The Villain Acts Like a Hero
Abusers rarely present themselves as villains. If cruelty looked outwardly cruel, fewer people would fall for it.
Usually, they will cloak their cruelty under an illusion of kindness in order to gain the victims’ trust, and confuse the victims so the abuse can continue. This illusion also keeps their image clean, which helps them avoid consequences and attract new victims.
And it is one reason why it takes survivors so long to understand the full extent of what happened to them.
Harm and care commingle.
Disguising Harm as Care
In her memoir, Nobody’s Girl, Virginia Roberts Giuffre writes that she was first abused by her father when she was 7 years old.
This started one night during bathtime when he said that he needed to get her “extra clean“, and specifically focused on the area between her legs.
Later that night, the abuse moved to her bed. She writes “He told me I was his special girl, his favorite, and that this was his way of giving me ‘extra love’”.
He wanted her to believe that she was special because he wasn’t even doing those things with her mother.
But his words carried kindness that his intentions did not. And that made them confusing for Virginia.
After years of abuse, Virginia began acting out, so she was sent to a Juvenile detention centre.
It was billed as a place of rehabilitation for troubled youth, but it proved to be just as toxic as her home life; full of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Again, harm was occurring under the guise of care.
When she broke out of there, a kind stranger allowed her to spend the night at his house. That man did not want anything from her, only to help.
However, when she left the next day, another man offered to give her a ride, saying that he would help her get where she was going. But that was simply a ruse to gain her trust. He then violently assaulted her.
When she was crying and bleeding on a curb after the incident, an old man in a limo pulled up and again feigned concern. “Come in here so we can take care of you” he says.
To someone who was desperate and alone, it looked like safety.
That man even evoked his late daughter’s memory, who died when she was Virginia’s age, making him appear fatherly and protective. Virginia felt bad for his ill fortune, even though she had suffered so much of her own.
But then he promptly twisted this connection into something sinister, saying that he can be Virginia’s “new daddy”, and forcing her to have sex with him, shaving her pubic area beforehand so she looked “as young as possible.”
He said she should be grateful because he was teaching her a valuable life skill: how to please men. He framed the assault as education.
When Virginia met Ghislaine Maxwell, she dreamed of becoming a massage therapist.
Maxwell told her that there happened to be an exciting and lucrative opportunity as a travelling masseuse for one of the club’s wealthy patrons.
“He loves to help people,” Maxwell gushed of Jeffrey Epstein.
Instead of sensing the imminent danger, Virginia felt proud and excited for this “potentially life-changing opportunity”.
“…he threw what looked like a lifeline to girls who were drowning, girls who had nothing, girls who wished to be and do better.”
– Virginia Roberts Giuffre
However, it again quickly turned sinister.
During Virginia’s first meeting with Epstein, Maxwell said that she was teaching her a valuable skill: how to give a proper massage… one that ended in sex.
Again the promise of help had been used to lure her, and again the abuse was justified as mentorship.
Even when Epstein began forcing Virginia to have sex with his wealthy friends, he framed it as an exciting new phase of her massage training; like she had somehow graduated to a new level.
It was only when her life was in danger, and Epstein reacted indifferently that she realized he didn’t actually care about her. He was using his praise to manipulate her.
“We were girls no one cared about, and Epstein pretended to care.”
– Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Abusers May Even Fool Themselves
Epstein didn’t just fool his victims, though. He seemed to delude himself.
He wanted to believe he was helping the girls and women he abused, and that this made up for the harm he was causing. And perhaps this self-deception made him even more convincing to his victims.
“He clung to the idea that, at his core, he was a generous benefactor.”
– Virginia Roberts Giuffre
But genuine help does not demand access, obedience, gratitude, loyalty, sex, silence, forgiveness, or self-sacrifice in exchange for assistance. It simply helps.
Why Victims Don’t Ask For Help
Virginia asked for help many times, explicitly and implicitly- and was not only ignored, but often harmed for doing so.
Asking for help signals vulnerability- and often perpetrators will flock to this call more than helpers.
After a while, the concept of help eventually becomes contaminated. Victims start to recognize that they can’t handle the considerable risk that comes with asking for help, and believe they are better off on their own.
They start to think: why ask for help if it never arrives, or when it does, it may be worse than the original harm?
After the Abuse
Even after the abuse ends, harm can still disguise itself as healing.
For Virginia, her abusers regularly tried to emotionally manipulate her even after the abuse had ended, using the same corrupted topics that had trapped her in the first place: “God”, repayment, connection, community, gratitude, and forgiveness.
They had been used to lure her, then trap her, now to reel her back in.
One of the cruelest legacies of abuse is that the very topics used to harm victims could be the ones to help them- asking for help, finding a community, finding forgiveness, etc.
But victims will stop reaching for these tools because they have been corrupted beyond measure.
Messy Bun Book Lover
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