Forensic Writer

The Guilt Project by Vanessa Place (part two)

Note: My apologies for the delay in posting.  It has been an insanely busy week at work. Throw in a bout of insomnia (still desperate for some shut-eye), and the blog slows down. I suspect I will fail to do The Guilt Project justice in this exhausted, frenzied state, but here goes nothing.

In my earlier response to Vanessa Place's forthcoming book, The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality, and Law, I posed a question about whether intentions matter in the context of sex offender civil commitments.  That is, does it make a lick of difference if civil commitments are based upon an incapacitation model (in which the goal is to lock up offenders for the longest possible time in order to prevent future crimes), or a medical model (in which the goal is treatment and rehabilitation).  And is it even possible to attempt both at the same time - as seems to occur in the US - given their inherent conflicts?

Place (2010) frames her critique in terms of how these conflicting models affect sex offenders' rights at the start and finish line (assuming there ever is a finish line, aside from death):

I understand the use of statistical analysis as a legitimate measure of probability.  But the probabilities at issue in SVP determination can only be measured generally and retroactively.  Not prospectively or individually.  And justice, above all else, must be rendered individually. (p. 76)

We have to allow for real rehabilitation or true conversion, the fact of the thunderclap, the lightning bolt, the heaving collapse under the awful knowledge of absolute guilt, and the ridiculous hope of one person's puny atonement, one insignificant redemption that constitutes that flash of transcendence that passes for transcendence in our drive-by lives. (p.76)

By "statistical analysis," Place means the standardized, actuarial assessments used in conjunction with the diagnosis of "mental disorder" - instruments such as the Static-99, a risk assessment test used to calculate the probability of recidivism.  As it stands, the "diagnostic" process often makes reference to the Static-99 results (Place, 2010)- a circular process in which the test results are confirmed by ... the test results.

Take these two points - standardized testing and the inability to recognize the "thunderclap" (Place, 2010, p. 76) - together, and you have a real conundrum when it comes to the concept of incapacitation.  Incapacitation, after all, is not concerned with curing offenders; it is only concerned with locking them up.  But because the Sexually Violent Predator status relies (at least partially) on a psychological diagnosis - and, of course, results in commitment to a mental health facility - it has an inherently medical component.  The entire process rests on the assumption that sexually violent predators have a mental disorder that makes them dangerous to society at large.  But unlike the medical model of crime, this process does not seem concerned with "treating" the disorder and "curing" the offender of his "criminal mind."  If it were concerned with this, there would be, as Place (2010) writes so well, room for "the fact of the thunderclap" (p. 76).

I find Place's suggestion to rely on true clinical diagnosis - individual therapy, individual diagnosis, not standardized tests - intriguing because it suggests a "middle way." Rather than the typical either-or debate (should we or shouldn't we commit offenders?), she proposes a process that would, at the very least, take offenders for the complex, unique individuals that they are. Considering that a lifetime of freedom is at stake, it seems that individualized diagnosis is the only way to ensure "due process." Think of it this way:  Would you want your whole future determined by a standardized test?  How about a test that was not even designed for that purpose?  How about a test that only measures "static" (in other words: set in stone) aspects of your personality?

Naysayers might suspect Place of looking for an easier target in court, but she is hardly playing it safe for the defense: Place admits that individualized clinical assessment would actually be a real pain in the ass to attack. "It would be," she writes, "professionally harder for me to tear apart something with the sound of informed common sense than it is to go for the more vulnerable statistical vein" (Place, 2010, p. 75).

Her idea is appealing in terms of the "medical model" for justice as well. Perhaps, with true clinical assessment and therapy, sexually violent predators can be more accurately "diagnosed" and therefore more effectively "treated" - individualized treatment to go with that individualized justice. 

But here is where I get skeptical. This clinical process would rely on the DSM-IV, the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association.  But the DSM-IV does not necessarily mesh neatly with the law. As Levenson (2004) writes, the DSM-IV "specifies that Pedophilia generally involves prepubescent children. However, all states have statutes rendering it unlawful for an adult to engage in sexual activity with a child under age 16, and many offenders being considered for civil commitment have adolescent victims" (p.360) - emphasis added.

To muddy the waters further, Levenson (2004) cites a study that examined offenders diagnosed with sexual sadism as compared to those without the diagnosis. The results? Offenders deemed "sexual sadists" were the least likely to commit the particular acts associated with that diagnosis. In other words, the clinical assessments failed to get it right.  Anyone who has ever been to a shrink will not be surprised by this. Clinical psychology is notoriously subjective. To wit: Levenson (2004) also looked closely at SVP determinations in Florida, and found that "reliability was poor for most diagnoses" (p. 363). Different evaluators came to different diagnoses.

On the other hand, reliability for the actuarial instruments - the risk assessment tools, such as the Static-99 - was quite high (Levenson, 2004). In other words, separate evaluators consistently rated offenders with the same "score" on the risk assessment.  Does that mean the risk assessment is better than clinical diagnosis?  Not really.  Accuracy and reliability are two very different animals. If you weigh yourself over & over on a poorly calibrated scale, you might get the same result, but it will not be an accurate one. 

So my question is this: If individualized justice means unreliable diagnostic procedures, is it any better than the system we have now? 

Again, it all depends on the aim.  If the aim is to treat, then subjectivity is not as much of a problem. At the very least, it would allow for offenders to rehabilitate and change.  And the defense and prosecution could potentially present opposite diagnoses.  On the other hand, if the aim is to incapacitate, then reliability matters, because you need "confirmable" results to lock someone up and throw away the key.

Either way, the system will undoubtedly fail someone.  The question is, on which side do we want it to err?  I always thought reliability was at least one guarantee of "due process," but now, I am not so sure.

Next up: Place's chapter about pimps. 

References

Levenson, J. (2004, August). Reliability of sexually violent predator civil commitment criteria in Florida.

    Law and Human Behavior 28(4), 357-368. Retrieved on January 18, 2010, from ProQuest Criminal

    Justice.

Place, V. (2010). The guilt project: rape, morality, and law. New York: Other Press. (forthcoming)

The Guilt Project: A Response (part one)

As mentioned in my previous post about The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality, and Law by Vanessa Place, I plan to spend several posts responding to chapters and issues in the book.  It seems to me that this is one of the best ways to do the book justice: to wrestle with the questions it presents.

The book is divided into four major sections:

Section I: Guilt and Me

Section II: Guilt and Science

Section III: Guilt and Culture

Section IV: Guilt and Politics

The "Guilt and Science" section rightly - and brilliantly - begins with a chapter about DNA evidence and the probability game it entails. That probability game, it turns out, is "most analytically thorny" where it concerns a "mixed-source sample" (Place, 2010, p. 43).  By calling into question the most ironclad of forensic science, Place makes it possible for readers to accept questions and problems in other areas of procedural justice and law, too.  After all, if even DNA has its problems, what other dirt might be lurking under the rug?

I suppose it depends on your definition of dirt.  Having studied criminology for a time, my definition of dirt is pretty open-minded.

I will start with the other chapter in the "Guilt and Science" section, entitled "Sexually Violent Predators: The Parapsychology of Guilt," which explores involuntary commitments for sexually violent predators.  Most Americans respond to civil commitment laws the same way they do DNA evidence: unflinching, unquestioning belief. And with good reason.  Who wants a real-life bogeyman man lurking by the middle-school bus stop?

First, some background is in order: In several states, the law allows for the civil commitment of sex offenders who have been designated Sexually Violent Predators (SVP).  In practice, this means commitment to a state mental hospital for an indefinite period of time - often, for life. The designation of SVP might seem simple enough on its face; after all, these offenders have already been found guilty of a sex crime. Doesn't that make them predators by definition?  Not quite.  The designation involves more than just a review of the offender's prior acts. Otherwise, it would never pass constitutional muster. After all, civil commitment occurs after an offender does his time for the crime.

The Supreme Court has specified that offenders who are designated SVP must have "a mental abnormality or personality disorder predisposing the individual to sexual violence, and a likelihood of future sexually violent behavior" (Levenson, 2004, p. 357).  Since the offender can lose his liberty as a result of the SVP designation, due process is in order.  In California, where Place (2010) practices, SVP designation requires "two or more sexually violent offenses" and "a diagnosed mental disorder making him a present danger to others" + being "likely to engage in sexually violent criminal behavior in the near future" (p. 59).

Neat and Tidy Theories

When I studied criminology, my classes approached civil commitments in terms of correctional strategies + theories about the root causes of crime. Ideally, a theory about the roots of crime led to a related correctional theory to address that root cause.  In fact, a good portion of our studies were dedicated to the policy implications of theories about "born" vs. "made" criminals - nature vs. nurture. 

We studied commitments primarily as an incapacitation theory phenomenon. Incapacitation is fairly simple: Lock up the bad guys for as long as possible, and they cannot re-offend (at least, not outside the prison walls - anything on the inside is apparently fair game).   Mandatory life sentences, truth in sentencing, and three-strikes-you're-out-laws: incapacitation, all of them (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2002). Where such sentences do not exist, the law has found a way to incapacitate sex offenders all the same: through civil commitments. 

Incapacitation theories are not concerned with rehabilitation. The sole aim is to stop criminals from committing future crimes (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2002).  Note that this is entirely different from a "just desserts" approach, wherein punishment is inflicted as harshly as possible solely for retribution (although, there is obvious overlap here - incapacitation can be retributive & vice versa). Incapacitation theories, by their nature, believe criminals "are beyond reform and must be incapacitated behind thick walls and sturdy bars" (Lilly, Cullen & Ball, 2002, p. 227).

The problem with civil-commitment-as-incapacitation - at least from a criminological perspective - is that it runs headlong into an entirely incompatible correctional and criminological theory: the medical model of crime and corrections.  The medical model, predictably, sees crime as treatable. If you can cure the hormone imbalance or psychosis or whatever, then you can stop an offender from striking again. Rehabilitation, obviously, drives correctional programming under this theory.

When I was a criminology student, the question of civil commitments made me queasy precisely because of this clash of correctional and criminological theories. I liked my theoretical underpinnings neat, tidy, and logically coherent.  (Oh, the idealism of naive criminology students! If only we could land on that one perfect theory. We could stop crime and create the perfect correctional system at the same time.  Never mind that those two ideals are incompatible, too.)

Specifically, I wondered: Would the state attempt to "treat" or even "cure" an offender if it meant releasing him out of custody?  After all, the point is incapacitation, not rehabilitation. (Or is it?) Are doctors being asked to abandon their oaths and care for the state rather than the patient? Can treatment be ethically administered in these conditions?  How could anyone know if a "patient" is "cured" enough to be released (and what did "cured enough" mean)?

Theory vs. Practice in a Procedural Context

The Guilt Project approaches the issue in a different context: procedural justice.  While criminology & procedural justice/law do overlap, they are not always one and the same.  Criminology certainly has direct policy implications (particularly where it concerns correctional programming or lack thereof), but it does not always (and I would contend, rarely) considers questions of constitutional rights.  Place's (2010) chapter challenges readers to consider several issues:

If the courts can qualify "crime as a mental disorder, then real treatment would be the protocol" (p.73)  But are the state hospitals engaging in "real treatment" or just plain "warehousing" (p. 73)?

Can the current testing instruments and diagnostic procedures + expert testimony accurately (and beyond reasonable doubt) identify sexually violent predators?

Are the same instruments incapable of detecting genuine rehabilitation?

Is there any way to know that incapacitation policies even prevent further sex crimes in the first place?

That third question is the one that haunts me, and when you really think about it, it drags most of the others with it.  If the state cannot detect (or simply refuses to acknowledge) legitimate rehabilitation, it likewise has no yardstick by which to measure its "treatment," which implies it has no intention to treat in the first place.

But the second question is also key when it comes to bringing theory & practice together: As Place (2010) eloquently points out, standardized tests are hardly individual, which automatically places them in conflict with the idea of "real treatment" (p.73) - and importantly, constitutional protections. 

So the question I have is this: Do intentions matter in a procedural context?  Does the theory need to match the practice?  And if it doesn't, what are the consequences?  This, of course, is encapsulated in those questions about the diagnostic processes, testing instruments, and expert testimony. So I will start there on the next post and try my best to wrestle with "intentions."

References

Levenson, J. (2004, August). Reliability of sexually violent predator civil commitment criteria in Florida.

    Law and Human Behavior 28(4), 357-368. Retrieved on January 18, 2010, from ProQuest Criminal

    Justice.

Lilly R.J., Cullen, F. T., & Ball, R.A. (2002). Criminological theory: Context and consequences. London:

    Sage.

Place, V. (2010). The guilt project: rape, morality, and law. New York: Other Press. (forthcoming)

The Guilt Project by Vanessa Place : Why this book matters

In this Nancy Grace culture, in which suspects are all guilty until proven worthy of being considered innocent (usually by producing the requisite number of tears or volunteering to be hooked up to electrodes for a lie detector test, or forgoing the representation of a good attorney, despite being entitled to said representation), it is rare to find a discussion about crime & justice that avoids the strict dichotomy of "good vs. evil" or "tough-on-crime vs. criminal coddling." This is especially true when it comes to sex offenders: legislators are for the children or against them; against the sex offenders or coddling them.  While the emotions driving these sentiments are certainly understandable, given the heinousness of sex crimes and the horrors that victims face, they are not necessarily healthy for public policy - especially where it concerns basic constitutional protections.  This is why Vanessa Place's book, The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality, and Law is so important. It asks questions - legal, cultural, ethical, and moral - that heretofore have been swept under the rug. Even if one disagrees vigorously (and righteously) with all of Place's contentions, questions, criticisms, and legal interpretations, the point is to have the conversation.

Place, an appellate criminal defense attorney who specializes in sex offenders and sexually violent predators, never pretends that the great majority of her clients are innocent (legally or factually, although some may be the latter), or that they are "good men."  In fact, she refers to them as the "very bad men" that many Americans fear. "Most of my clients," she writes, "are factually guilty by virtue of their acts; all are legally guilty by virtue of their convictions.  They are the very bad men, those who trigger the question, 'How can you defend people like that, knowing that they're guilty?'" But for Place, the question is larger than that.  For in this Nancy Grace and Dateline culture, where either-or fallacies are tossed around for entertainment and "very bad men" are no longer considered human, something very important is at stake: "our own humanity." In a culture where the innocence of the victim is the yardstick for the evil of the perpetrator, we risk losing our "mercy":

At heart, mercy is simply the steady responsibility to safeguard the humanity of all, including those we hate. There will always be people guilty of great evil.  But evil is an act, not a cultural metaphor, not a social backdrop, and not entertainment.  As a people, we have to resist the temptation to make our morality contingent on anybody's innocence.  You might hate my clients, and you might be right.  My clients routinely disprove God.  But we can't use them to undo our own humanity.

And so with "our own humanity" at stake, Place approaches everything from the reliability of DNA evidence to involuntary commitments for sex offenders to intoxication and legal consent with a critical eye, posing questions readers will never see on cable news (scratch that: they might see them uttered by one of the talking heads on the Brady Bunch-style grid, but they will be quickly and summarily squashed by the host).

I do not interpret this to mean that Americans need to coddle sex offenders, or feel sorry for them, or care for them more than for victims, or any of those false dichotomies.  This is not an invitation (or exhortation) to throw a pity party.  Rather, this is about placing larger questions of humanity above fear and hate - or to ground it to something more concrete, to care about the integrity of America's ideals so much that we are willing to uphold them even when it disgusts us to do so.

Place herself is not afraid to divulge (or confess) her own complicated feelings at times; nor is she afraid to "play prosecution" and consider the other side.  In fact, reading her book at times feels like a wrestling match of sorts: an adversarial trial in which the system itself is charged with breaking its own ideals. Place is not afraid to say when the state is right, or when the state is acting on good principles or ideals but needs to change its tactics.  This is not an "us vs. them" or "defense attorney vs. evil, oppressive state" sort of book.  That is what makes it such a remarkable and important addition to the discourse.  That is why this book matters.

In the coming days and weeks, I will blog some initial responses to select chapters and sections in Place's book, some of which I find myself vigorously nodding my head to in agreement, and others of which have raised serious questions for me, and I do not quite know where I stand (which I think is a good thing).  First up will be the chapter regarding involuntary commitments, in which Place steps outside the box of "should we or shouldn't we/can we or can't we" and poses questions about the kinds of actuary models and testing instruments we use to determine whether someone is a sexually violent predator (and likely to re-offend).  

The Guilt Project by Vanessa Place

I have been privileged enough to receive an advance copy of The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality, and Law by Vanessa Place. I know Vanessa through graduate school, and also through her amazing work with Les Figues press (for which she is a co-founder). She is a writer and criminal appellate attorney, and more than that, she takes on the cases very few would have the courage defend: sex offenders and sexually violent predators.

The Guilt Project is an unflinching - and in this cultural climate, incredibly brave - examination of legal, constitutional, ethical, moral, and practical questions surrounding how the United States defines, punishes, treats, monitors, and "manages" sex offenders. In the coming days and weeks, I will post some responses to her thought provoking chapters. It being the first week of the two classes I teach, I have been occupied getting students acclimated to the classroom, though I have been thinking a great deal about Vanessa's book. Stay tuned.

gratitude

Recently, when the news broke that Brooke Wilberger's remains had finally been located, I saw a short video clip of Brooke's mother expressing gratitude - in part, to her daughter's killer for revealing to police where the body could be found.  Even if he provided this information as part of his plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, it still meant Brooke could finally be returned to her family.

I remember this case well.  Brooke went missing when I still lived in Oregon, so her photograph featured prominently on the newspaper front pages.  That was five years ago - a long time to wait for a daughter's remains to receive a proper burial, to know the full story of her final moments, to have a setting in which to place them.  I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to finally know where Brooke was - a relief, perhaps. While some reacted with shock that Brooke's mother could feel anything close to gratitude, I partly understand what she means - not because I can even begin to know her pain, but because I know what it means to want answers.  To need answers, however horrifying or ugly, in order to bury remains.  

This past weekend marked the one-year anniversary of my oldest brother's death, and well-meaning acquaintances and online friends reassure me that the hardest part is over now, that the one-year anniversary is the worst, that the questions will all diminish and fade, that I will never again grieve so hard, that I can heal now. But the shadows have not been lit, and the questions feel more urgent every day. I want my brother to lead me to the scene of the crime, so to speak, where it all went wrong, where it became possible to do what he was accused of doing, where something snapped. I need him to lead me there, to show me what happened, to admit to it, or explain it, or enter a plea. 

Lately, I have been considering hypnosis.  I want to dig up long-buried memories and yank them out by the root, so I can examine them more closely, ask questions that my family never thought to ask, find out for myself. I want to recover the memories I know I lost, to understand images such as: __________.

If I could have asked my brother while he was still alive, and if he would have answered, I would have felt gratitude.  And even though he is no longer here to answer me, if something in my memories of him reveals the answers, I will feel it, too.  I want to. 

re-victimization

In a story published today by CBS, one of Phillip Garrido's printing business clients, Cheyvonne Molino, asks that Jaycee Dugard - the kidnap victim held for 18 years by Garrido - "tell the truth" about her years as a hostage.  According to Molino, Dugard did not sleep in a tent, despite widespread media reports about a makeshift shelter-prison in Garrido's backyard.

However, sleeping arrangements are not really the issue in this case. Certainly, we all recognize the barbarity of forcing someone to live in a backyard tent without access to healthcare, proper sanitation, or social interaction, but even if we take the tent-prison out of the picture, this is still one horrific story. An eleven-year-old girl was snatched on her way to school, taken against her will to a city over two-hundred miles away, raped on more than one occasion (at least twice, as evidenced by Jaycee's two children, one of which would have been conceived when she was just fourteen), and forced to give birth without access to medical care or social support of any kind. Whether she lived in a tent or the house, Jaycee Dugard has been violated in every possible way.

And frankly, Jaycee has no obligation to tell the public anything at all.  It will be hard enough to provide testimony for trial.  

One wonders what possible motivation Molino has for demanding such a concession from Dugard. The answer seems to be simple self-preservation: Police have searched Molino's property, looking for evidence of child pornography in connection with the Garrido case. Perhaps Molino seeks to undermine Dugard's credibility in a bid to win sympathy or even cover her own connections with the case. If so, the strategy has failed. All Molino has succeeded in doing is calling attention to herself - and not in a positive light. At best, she seems to lack sympathy for Dugard; at worst, she sounds complicit.  After all, when bystanders demand "concessions" from victims - particularly victims of sex offenses - they may as well pour battery acid into their emotional wounds. It re-victimizes and re-traumatizes survivors all over again. 

Worse, though, is that CBS sees it as appropriate to air such demands. This makes the network complicit as well - and not only in re-traumatizing Dugard, but also in spreading cultural myths about survivors of molestation and abuse, and how the trauma really is not "as bad" as it is portrayed. 

new posting schedule

Sorry for the long space of time between postings.  It has been a busy week in my classroom, with many students catching up on assignments and needing assistance. From now until the end of the term, I will likely only post two-three times per week. This is always the hardest part of teaching - how it occupies most every “free” moment of my days.  But helping students to develop their writing is well worth all the effort, even if it means a little less blogging time for me.

let this be a warning

A close friend asked me the other day whether I worry about posting so much personal writing online - or publishing any writing at all, really.  "You make yourself a target," she said. "There are sick people out there who can track you down."

The truth is, I do worry, but for me, that is not a reason to quit; on the contrary, it is a reason to keep going.

Back when I wrote columns for a small local newspaper, people recognized me everywhere I went.  They approached me in coffee shops, at the grocery store, on the sidewalk, and even in the bathroom.  They invited me to lunch, asked personal questions, stepped into my personal space, and occasionally hugged me.  Sometimes, they blocked my path on the sidewalk, and I never knew whether that was intentional. 

Then there were the letters.  They arrived addressed to me personally, not to the newspaper. One man described his knife collection in alarming detail, inviting me over to "view" it.  Another told me he wanted to pry open my mouth, wire my jaw wide open, and dump alcohol down my throat - by the gallon. 

I never reported the letters to police, although I double-checked my door locks at night. 

None of the men writing columns for the same newspaper received letters of this sort, and so while I felt threatened, I also felt an obligation to keep going. I would not let the letter writers (men, all of them) silence me.  The irony here was that in order to start a writing career, I had to put myself out there, and yet, male editors, friends, and acquaintances constantly expressed "concern" that it was not safe for me to publish. Women writers, apparently, were not allowed on the playground. They should stick to journals and diaries, or at the very least, write about "fluffy" subjects and get a nice pen name (and maybe even a phony profile photo).  

My blogs feel different - not any less risky, but perhaps a bit more distant.  Maybe because they aren't printed in a local paper, they tend to attract readers from far-flung locations, so any "threats"  seem less plausible. Most readers would never run into me at the grocery store or on the sidewalk (or at least, probably not know if they did). Then again, I lived for several years under near-constant threat from an online stalker who filled my inbox with self-righteous rants about how I "shouldn't" write about certain things. Distance or no distance, I felt violated. So it can happen with my blogs, too.

When it comes down to it, people who ask women to stop writing (for their own safety, for their own protection) ask them to become the very thing most feared: missing persons. They demand women disappear from the public discourse in the hopes that they will never literally go missing. Women, meanwhile, are expected to hop on this hamster wheel logic and run without ever actually going anywhere.

When you spend a lot of time reading about missing people, as I do, you know that missing persons come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders (and I am not limiting that term to just male or female).  They disappear from parking lots, crashed cars, sidewalks, driveways, and even their own beds. Sometimes, they run away.  Sometimes, they commit suicide.  Other times, the worst possible violence wipes them from this earth. And then there are kids sold into slavery of all forms. The list is endless.

The media, however, obsesses almost exclusively over missing women - white women in particular. Media critics rightly charge that white damsels dominate the airwaves because a white-dominated, racist media is more interested in white victims. While this is definitely true, it does not necessarily explain the obsession with female victims. Something else may be at work at the same time - an undercurrent of sexism so deep it expresses itself as expectation: expectation that women will go missing; expectation that they will lock themselves away from the terrifying world and keep quiet. When the media insists on showing woman after woman who simply vanishes, it begins to feel like that is what women do when they dare go out into the world: they vanish. The news becomes a control mechanism, even if not intended as such. Let this be a warning swims, jaws-like, beneath the surface.

Case in point: Why didn't the case of missing prosecutor Ray Gricar attract more attention?  After all, he was a prominent member of his community, and he simply vanished into thin air. His image should have been flashed nightly on all the major news programs, but it wasn't. Visit any cold cases or missing persons site, and it becomes obvious that men not only can be victims, but many are.  And yet, in our culture the very notion of a missing man strikes even a violence-drenched media as strange.  Men are not victims; women are.   We (meaning, we as a culture) are comfortable with the idea that women are always in danger, always potential victims, always in need of rescue.   And so the media feeds us precisely that.   

Media coverage a few years ago about some missing Boy Scouts out in the wilderness was a rare exception to the damsel-in-distress syndrome, but like so many exceptions, it served mainly to prove the rule. These boys, after all, went missing out in nature. They were not "victims" so much as brave explorers who headed into rugged terrain and got lost. And, of course, it was not their "fault" for "putting themselves in danger."  Contrast that with the recent case of a woman kidnapped while out walking on a country road for some exercise.  Her kidnapping has inspired more than a few talking heads to ask, "What was she doing out there, walking?" A woman walking on a paved country road is asking to go missing; Boy Scouts running amok in the wilderness are brave kids exploring their inner "wild man."

I have also noticed:  When the Boy Scouts went missing, the media kept calling them "missing Boy Scouts," whereas women are rarely referred to by profession.  You rarely (if ever) hear, "the missing artist ..." or "the missing doctor ..." in relation to a missing woman.  The one exception is when a missing woman danced in a nude bar or worked as prostitute or model of some kind.  And, of course, if she was a mother. Then the media will make sure to let you know, repeating it over and over. 

And yet, in spite of all this, if women hide from the outside world, they are branded as paranoid, oppressed, unambitious, or even lazy. 

"Why doesn't she get out there and run? I see she has gained a few pounds ..."  

"She spends all that time journaling and the house is a mess."  

"Can you believe she shut down her blog because of a few threatening emails?" 

That last one is the literary corollary to the old prude-slut trap: If you dare to put your writing out there, you are asking for danger; if you keep your writing to yourself, you are a coward. Or worse.  

So to answer my friend, I have to say: If a strange man's knife collection could not scare me away, a double-edged sword will never succeed, either. I am not going anywhere.

nursing an injury

I am nursing a wrist injury, and typing is painful at the moment.  Since I have so much typing to do as a teacher - grading, responding to emails, sending off paperwork, etc. - I may not post here for a couple of days. I need to give my wrist all the breaks (very bad pun) that I can.  Hopefully, the pain and swelling will subside soon so I can resume regular postings.

all that was left

Media coverage of the Jasmine Fiore murder - specifically, that her teeth were ripped out and fingers cut off, so that all that was left to identify her were the serial numbers on her breast implants - reminds me of another case from 2003.

On April 13, 2003, Maria Cruz left her midtown Manhattan apartment, shopped at a department store near West 16th Street, and vanished without a trace until February of the following year, when her body was finally recovered.  She had been stuffed inside a suitcase and sealed inside cement: baggage never meant to be claimed. Serial numbers on her breast implants were all that was left to reveal her identity. 

Later, detectives discovered that on the morning she disappeared, she had an appointment with a Dr. Faiello.  Little did Maria know: In 2002, Dr. Faiello was arrested for practicing medicine without a license.  He pleaded guilty, but he served no time. Shortly thereafter, he opened a medical office in an apartment on West 16th Street in New York - the same street where Maria was last seen. The rest of the story tells itself: a panicked "doctor" who accidentally kills a patient and tries to clean up his mess by hiding the body. 

When I first learned about Maria six years ago, I could not help but think about how her breast implants - stamped with individual serial numbers - were more identifiable than her own skin and bones.  Reporters seemed to find it almost funny, repeating the detail over and over:  "You will not believe how detectives identified this woman." 

It started to sound like a warning, a cautionary tale for women everywhere. But what was the message? Dare to make your body meet our standards, and this could be you - your implants the big joke on CNN. Dare not to make your body meet our standards, and your body - and there will be a body someday - will never be identified. Your choice. 

After all, the very implants Maria Cruz had purchased to make her body more ideal - which by definition, means less distinct, less individual - had ended up identifying her in the end. They were more individual than her own remains.  

In the case of Jasmine Fiore, I notice a similar obsession with the method of identification, and I find it fascinating, especially in light of recent controversies over the reliability and accuracy of forensic evidence. It would be easy to assume people have mostly a prurient interest in the breast implant details, but six years after the discovery of Maria Cruz, things seem a little different this time.  I cannot help but wonder if something else is going on here, some collective expression of doubt about the meaning of identity when even our fingerprints can be mistaken, and even DNA can be fabricated in a lab. Maybe, just maybe, we realize the cautionary tale is bigger this time, something more than another horror story about - and for - women.