn't take legal action. My friend, to whom I had mentioned my intention to file a complaint, simply said, “Listen, your former colleague doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, and he'll never read your book!” We laughed, and that was the end of it, except for telling the story here, in these pages. The fact remains that I am now certain that one should not always believe allegations of sexual crime, which is what I did, as a matter of principle, until the urge to denounce for the sake of scandal struck me in turn. To be credible, accusations must be signed and documented—I borrow this last word, smiling, a little embarrassed, from the great writer David Goudreault, giving it back its original meaning, that of informing oneself properly, with supporting evidence, and understanding the meaning of the evidence.

Moreover, the aftermath of child sexual abuse is so devastating that I have always found it difficult to believe the statistics that report an alarming number of victims who reach adulthood—unless, of course, genetics accounts for the considerable variations in the resilience of people who have been sexually abused during childhood.

I am not yet, far from it, a castaway who imagines great things about what his life has been. I am telling a story, my story, like a never-ending novel, as I perceived it and as it shaped me, silently, treacherously, but deliberately. It is not exactly a children's story, I agree, but this story, my story, is no less worthy of being told, with all the ethical caution that goes with it; there will always be those—and there are still many—who will not want to acknowledge the legitimacy of words and the irreducibility of facts. The same is true of the greater history, where it must be said again that the Conquest was a conquest, akin to rape, and not a providential cession that brought with it only the best of intentions, which is precisely what the conquered asked for—what the child asked for. All sexual assault is always akin to conquest. Am I exaggerating? It was an important Anglo-Quebec historian who wrote these forbidden words: the Conquest was rape, rape—soldiers entering homes, ravaging everything in their path, bombing, forcing doors, looting, killing, arrogating to themselves the right of the strongest, of the victor who enters everywhere as he pleases, taking whatever they wanted, disposing of everything as they saw fit, day and night, with no restrictions to stop them, to prevent irreversible accidents, the ultimate catastrophe that would bring shame for a long time to come. This history of Quebec, as I tell it here, is ideologically frowned upon. People prefer not to talk about it, not to hear it, and generally not even to acknowledge it as it was. It is accused of sowing discord, mistrust, hatred, and of incriminating the innocent. All of this is buried in the mists of time. We must now forget, stop dwelling on these old issues, and live together, regardless of the collateral damage, regardless of those who still feel the aftermath of the ancient, founding outrage. No one listens to the losers, the backward, or those who did not have the resilience to survive without making a fuss. My father was one of those people. He hid himself away. The important thing for him was to keep quiet, not to talk about it, to lie if necessary. He cherished above all else a talisman, the three wise monkeys carved from soapstone, and in fact, when it came to what had clearly tortured him, he reduced himself to silence, covered his ears, and blinded himself to what he had undoubtedly seen and experienced. I don't buy this kind of story; I reject silence, which, like all dictatorships, censors at will. Freedom comes through telling the truth, the humble truth, of course, which leaves room for the important, major role played by the perception of events by those who lived them. That is what I am doing here, telling my story as a novel, and the only perception I have of it. It is my truth, which never loses the right to be told and to exist.

 

One day, about a dozen years ago, when I was writing a blog, Chroniques amnésiques et autres mémoires vives (Amnesiac Chronicles and Other Vivid Memories), a sexologist—a professional, a real one, who charged for her services—told me that my case, my story, my life, were in no way significant in terms of “general social realities.” This was just before the Me Too avalanche. At best, I could expect some sympathy, but nothing more, and only on the strict condition that I stay in my corner, silent, not too obtrusive, and still guilty of being a man. If, by chance, because of my gender and my experience, I ventured to question these truths held to be self-evident, that women are the only perpetrators of “socially significant” sexual violence, I would be silenced, discredited, marginalized, ignored—and insulted. The lady knew, she was the professional, she had studied, she had a degree, and I didn't know anything, I only had my experience, and I was just a stupid man.

At the same time, I was walking with other men who had been sexually abused as children in the streets of Montreal, in marches organized by a Montreal association dedicated to helping these men, CRIPHASE. We were history in the making, we were even at the forefront of history. Men? Abused men? Aren't these men, once again, usurping what is unique to women, namely their constant, well-founded fear of violence and aggression? A day will come when more and more men will no longer be afraid. A day will come when women, and not just wives, will show solidarity. On that day, we will consider it possible that there may even be as many little boys as little girls who are objects of desire for sexual predators, including within families. On that day, we will also acknowledge the relative rarity of such tragedies and the extreme loneliness of all those who have been mortally wounded, of both sexes. On that day, we will acknowledge that women in positions of power can also abuse their children; and on that day, we will have become aware of the extreme caution, without outcry or fury, with which such cases must be approached, and of the lives that are often broken forever.

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