Wiping the Slate Clean
One way that abusers can get away with their abuse for so long is by blame shifting: pinning all of their bad behavior on someone else.
No matter how awful they are, they will preserve their image (to themselves and others) if they manage to put the blame on someone else.
It is sort of like racking up moral debt, then having someone else pay the bill.
They might blame the same victim repeatedly, several victims, or maybe something else entirely, like their own trauma, their culture, their family, or society at large.
If they are able to do this, they are free to cause more harm… and to blame that on someone else.
A Repeat Victim Who Took the Blame
Virginia Roberts Giuffre describes numerous instances in which people blamed her for the abuse she endured.
Her father called her a “slut” and a “whore” even though he was the first person to touch her sexually, starting at age 7.
Her father’s friend also abused her in a similar way.
In her memoir, she describes a moment where the two men wanted to talk to her. Her dad announced that his friend is “a man of God now, born again,” and told her, “it’s important that you respect your elders and hear him out”.
That man then pushed Virginia to her knees and said she needed to ask God for forgiveness for what she did with the two men.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. As horrible as I felt about myself, some part of me knew that what had happened with Dad and his friend wasn’t all my fault.”
– Virginia Roberts Giuffre
In that scenario, that man gained social capital from being “reformed”, even though he never apologized to Virginia or attempted to make anything right for her sake, only his.
He wanted absolution, and avoided accountability.
Still he was exerting his power over her.
His slate was wiped clean, and Virginia’s was muddied in ways that it would take a lifetime to see clearly.
Later, after Giuffre had been trafficked twice, first by Ron Eppinger, a Miami “modelling agent”, then by Jeffrey Epstein, she was criticized for willingly participating in their lavish lifestyle.
After all, with the former, she went from being homeless and unable to afford a meal, to driving around in a limo. And with the latter, she was flying around the world, often in a private jet: the Lolita Express.
Critics called her a “prostitute” because she accepted money and gifts in exchange for sexual favors. But she met these men when she was 15 and 16 years old, respectively. At the time, Eppinger was 63 and Epstein was 47.
Is it possible for a child to be a prostitute for old men? No.
Or is a more accurate descriptor of such a person in that situation a “trafficked child”, “abuse victim”, or “child victim of sexual exploitation”?
Calling children “prostitutes” is an intentional effort to shift the blame and moral deficiency onto the minor, and keep the adult’s hands clean. Whereas in reality, the adult, not the child, bears the responsibility for the exploitation.
Throughout her years of abuse, Giuffre developed a dependence on drugs, which she used to numb the pain. Epstein was disgusted by this habit, criticizing her new, dissociative nature, saying, “You’re not the same girl you were.”
Yet he never acknowledged his own role in the trauma that contributed to her drug use; he never admitted that it was him she was trying to escape from. Instead, he was condemning her methods for coping with his abuse. Her reaction to his abuse was more disgusting to him than the abuse he was causing.
When morality gets weaponized, the victim begins to police themselves- not their abuser.
The blame gets directed inward, not outward. And this is amplified when others do the same. It reinforces the self-blame the victim feels when the world sides with their abuser, seemingly confirming who is at fault.
It also puts the victim in a position where they believe they have something to atone for.
For a lifetime, Virginia grappled with feeling like she owed these men something, despite the catastrophic harm they had caused her. She struggled with weak boundaries, didn’t want to be “ungrateful”, and even wanted to be there for those men when they needed her.
So again within this framework, she was the one who was morally deficient. Never her abusers. She was the bad one for walking away.
Yet, none of the perpetrators changed when their slate was wiped clean. Epstein kept harming girls even during his imprisonment for solicitation of prostitution involving a minor. Her dad still pushed boundaries with her and her kids.
Forgiveness never changed these men.
A Familiar Pattern
Each of the above examples follows the same pattern. The adults who held power reframed themselves as innocent while portraying the child they abused as the perpetrator- or at least an enthusiastic participant.
The perpetrators subtly shifted responsibility onto those who were less powerful, less assertive, and more traumatized.
Virginia was even blamed for the consequences those men were met with based on their own behavior- like jail time, or their loss of reputation.
Some of those in Epstein’s inner circle even blamed her for ending his life.
Blaming the victim for the abuser’s suicide, ruin, or exposure completes the inversion of responsibility.
Apart from those directly involved, bystanders, too, will cling to this narrative because it is less destabilizing to their worldview. Believing it requires less of them. They don’t have to call out anyone with greater power, instead, they can judge someone with less power, who is isolated and broken. It is safer.
In this way, bystanders, too, can shift their moral deficiency onto the victim.
Their thought process becomes: if only the victim would have avoided the person, or been smarter, or spoken up more, or escaped earlier, or called the predator out sooner,… and so on. In short, all failures on the part of the victim. Not: why didn’t I try to prevent this? Why didn’t I intervene? Why didn’t I speak up? Why didn’t I support the victim?
When the abuse is the victim’s fault, they don’t have to interrogate themselves in any way.
The victim bears the weight and cost of everyone else’s failure, and this is repackaged as their inadequacy. They become everyone’s moral scapegoat.
Messy Bun Book Lover
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