@bluegal on "why did it take until now for these women to come forward?"

[JHB]

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Frances Langum a.k.a. Bluegal, associate editor at Crooks and Liars and co-host of The Professional Left Podcast, laid out why the women confirming what Trump has bragged about for years are doing so now, and lo and behold, it's not some super-duper conspiracy against the howler monkey.

https://twitter.com/bluegal/status/786752197874810880

(1) I notice it's only men asking "why did it take until now for these women to come forward?
(2) It didn't "take until now." Trump lied about these women on national television on Sunday night.
(3) Their coming forward is a RESPONSE to that lie. Not some design to bring down his campaign (he did that on the bus in 2005),
(4) For someone burying the pain of that assault, Trump RE-OPENED their wounds by lying about it during the debate. The pain comes back.
(5) In order to keep some sort of normal life, you silence your memories so you won't feel the pain of what happened to you.
(6) But if the ahole who did that to you essentially brags about it (in the tape) and then lies about it (in debate) the pain roars back.
(7) Trust me, at that point you're re-living the attack in vibrant images. And the pain is very very real. At that point... silence?
(8) Silence is impossible. The only defense is refute the lie. Again, the women are not plotting against Trump. They are responding to him.
(9) But this is what patriarchy never understands. Trump always assumes negative emotions toward him are the fault of the other.....
(10) It was the same today with the @nytimes - he THREATENED to sue them. They responded with "oh yeah? See you in discovery."
(11) and IMMEDIATELY Trump sees himself as the VICTIM of an unfair press. But HE started the fight!
(12) and HE started these revelations of HIS past behavior when he looked at @andersoncooper Sunday Night and said "I never did."
(13) Patriarchs never understand that displaying that hubris? Is the strongest truth serum you can put before your victim.
(14) So when someone asks why these women are knocking on Trump's door now? It's because he invited them. The end.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Women often feel as if nothing they say will matter.

Despite my screen name, I'm a woman.

There are two incidents in my life that more or less amount to rape. Certainly in both cases the sex was not consensual. The man involved was not, in either case, a public figure. In both circumstances I blamed myself for letting myself be in a situation/place where this could happen. I have never told anyone about either incident. This is the closest I've ever come to talking about them.

So it is not at all hard for me to understand why a woman would not come forward right away. She's simply glad the incident is over. She wonders if she somehow imagined what happened. Or somehow encouraged it. She's not convinced her "no" was strong enough. And yet, she also knows she felt endangered, that if she objected too strongly she'd be risking . . . well, who knows what she'd be risking.

Speaking only about my two experiences, I know that in a court of law the charge or rape would not be upheld. Neither incident was traumatic enough to change my life. But each one was a setback in my sense of my own autonomy, of who I really was outside of my sexual nature. Luckily for me neither incident set me back in any meaningful way. I guess I'm lucky in that I always had a very strong sense of myself, and these things didn't ultimately matter. But as I think back on them, in both cases the man involved was exercising his sense of ownership of my female body. It was degrading, and I'm very lucky that I was able to move beyond them.

And I want to point out that these two incidents would not really meet the definition most people would have of rape. I wasn't grabbed by a random stranger, although I didn't know either man very well.

I'm somewhat floundering here, but I want to make it crystal clear that my own experience (and I expect the vast majority of women out there have had comparable experiences) makes me understand all too well what Donald Trump has done. He's a disgusting human being who thinks all women are available to him. Or too ugly to matter. Either way, he defines women only as creatures who exist to please him. Yuck.

[Cha]

2. Excellent.. Thank you @bluegal. It took the tape

of trump bragging that he did it to others and then lying about it @ the debate Sunday.

Strong trigger. And, anyone who asks that question is either disingenuous or stupid. Both really.

Thank you JHB

[ibegurpard]

3. Trump explained why in his infamous comments

"And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything"
Same reason Bill Cosby got away with it for years. Who thinks they have a chance fighting someone rich and powerful?

[joeybee12]

5. knr

[GWC58]

6. I have nothing but the

most respect for these brave women. My contempt for Agent OrangeTurd grows, not by the day, or minute, but by the second! 😡

[treestar]

7. And because they want the public to know

what kind of person he is, when it didn't matter as much before.