The sum of all of our parts
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Her mother should have accompanied her to the bathroom.
His mother should have gone to prison with him for introducing him to drugs as a youngster.
The drugs made him do it.
I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions at all, because I think it’s just a sure-fire way of setting yourself up for failure. So, I wouldn’t call it a resolution, but I did promise myself at the beginning of this year to spend some time investing in me. I would do more of what makes me happy. I would focus more on myself and what I needed.
Keeping that in mind, I have also undertaken not to follow the news too closely, because I always end up browsing through the comments on the news pages on social media, which leads to my mind exploding and all of the vitriol I keep inside to pour out of my mouth. Before you know it, I have to double the dose of my blood pressure meds. So, while I don’t read every article anymore or constantly have the television tuned to the Crime Channel, some cases are just impossible to avoid. Naturally, some cases also just feel slightly more personal than others.
I am sure if you are alive and in South Africa you know exactly which tragic incident all of these statements above refer to. I don’t believe the offender in this tragedy deserves the airtime he already received, so I won’t mention his filthy name – his name should never be spoken, because he should never have breathed his first breath. I would like to attack the three idiotic fucking statements one by one, hoping that I can finally forget about this horror.
Her mother should have accompanied her to the bathroom. This one is loaded, because while I feel that a devoted South African mother in this day and age should do exactly that, I also know that it absolutely should not be necessary. As a woman in this generation and as a victim of abuse myself, I detest the fact that some men need to be reminded not to invade the privacy of a woman, let alone the privacy of a minor. Why do we need a stamp across our boobs reminding men that this is a restricted access zone? Why can a seven-year old girl not relieve herself unaccompanied, without the threat of being accosted in a bathroom? I don’t feel it’s fair to shift any part of the responsibility for the freedom of movement to the women and children trying to stay alive in this country.
Who then takes the responsibility? The fucking same government that takes our taxes to fund their luxurious lifestyles. You, Mr President, owe it to every woman and child in this country that buys you every luxury you enjoy. You owe us the peace of mind. You owe us the assurance that every sexual offender will be brought to book, prosecuted and punished so harshly that the next predator thinks twice. You owe us, at the very least, a gigantic fucking effort from your side to make this insanity stop. I don’t care if the offender is black or white and I want you not to care either. I want for you to imagine that every victim is your wife, your mother, your sister or your daughter. I want for you to spend the same amount of effort and resources hunting these people down that you would have if your blood coursed through that victim’s veins.
Can the government do this on their own? Probably not. So perhaps every single mother takes responsibility. Not for accompanying their daughters to the bathroom, but for raising a boy that knows how to respect a woman. You raise the man that will not hide behind his so-called animalistic fucking nature. You raise the man that will not smile and nod when his friends objectify women, body-shame them or discriminate against them. Men don’t always objectify us in person. They don’t always mock you about your weight to your face and they certainly don’t make their crappy sexist jokes in your company. These things happen at the bar, around a fire, on a hunting trip and around the boardroom table. Raise the man that tells his friends that this is not okay.
Abuse is not only when a body is violated, but also when a right is refused and a courtesy denied. Abusers were not taught that rape is socially acceptable. They likely were taught that little girls play indoors with Barbie dolls and that mommy does the dishes. They were likely taught that boys mow the lawn and lift all the heavy stuff and that daddy casts the final vote when it comes to decision-making in the household. They were likely taught that the best piece of meat is saved for daddy. Will every boy raised to be chauvinistic become an abuser who follows little girls to the bathroom? Surely not, but every chauvinistic man will abuse a woman in some shape or form in his lifetime. I guarantee it.
Her mother should have accompanied her to the bathroom. It sounds a lot like she shouldn’t have worn that dress. It sounds a lot like she shouldn’t have led him on. No woman should buy into this fucking notion that we, as women, should be careful about what we wear, what we say or how we move. We shouldn’t raise girls to think twice about the length of that dress. We should raise boys who don’t feel tempted by it. As a lesbian, I shouldn’t be afraid to have my sexual orientation exposed in a social setting where men are drinking. I shouldn’t have to get in my car and drive home instead of spending the night in the room that I paid for, because the dodgy fucker outside our door noticed that we are a lesbian couple. I shouldn’t be terrified walking to my car with my girlfriend at an arts festival, followed by men who are questioning our friends about our sexual orientation.
Every boy and girl should be raised to understand this: there are no blurry lines when it comes to anything of a sexual nature. The boundaries are not determined by what she is wearing, how she talks to you or what she’s into. The boundaries are determined by consent – consent that can only be given by an adult that is sober, awake and of sound mind. Consent is not implied. It is expressed. If you don’t intend to be mindful about what you teach your children, not only by what you say, but also by how you treat others, do the world a favour and don’t procreate. Which brings me to the next idiotic statement.
His mother should have gone to prison with him for introducing him to drugs as a youngster. Now, if this fucker’s mother paid attention to the number one rule of parenthood mentioned above, she would have used a condom the day he was conceived. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that if you take a good look around you will notice people who had no fucking business being parents, pushing around strollers or dangling snot-covered toddlers by their arms. It should be quite easy in life to determine if you should be having sex without using contraceptives. If you are an addict, mentally challenged, reckless, immature, or financially dependent you should be using contraceptives. If you want to dumb it down: if you open your wallet and you find there a bank card with coke or cat residue, but no actual fucking cash, go beg the clinic for a steady supply of condoms. If you are mentally challenged, we are not picking on you, but your mother has long since had your ovaries removed so the wallet test does not apply.
What happens when the wallet test was never performed and an ill-equipped teenager gave birth to a child? Again, we love to complicate matters that are very simple. Parents can’t give their children something they do not possess themselves. If your mother is devoid of emotion, she can’t shower you with love. If she has no sense of responsibility, she can’t teach you how to be responsible. If she takes no accountability for her mistakes in life, she can’t teach you about being accountable for any of your actions. Parents can however share with you what they do have – even if it’s a substance abuse habit. Should this mother be punished for introducing her rapist son to drugs? It would have been absolutely wonderful if the government did their job 21 years ago, when a drug addict gave birth to a baby boy. Yes, reportedly, he ended up living with his grandmother at some point. The real question here would be, why was he left in his mother’s care up until the point where he started using drugs with her at the age of thirteen? Also, should we have trusted the grandmother to raise a fucking upstanding citizen since she did such a fantastic job with her own daughter? I am just saying she didn’t receive raving reviews for her first body of work. Why wait to see if she fucks it up a second time? The best predictor of the future is in fact the past. Her past was not exactly inspiring. You would expect the government to place this child in safe custody before he becomes a statistic. It almost sounds like I have sympathy for this bastard, so I will move on to the third statement swiftly.
The drugs made him do it. Now this is where my mind exploded and a lot of filth poured from my mouth. I have a very disturbing range of reading material in my collection and most people would not be comfortable in a dark, confined space with me if they see what I read. The psyche of a human being fascinates me to no end and I’ve spent many, many hours of my life studying it. I probably know more about the mind of a serial killer than is good for me and generally I am not grossed out by what people do as much as I am fascinated by why they do it. I have read countless books about addiction and murder – not the fictional kind. I prefer to read the ones written by reporters, profilers or psychologists and by no means does that make me the expert, but I consider myself to be relatively informed on the subject. I also happen to know a few addicts. At the same time, I have sadly been exposed to more than one child molester in my lifetime.
I’ll let you in on a secret: drugs can’t make you do anything you are not capable of, and quite possibly fantasising about on some level, while you are sober. I know addicts who, at their worst, were gripped in the clutches of a heroine addiction but never ever physically hurt a single person. I also know child molesters who performed their acts of violence and abuse without a single drop of alcohol in their system. It’s quite simple really. Some addicts are not inherently evil, while child molesters are. Drugs, or the altered state of your mind when you abuse drugs, can’t cause you to do anything that you are not capable of doing while consciously sober. It reminds me of a line that spoke to me on such a deep level that I remember it so clearly twenty years later.
The clinically depressed patient, Susanna, in Girl Interrupted tried explaining her take on mental illness once she was released from an institution of healing and this is what she said: “Crazy isn’t being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you, or me, amplified.”
I think we can all agree that perhaps using drugs makes you act a little crazy. Let’s just try to remember that crazy is simply you and me, amplified. It does not create what is not inherently there. It’s like music turned down low. The soundtrack to this fucker’s life was always sexual abuse, playing softly in the background. The dial was just turned all the way up in that restaurant when he saw his opportunity to do the things that he’s only ever had the balls to fantasize about. The drugs didn’t make him to do it. The drugs simply gave him the confidence he lacked up until that point. Given the opportunity, he will do it all over again. Which brings me to my own closing statement that I think should be addressed to his grandmother and every person that feels sorry for him.
Pedophiles can’t be rehabilitated. You can castrate them – you don’t need genitals to sexually abuse a child. Ask any victim who suffered at the hands of a predator. You can lock them up and throw away the key. The reality is that wherever they go, there they are. It’s biology. Inherently, they are sick, evil, twisted. So, Mrs. Grandmother, you should be ashamed of yourself for begging for a lenient sentence. Don’t tell us that he is not only a rapist – that he has a softer side that people will find endearing if only they try. We are all a sum of our parts, but one of his parts forced a little girl into a cubicle where he stripped her naked, thrust his penis into her mouth and penetrated her with his fingers. I think it’s fair for us to ask that no little girl is ever exposed to that part of the monster that shares your DNA.
The wounded little girl inside of me, terrified of men and the way that they smell and talk and feel is deeply affected by a case like this. It propels my mind into a dark recess where thoughts of retribution and justice take the shape of anger and hate that consumes me to a point where I feel physically ill and mentally unhinged. Yes, we are a sum of our parts. We have to own every single part – not only the shiny parts.
Unfortunately, retribution doesn’t always look like we think it should. Sometimes retribution is living your best life, loving yourself enough to rise above and claim the happiness that you deserve, being just a little kinder to yourself and avoiding the fucking newspapers.
