Notes on a Silencing

by Lacy Crawford

But sexual assault puts sex right in the front window, even though the encounter isn’t, to the victim at least, about sex at all, but about cruelty exacted in domination and shame.

It’s a curious thing how children are wired to ask for help when hurt or frightened—Ouch! Help me!—but shame turns this inside out: I can survive this as long as nobody else ever knows.

I had begun to hate what seemed to me another expression of almost unbelievable privilege: an uncomplicated relationship to institutions.