Force as Action
The use of physical force is one of the most recognizable forms of abuse, although it can still go unacknowledged because it often escalates over time.
It involves someone using their body (or an object) to harm or restrain someone.
In her memoir Nobody’s Girl, Virginia Roberts Giuffre frequently references this type of abuse.
She writes about being abused as a child, and vividly remembering the feeling of heavy men on top of her small body.
When she was 15, she was kidnapped by a man who offered her a ride, who overpowered her to assault her.
“He overpowered me and held me down on the bed, one hand around my neck. Then he pulled a gun and put its muzzle into my mouth.”
– Virginia Roberts Giuffre
After she escaped, and was bruised and bleeding from the experience, a different man offered to help her, saying that he ran a modelling agency. The 63-year-old man promptly began having sex with her in increasingly aggressive ways, and in her words, “seemed to enjoy making me feel afraid”.
“I felt if I took action to save myself, I’d be caught and physically punished—or worse.”
– Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Feelings like his hand grabbing the back of her neck and forcing her face to his crotch stuck with her for the rest of her life.
And even “healing” was forced, physically, from her.
When one of the men who had abused her when she was a child later “found God”, he forced her to her knees so that she could ask God for forgiveness for what he had done to her.
She was still being physically victimized to serve her abuser’s need, just now it was not a sexual need, but a psychological and spiritual one.
Again, she had little say in the matter.
The first night Virginia met Jeffrey Epstein, he forced a vibrator between her legs. And over time, sex with him escalated to sadomasochism; he found pleasure in inflicting pain, humiliation, and physical restraint upon her.
A turning point in Virginia’s time with Epstein was when she was trafficked to a well-known Prime Minister, who raped her so savagely, she was close to dying.
She knew that her life depended on her escape, and she seized an opportunity to make a new life on the other side of the world.
Across all of these different contexts, physical force was used to make her do things that she did not want to do.
Yet, the physical pain was only part of the harm. The more lasting impact was the profound sense of powerlessness that she had been emotionally scarred with, and the fear that the violence would happen again or escalate.
The perpetrators used force to establish dominance and cultivate terror that outlasted the physical act. That force made any future threats credible, and compliance more likely.
Force as Implication
Once there is reasonable fear of harm, the fear itself can be weaponized.
A perpetrator may use threats, intimidation, or aggressive behaviour to get their victim to submit.
A scared victim is much easier to control.
The threats may be toward the victim themself, or someone they love.
Virginia writes that her dad threatened to kill her little brother and bury him in the woods if she ever told anyone that he was sexually abusing her.
Years later, Epstein had a photo taken of that same brother and told her he knows where he goes to school and that she “must never tell a soul what goes on in this house”.
Both men used the same tactic to get her to quietly submit.
Similarly, in between those two moments, a teenage Virginia lay naked next to a “repulsive” man in his 50’s when a raid occurred. He threatened her not to talk to the police or else his old friend, the “modelling agent” who had trafficked and abused Virginia would find her.
She was consistently pressured not to talk, and was told that something bad would happen if she did.
Distance Didn’t Heal the Fear
When Virginia moved to Australia, she had a new last name, and insisted on an unlisted phone number. Still, she suspected Epstein and Maxwell could find her.
And they did- when Epstein came under investigation.
They used threats and intimidation to try to get her to stay quiet. It started out subtle, but escalated as the charges against them (and others) mounted. It got to the point where Virginia felt compelled to post on social media that if something happened to her, it wasn’t an accident.
She and other accusers of Epstein and Maxwell faced immense physical intimidation. For example, several women reported cars shining their bright lights into their homes at night. During one instance, Virginia hid her children in a closet and waved a gun at the car during the stand-off.
She also hid herself and her family off the grid after the FBI had warned her that there had been a credible threat to her life.
She recalled the photo that Epstein had shown her of her little brother. She knew he was willing to harm her and those she loved most, to ensure her obedience.
Fear was still being weaponized years after the physical harm had ended.
Despite this, she came forward to tell her story.
Yet, she was honest and intentional about leaving some parts out- she has not publicly named some of her abusers, for example, because of how powerful she knows them to be.
She feared that if she did, they would ruin not only her life, but her family’s as well. It made coming forward a series of calculated risks.
This wasn’t irrational anxiety- it was a realistic fear grounded in years of violence, threats, and demonstrated capability. The people who had hurt her have repeatedly shown they are willing to harm others for their benefit.
And that fear followed the victims wherever they went. The perpetrators’ influence extended far beyond their actual hand.
Messy Bun Book Lover
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