Trigger Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault and rape.
I wasn’t shocked by the leaked tape of Donald Trump bragging back in 2005 about forcibly kissing women and ‘[grabbing] them by the p***y’. At this point, anyone who was actually surprised to discover Donald Trump has extremely gross attitudes about women has either just emerged from a coma or has the ability to lie to themselves that is so superhuman, it could single-handedly save the DC Extended Universe. If the Wonder Woman movie has a villain that was such a stunningly literal embodiment of sexism, people would complain it was too on the nose.
Then multiple women came forward alleging that Trump had forced himself on them or walked in on them while changing, just as he himself described. As of this writing, nearly a dozen women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault. In the wake of these allegations, Trump’s poll numbers have hit an all-time low and many have declared this latest scandal a turning point of the election.But Trump has faced allegations of sexual assault before, including an impending hearing for purportedly raping a 13-year-old, and it barely made headlines. And yes, Bill Clinton has faced similar charges, too.
While all of these cases are ‘only’ allegations, it’s a very low and—yes—sexist move of Trump to attack a female opponent with charges against her husband. But whatever you feel about the charges, at some point we have to grapple with the fact (flares of outrage aside) that we really just aren’t all that good at dealing with allegations of sexual assault unless it’s convenient.
We live in a society that is so mealy-mouthed about harassment that even when the media did cover a man for boasting about grabbing women’s genitals without their consent, it was frequently framed in the headlines as “Trump makes lewd comments about women.” As if women might be outraged because he used the word “pussy,” not because he boasted about a prosecutable offense.
That larger cultural unwillingness to confront sexual assault is how we get major politicians defending Trump from allegations he essentially made against himself because “whether it happened or not, I don’t know.” Remember that a woman had already gone on record accusing Trump of forcing himself on her, and now there is audio of Trump talking about how much he loves forcing himself on women.
But we shouldn’t be too hasty about taking his own word for it, because “some men” like to “exaggerate things like this.” And I thought Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were a perfect illustration of how much people will bend over backwards to avoid dealing with the fact that maybe a powerful man is an abuser.
It’s easy to denounce that one politician we don’t like as a misogynistic piece of human grape-flavored candy. But sexual violence isn’t like Cthulhu, some ancient but forgotten monstrosity we had heard of but are only now seeing with our own eyes as it wakes from its slumber for the first time in eons. It’s not doing us any favors to pretend that it is.