Does Almost Absolve Sin?

Men and minimizing.

I have been grappling with Almost. Chest deep in Almost. The precipice of Almost. The toes over the edge of the cliff about to fall Almost.

What does it mean Almost? What is my duty in the face of Almost? What am I to do with Almost?

Almost is a midpoint. There exists a before and an after.

To the left is what led up to Almost. The precursor. The runway.

To the right of Almost is the tragedy that transpired. Almost hangs in that gap. In the space in between.

Day One

A twenty something man working at a private, isolated, high-end resort, as the sports coach, establishes trust and friendship with two young primary school aged boys on holiday. The sports complex is in a private tucked away area as the whole resort is designed to create complete privacy for all of its guests.

The coach plays basketball with them, makes jokes, and rubs and pats their back consoling them when they miss their shot.

He appeals to their sensitivities and to their loyalty as his new friends when confiding in them secretly about how badly he feels that he can’t afford to stay at a place like this resort. That it’s way too expensive for what he could ever manage to pay. That the young resort guests, on the other hand, are so much more lucky than he is. Much more lucky than he could ever dream to be. He doesn’t and will never have money and opportunity like they do.

While playing horse on the basketball court, the coach makes moaning noises — sexually charged and insinuating groans — as a rouse to distract the younger boys from making their shot.

The young vacationing boys think the coach is funny, if but also a little weird. The older vacationing boy registers the coach’s actions as a bit, seemingly, inappropriate. Wondering to himself, “Is this maybe how older guys act?”

The coach is an adult, in the position to teach them and supervise them, thereby instantly in a place of power and influence over them. The fun subtly, almost imperceptibly shifts for the boy who is the older of the two. The boy to whom the coach is mostly directing his attention.

Day Two

The next day on the basketball court, the coach asks the older of the two primary school aged boys if he has a girlfriend. The older boy laughs and retorts “yeah, right”.

“Do you sleep in bed with her naked?” the coach prods the older boy.

“What finger do you use on your girlfriend?” he goes on to ask, as he cycles through each finger on both hands, one at a time. “Do you use this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one…?”

The coach then says “Do you use your secret weapon?” as he holds up his hand, palm up facing the sky, moving his index and middle finger in unison together, stroking back and forth.

All of this talk is going over the youngest boy’s head. He has no concept of what the coach is talking about. The slightly older of the two young boys also does not know what the coach means, what all of the finger gestures refer to, but his instincts are screaming that it is sexual in nature and that all of this feels uncomfortable, inappropriate, and not right. So he tells his younger friend, “Let’s go! We need to go.” despite the requests of the younger boy to stay and continue to play. “No, we need to go. Now!” the older boys says as he grabs the sleeve of his young friend pulling him along.

But before they could leave, the coach steps in their way. He stops them. He snaps a picture with his phone. “Let me take a picture of you so that I can remember you for next time.”

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Almost.

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As a woman I have been transgressed against in ways big and small.

I have needed to learn how to move through varied experiences throughout my life in all capacities — as a girl, as a woman, as a professional, from a junior employee all the way up to holding the position of CEO, and other times even as the client — including, but not limited to, situations where I have been dismissed, outright ignored, harassed, mansplained, demeaned, shamed, and the subject of misogynistic behaviour for no other reason than I have a vagina.

The outright obvious experiences that are blatant assaults and easily documented such as the sexual harassment I faced early on in my career while working in Finance went unaddressed despite my on-the-record complaints with management. If only back then, had I the sense of self I do today, perhaps it would have been addressed instead of completely ignored. (Oh, wait! See that!! I just blamed myself, the victim. How’s that for conditioning!)

The microaggressions are that much harder to tease out and shine a light on. However, they are no less real. No less impacting. No less damaging.

From a young age, girls learn to develop our intuition to identify when a situation is amiss. We must, because we learn the less-spoken reality that to be female, to be a girl or a woman, is to not have the same power and safety that men have.

We know Almost.

We know intuitively and instinctually what it means to escape a bad situation. We know what Almost happened. And too many of us, myself included, know the other side of Almost. What misdeeds actually did transpire in certain situations due to not being the most powerful in the room.

Almost matters. Almost needs to be acutely listened to. To be heeded.

I understand it’s tricky. What Almost happened, didn’t fully or actually happen. It is not fair, nor ethically right, to act on Almost.

Or is it?

Is it our duty to dig a little deeper? To take Almost seriously. Not to indict without cause but to flag for further investigation. To be on the radar. To be closely watched. To be looked into. Thereby potentially safeguarding someone else down the line. To protect the next person. For, one’s Almost can be another’s assault. Too often, when dealing with a predator, it is in fact, only a matter of time before someone else falls victim. How many young gymnasts experienced Almost with Larry Nassar before he became a pro at assaulting? How many women experienced Almost with Harvey Weinstein?

Not always, but often, where there is smoke, there is fire. Our instincts are our feeling brain that can detect what our thinking brain often times can not.

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One tool common to those who sexually abuse kids is grooming, which can take many different forms, but often follows a similar pattern. Victim selection, while not always, is mostly younger kids. Abusers will often gain access by seeking out positions, such as an athletic coach, where they are in contact with minors. Abusers attempt to gain trust by sharing ‘secrets’. Abusers will often start to touch a victim in ways that appear harmless and discuss sexual topics with them, to desensitize their victims to touch and talk of sexual topics. Lastly, abusers attempt to make their behavior seem natural to avoid raising suspicions.

Were these young vacationing boys being groomed by the resort coach? Were they in the in-between gap of Almost, having been selected by the sports coach who has access, sharing secrets with the boys, desensitizing the boys to his ‘innocuous’ touch and inappropriate talk of sexual foreplay? Was the coach preying on these young boys, executing steps towards a more sadistic goal while pretending his behavior was completely natural? Check, check, and check.

Does the behavior of this man towards these young boys unsettle us enough in our conscience to be recognised for what it was despite ‘only’ Almost happening? Do we speak up and shine a light, demanding for the transgression to be recognised, and to be properly addressed? Or are we complacent by making excuses that “nothing actually happened”, “it could have been so much worse”, “no real damage was done”. Diminishing. Excusing.

A more cut and dry example perhaps is, do we ignore the masked men with guns at the front door of a bank, who for whatever reason, turn away and leave, not entering the bank? Or do we see the bank robbers for who they are and what they were on the cusp of executing.

Do we face the elephant in the room or instead conjure a little mouse?

Silence can be a form of consent or complicity.
Bystanders, who are neither perpetrators nor victims, must not remain silent in the face of abuse. Men who are not abusive, for example, must challenge men who are and call out harassment, degrading language and abusive behavior when they happen. We must create a culture where violence and abuse are unacceptable…”
~ Dr. Jackson Katz, Educator, Author, Leading Anti-Sexual Assault Activist

My personal experience is that the majority of men — most of who are good, caring men — dismiss or diminish situations like the one the two boys faced. One reason they site is that the worse case scenario did not in fact happen, so let us not overreact.

Is this desire to minimise due to naïveté, cultural conditioning, or unwillingness to really face the truth? Since the vast amount of abuse is against women, are men just not as aware or sensitised to what Almost looks and feels like? Do they not understand how Almost negatively impacts a person, their psyche, and their feelings of safety into the future? Are they not able to comprehend Almost does change us, especially when the significance of the dangerous experience was not validated as such? That our sense of self worth is acutely intertwined with the transgression and if it is not seen for what it was and appropriately addressed then our sense of worth sharply falls.

Why don’t more men ‘get it’?

Many men have sisters, nieces, dear female friends, girlfriends, wives, and daughters, not to mention mothers.

Men, don’t you want the beloved women in your life to be treated as you would want to be treated? Don’t you want your daughter, your sister, your wife, your female friend to be safe from abuse — sexually, physically, and emotionally? How about the beloved boys in your life? Your brother, nephew, and son.

Of course you do. I know you do.

One place to start is to stop minimising Almost and really see it for what it is. Don’t make excuses. Don’t diminish what happened in light of what Almost happened but luckily did not. Validate and then protect.

“If we’re solely focused on women, we’ll never make any progress.”

I am committed to doing my best as a mother to raise my son as a whole person, in touch with his intuition, his instincts, his vast internal emotional life. We women so often complain or desire for our male partners to meet us emotionally, yet so many of them have historically been raised to shut off those emotions.

“Don’t be a pussy.” “Men don’t cry.” “Man up.” “You’re fine.”

All of this messaging tells our male youth to not only repress half of their emotions but to also feel ashamed for having them in the first place; resulting in a complete disservice to their internal emotional life, ability to self regulate, and their future interpersonal relationships. Conditioning that also then leads them to minimise or completely dismiss a plethora of situations and feelings, including the moments of Almost that can be the difference between safety and tragedy for their female counterparts and even themselves.

While Katz notes that many men do care deeply, he encourages even more men to demonstrate courage, strength and moral integrity by standing with women. He says:

“We owe it not only to women, but also to our sons and daughters. We have an opportunity and responsibility to be leaders of change. Working together, we can and must do better.”

Until next time,

WRW

P.S. In 2008, Prevent Child Abuse America declared the pinwheel as the national symbol for child abuse prevention through the campaign, Pinwheels for Prevention. Pinwheels symbolize the notions of playfulness, joy, and childhood. It serves as a reminder of the great childhoods we want for all children. The cyclical nature of the pinwheel depicts positive cycles of love and support we want to help families create.

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