At one point in her memoir, Virginia Roberts Giuffre details being on Epstein’s island and being directed to give a sexual massage to a professor whom she had just met.
She would go on to detail the number of high-ranking intellectuals who she would be trafficked to.
My Own Experience
I have nothing to do with Epstein or Giuffre. But I have a lot of thoughts on this topic.
Many years ago, I saw academia as an intellectual refuge; a place where science and higher morals reign supreme. But I no longer see it like that- I have met similar people to the ones that Giuffre describes.
I couldn’t count how many inappropriate moments there were during my bachelor’s and master’s degree.
It permanently wiped any sense that I had that school is a safe place.
Some of these moments for me include:
- having my butt cupped by a mathematics PhD candidate while a group of us were standing in a circle
- a professor falsifying my grades and nearly getting me kicked out of the program (twice)
- I had to spend over a year avoiding him- never attending his office hours, showing up to class only when I knew other people were already in the room, arriving late to socials that I was obligated to attend when I knew that he would be there.
- Being held down and made out with after I walked a first year student home as a courtesy that older students often did when younger students first arrived on campus
- A man not-so-subtly expecting sex after a nice dinner
- Being held down and made out with again (twice- this time by a different man than above)
- A man harassing me during a night out after I had given several verbal and non-verbal cues that I wasn’t interested
- I ended up hiding in the women’s bathroom for a bit. But he still didn’t lose interest or take the hint.
- An engineer (so he was out of school and I was doing my master’s) tried to take a nude photo of me without my knowledge, but I heard the camera click. I was too afraid to say anything in case he got angry and shared the lewd, nonconsensual photo.
- A “friend” said he wanted us to give each other massages (I think I had complained about a sore body and he used that as an excuse for closeness)
- When I tried to get up, he held me in place.
- A man spread a sexually explicit rumour about me after I rejected him sexually
- He and I have only ever been platonic.
The list goes on. And on. And on.
I experienced these things from people who had relatively little power in society at the time. It makes me wonder how they will act when they accumulate more authority- or begin to believe that they will not face consequences.
I have no way of knowing if Virginia’s stories are true. But I can say this- I have kept myself hidden for a decade from similar people to the ones she described.
And people watched it happen and schools swept it under the rug.
So, although I can’t vouch for the details in her story, it sounds all too familiar.
Messy Bun Book Lover
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