Asia Argento is under sickening attacks following the suicide of her partner, Anthony Bourdain. One of the most vitriolic attacks was by the female writer of an article in Penthouse who talked about ‘toxic femininity’ while bashing Asia and other sexual assault victims. Apparently, in the writer’s view, someone forcing oral sex on you is not sexual assault but transactional sex. Not only is that view unfathomable but it defies belief that women could bash other women and then accuse THEM of toxic femininity. Strewth, if we women can’t stick together, then what hope is there for progress in this misogynistic world?
I read the Penthouse article with increasing horror. It just didn't make sense why someone would come after other women in this way. Then I read the sentence, "I was raped at 15."
I saw this same pattern when Germaine Greer came after my friend and fellow HW silence breaker, Lysette Anthony. (GG was raped at 18, didn't report it, and then the guy went on to rape someone else.)
I have seen the same pattern when my closest friend in Los Angeles told me "You weren't raped. It's not fair that you're scapegoating HW. The #MeToo movement has gone too far because of people like you." I was dumbstruck. Then she added, "When I was young I would end up at someone's place and think we were just continuing a nice evening and then realize they wanted sex. Everyone's had sex with ugly, fat men just because it's easier than trying to get out of there." Her criticisms of me and the #MeToo movement were actually rooted in her own unresolved feelings about being coerced into giving her body to men she found repulsive.
A true saying this: "You cannot go deeper with someone than you go with yourself." You cannot have more compassion for someone than you have for yourself. And if like the Penthouse writer, GG and my friend, you are protecting yourself from feelings that the primitive part of your brain has long repressed, believing that they will literally kill you, you become an enemy to yourself... and in doing so, you have internalized the abuser.
Perhaps some comfort can be taken in the thought that people live in the atmosphere they give off. The more toxic their attacks, the more you can be sure that they are marinating in their own unresolved and toxic trauma.
Kindness and compassion for ourselves and for others are the only way we are going to heal from trauma and prevent the retraumatization of others. You would think that would be easy…
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