From my first sexual assault investigation before #MeToo to years uncovering Epstein’s crimes with Virginia Giuffre, here’s why I’ve learned that silence is often the first chapter—not the last.
The democrats rushed to pick someone who looked the part but did extremely poor vetting if at all, hence we knew little about his character. I knew he was an ahole but I was going to vote for him anyway. I’m a Mainer and there’s still time to defeat Collins. Bread mold should be able to defeat her.
Wajahat texted her right in the middle of a livestream this noon, she replied, “I’m thinking.” She also said her phone was blowing up, so I guess that means many people had the same thought.
I had reservations about him from the beginning. It wasn’t just his poor judgment in tattoos early on but the red flags kept popping up! Those red flags indicated there must be something more beneath the surface. Now this! He needs to drop out NOW!
I too had those very strong reservations. I also got such intense Fetterman vibes that I could never overlook. I would not put it past Trump at all to find and support any candidate to dupe the voters in such a deceptive way.
The Dems blew it again, I'm sorry to say. They just can't seem to get their sh** together. The current leadership needs to go....and certainly Don't put a Dem socialist in those spots.
Look Tara this guy should not have gotten three feet down the road. I have been screaming about Platner from Day 1. I have been attacked, marginalized and have recieved hard dismissive response. I've been called a Republican and a lot worse for forcing people to pay attention to the "con job". We don't need gamers and predators in office. This whole thing makes me sick. If you are going to take the high ground then you had to actually be a man of character. So maybe shame will make people think. The Platner Con Show has gone on way too long and it might help to offer giant Platters of Crow for the predator racist enablers. Because it happens in the left too.
You were right, 100% about Platner. What infuriates me still is no quality workers' rights candidates emerge from the Dem ranks! We are on the verge of AI job killing and the Dems can only whine 'What can we do?' The Republicans are evil and worthless. However, the Dems play hopeless and helpless while cashing K street bonus checks. Seriously WTF are avg people supposed to do?
Tara you were ahead of your time at 25 years old. God Bless you for helping these victims. I have to admit, I was so naive, there was such problem of sexual abuse. In my little world, no such thing would have happened. I know one thing, if a man did that to my sisters, he would have wish he had never done it. Thanks for doing the right thing.
What bothers me more than the recent, very credible allegation of sexual assault is how many women are willing to defend Platner or complain that the woman should've come forward sooner. It's mind boggling. Especially after everything we were supposed to have learned from ME TOO and the Epstein victims.
All too true. A former female roommate went to see a guy one night rather late. We both knew him. I thought he was sleazy. His M.O. was to play the supercool musician. He really was a musician but I never heard him perform. He got her up to his place and after a while forced himself on her. When she was able to free herself she ran out to the street, her clothes bloody and in shreds, and phoned me asking me to pick her up. I hurried to the address, and I found her in shambles, the worst I had ever seen her. It seems that he also beat her up. She waited a few weeks before going to the cops. They told her that they would have a better chance of convicting the joker if she had reported things right away and not cleaned her clothes. No charges were filed. The rapist seems to use a woman's reticence to speak against her. I guess too many of them know the drill.
This should have not been a surprise to anyone. The first sign of his instability which utterly shocked me was his nazi tattoo. Nobody gets a tattoo like this without having had some thoughts (bad ones) about it.
Tara, I wish everyone who sits on a jury, who is part of any inquiry, or who votes to confirm political appointees - where there are allegations of sexual misconduct - would be required to read this piece before passing judgement on the allegations. Your perspective is invaluable. Thank you.
I never trusted him. I saw the red flags & a pattern that I recognized in my own past. I was raised in an abusive home with an alcoholic father. As a teen, I was naive and vulnerable and got into a severely abusive relationship which involved sexual abuse. He groomed me. He was psychotic, controlling, a compulsive liar and very manipulative. I was with him for almost 2 yrs and it took me over a year to realize I was being abused. The therapist called it rape. Even after I left 3x, he stalked me. He was a predator and because of what I’ve been through, I can easily see the patterns. I felt an unsettling feeling in my gut with Platner. Abusers don’t change. We should believe the women.
Thanks. I had years of therapy but that kind of damage is sadly irreversible. I have ptsd but it didn’t really surface until my 30’s & I am chronically ill because there is a mind body connection. I am 54 now & certain things just trigger me even though it happened in the early 90’s.
I relate so strongly with what you've survived.. as a CSA survivor, I blamed myself. Then married an abusive, manipulative man. It was my therapist who diagnosed PTSD many years later, and my attraction to men who want to use, abuse, and harm, mentally, physically,and emotionally.
After grueling, intimate work on myself and my mindset, I am finally, 44 years after the first SA, feeling a measure of self-worth, self-love, and self-grace. I have found that I can trust myself and I feel in my bones when someone is a user, abuser, sociopath, etc.
I was so disappointed in Platner, especially after hearing Allison Gill talk about her interactions with him during her military career.
It is a beautiful thing, Tara, that your reporting does, by putting front and center these outrageous abuses by people in power. More importantly, you shine a light on the girls and women who have suffered, lived with, survived, and even thrived in the aftermath of their most painful times in their lives, showing the world that women and girls, and survivors and victims everywhere, no matter race, gender, financial circumstances, must he believed and above all, these people matter and we all deserve justice for what those predators have done.. thank you for your compassionate, tireless reporting on the important issues of our times.
Sadly when you are abused, you not only attract abusers but you believe everything is your fault and you are trained to believe you are worthless.
The cycle is very hard to break. I was in therapy all thru high school & put in group therapy in my hschl because I wrote in an English essay final that I wanted to kill myself.
The bf who abused me at 17 yrs old pretty much replicated what had been done to him, to me. He was abused, neglected & molested by his father as a child. I felt sorry for him and I thought I could save him.
I had a handful of abusive relationships after, some online and several nervous breakdowns. Diagnosed with depression & anxiety by my late 20’s. Married, abandoned, divorced then married again.
Relationships are difficult. I chose to marry someone nice but someone who is emotionally unavailable & emotionally neglective. Life has not been easy.
I have had years & years of therapy. If I could find a good one, I would be in it now.
In the past, I believed that love was pain & that sacrificing my entire self to who I was with was required. I realize that it is not. Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry for all you have been through.
Allison Gill warned about Platner last yr & I never forgot it. She talked in depth on Waj’s live about his tattoo, reddit & his belief that it’s a woman’s fault if she is drunk & gets raped. She voiced serious concerns about him & I believed her, as she had been a victim of rape & was a vet who was in a documentary on military & ptsd with Platner.
This article by Tara is very inspiring & moving. Thank you.💜
Thank you for sharing your story.. I feel your pain, and I am glad you are in a better place. We all deserve grace and the love of self that unfortunately, most women are taught is not ours to have.. This culture has the misogyny built in, from the very beginning of the country. It is so far past time for the country we love to realize the idea and ideals that the Declaration of Independence aspires to.
Thank you. I grew up in the 80’s. Sexism, misogyny were pretty embedded back then. I think it is a societal & cultural thing.
My father was sexist and misogynistic. He believed women were inferior, only good for cooking & sex. He reminded me of “Archie Bunker” My dad is no longer alive. I lost him during covid.
My dad was at his worst when he was an alcoholic & my mother was codependent, compliant. Sometimes she would gang up on me with my dad. He abused her too.
I was the only girl in my family out of 2 boys and I was the scapegoat & the one most targeted for abuse by both of my parents. I read all kinds of self help books when I was 16 in order to understand and cope. I had always been an avid reader.
I started to realize I was being abused by my bf in high school when I read a book called: “Men who hate women & the women who love them” by Dr. Susan Forward in 1991. It was about misogynistic relationships.
When I left him, he threatened me & stalked me. It was the yr OJ Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson. I was terrified for a long time. Later I went to college & I read a lot of feminist writers.
You are not worthless! Never believe you are! I know you have a lot of good qualities. It’s has to be hard for what you have been through. If you decide to look for someone else, know the qualities of that person before you commit.
How men treat women these days, I wonder how any men are in any relationships? Being treated like what you have described is not acceptable and never should be.
In my opinion, it is embedded in our society & American culture, and the patriarchy. You can see it in movies (especially the 80’s) and even in sports.
The current generation of men do have a problem. This is where the manosphere comes in & incels (men who are virgins & can’t get girls, often gamers who hang out on twitter and congregate because they hate women)
Social media has had a negative toxic effect. It is very disturbing.
Many of the men who end up doing mass shootings & school shootings fit into this clique. They are also the ones connected to white nationalism & white supremacy (Neo Nazi’s)
Tara I love your work so much, it’s honestly genuinely amazing the perspective you have built around this topic. This article brought me to tears because of its truths. It brought me back to a moment when a young therapist blamed me for being raped and told me to take some responsibility for putting myself in that position.
Hard to take responsibility for something done by force. That wasn’t the first or last SA. The previous one I tried to report to the police and it was a traumatic nightmare that caused me to have to actually call and confront the person on the phone in front of a male police officer - as if they were going to admit it and as if that was ok to do to me. My mom didn’t care about anything my dad did and by the time I got away from my abusive ex I was barely learning what non-abusive life was even like. I was 33. I had to be told by a therapist that what I was used to was abuse.
Sexual assault doesn’t seem to be the exception based on everyone I’ve talked to over time. I’m now 48 and most females I know have been sexually assaulted at some point, some brutally like by gangs of people. The problem is that it feels so shameful and people like even someone in this thread who will just excuse rape as a mistake make those who are assaulted feel dismissed whether we want to or not.
Society does not encourage victims to speak out - so thank you, for holding space and allowing the process, for respecting grief and pain and trauma that lives in the very cells of the body and will never go away. I dont think this society will ever be healed until the truth of all the corruption is realized by the masses. It’s only through steadfast work like you’re doing that it will become possible 🙏💜
This was an award-winning (or should be) piece of writing from depth of experiences, sitting with them individually and collectively and understanding the nuance of what was heard, seen, felt and meant. To synthesize it afterward with such a high degree of clarity is impressive. Holy Wow.
Tara, this piece is excellent. It is so difficult for victims to speak out the first time, even without the knowledge that they may have to repeat that story for years and continually be challenged, criticized, and denied justice. An expert in the legal field supporting victims once told me that people who had never experienced sexual violence can't comprehend what victims go through or that someone would commit a horrible act against another. This article is a step towards bridging that gap. Thank you for your reporting.
Platner was endlessly coddled as the PTSD issues were used to avoid accountability. Too many were too forgiving. A Senate campaign is not the place to "evolve."
The democrats rushed to pick someone who looked the part but did extremely poor vetting if at all, hence we knew little about his character. I knew he was an ahole but I was going to vote for him anyway. I’m a Mainer and there’s still time to defeat Collins. Bread mold should be able to defeat her.
Not a lot of time to make that switch, only a week
You wouldn't happen to have Heather Cox Richardson's contact info? Maybe suggest she step in?
Wajahat texted her right in the middle of a livestream this noon, she replied, “I’m thinking.” She also said her phone was blowing up, so I guess that means many people had the same thought.
Sarah Longwell from the Bulwark said HCR would be her number one pick (on last night’s pod with Tim Miller)
One thing I know about Heather is that with the Israel Palestine conflict she’s not picking sides as an American historian.
Absolutely wrong choice
I had reservations about him from the beginning. It wasn’t just his poor judgment in tattoos early on but the red flags kept popping up! Those red flags indicated there must be something more beneath the surface. Now this! He needs to drop out NOW!
I too had those very strong reservations. I also got such intense Fetterman vibes that I could never overlook. I would not put it past Trump at all to find and support any candidate to dupe the voters in such a deceptive way.
So sad
The Dems blew it again, I'm sorry to say. They just can't seem to get their sh** together. The current leadership needs to go....and certainly Don't put a Dem socialist in those spots.
I'm thinking I owe Tara a apology, I had the Platner story and got it wrong, trust Tara I say!
I didnt mean it in a toldja so way
You never do, Tara. You’re just a great reporter.
Look Tara this guy should not have gotten three feet down the road. I have been screaming about Platner from Day 1. I have been attacked, marginalized and have recieved hard dismissive response. I've been called a Republican and a lot worse for forcing people to pay attention to the "con job". We don't need gamers and predators in office. This whole thing makes me sick. If you are going to take the high ground then you had to actually be a man of character. So maybe shame will make people think. The Platner Con Show has gone on way too long and it might help to offer giant Platters of Crow for the predator racist enablers. Because it happens in the left too.
He fooled me too.
I’m so disappointed in all of it. Why …. Why does it have to be complicated and convoluted. Susan Collins cannot win! That’s all I know for sure.
She can definitely win—she’s convinced a lot of voters repulsed by MAGA that she’s a moderate.
I mean it as she just can’t win. She is a Trump loyalist and not good for the country!
That fact is what happens when people don't pay attention to who politicians are.
You were right, 100% about Platner. What infuriates me still is no quality workers' rights candidates emerge from the Dem ranks! We are on the verge of AI job killing and the Dems can only whine 'What can we do?' The Republicans are evil and worthless. However, the Dems play hopeless and helpless while cashing K street bonus checks. Seriously WTF are avg people supposed to do?
Tara you were ahead of your time at 25 years old. God Bless you for helping these victims. I have to admit, I was so naive, there was such problem of sexual abuse. In my little world, no such thing would have happened. I know one thing, if a man did that to my sisters, he would have wish he had never done it. Thanks for doing the right thing.
Thank you ❤️
STFU two year relationship
Impressive
What bothers me more than the recent, very credible allegation of sexual assault is how many women are willing to defend Platner or complain that the woman should've come forward sooner. It's mind boggling. Especially after everything we were supposed to have learned from ME TOO and the Epstein victims.
That's why Tara. Journalists like you are important. We need people like you who continue to ask the tough questions. Don't stop
All too true. A former female roommate went to see a guy one night rather late. We both knew him. I thought he was sleazy. His M.O. was to play the supercool musician. He really was a musician but I never heard him perform. He got her up to his place and after a while forced himself on her. When she was able to free herself she ran out to the street, her clothes bloody and in shreds, and phoned me asking me to pick her up. I hurried to the address, and I found her in shambles, the worst I had ever seen her. It seems that he also beat her up. She waited a few weeks before going to the cops. They told her that they would have a better chance of convicting the joker if she had reported things right away and not cleaned her clothes. No charges were filed. The rapist seems to use a woman's reticence to speak against her. I guess too many of them know the drill.
all too common sadly
This should have not been a surprise to anyone. The first sign of his instability which utterly shocked me was his nazi tattoo. Nobody gets a tattoo like this without having had some thoughts (bad ones) about it.
Great piece Tara!
Thank you!
Tara, I wish everyone who sits on a jury, who is part of any inquiry, or who votes to confirm political appointees - where there are allegations of sexual misconduct - would be required to read this piece before passing judgement on the allegations. Your perspective is invaluable. Thank you.
thank you Karla
I never trusted him. I saw the red flags & a pattern that I recognized in my own past. I was raised in an abusive home with an alcoholic father. As a teen, I was naive and vulnerable and got into a severely abusive relationship which involved sexual abuse. He groomed me. He was psychotic, controlling, a compulsive liar and very manipulative. I was with him for almost 2 yrs and it took me over a year to realize I was being abused. The therapist called it rape. Even after I left 3x, he stalked me. He was a predator and because of what I’ve been through, I can easily see the patterns. I felt an unsettling feeling in my gut with Platner. Abusers don’t change. We should believe the women.
I’m am so sorry you had to go through all of this.
Thanks. I had years of therapy but that kind of damage is sadly irreversible. I have ptsd but it didn’t really surface until my 30’s & I am chronically ill because there is a mind body connection. I am 54 now & certain things just trigger me even though it happened in the early 90’s.
This evil in the country needs to STOP!
I relate so strongly with what you've survived.. as a CSA survivor, I blamed myself. Then married an abusive, manipulative man. It was my therapist who diagnosed PTSD many years later, and my attraction to men who want to use, abuse, and harm, mentally, physically,and emotionally.
After grueling, intimate work on myself and my mindset, I am finally, 44 years after the first SA, feeling a measure of self-worth, self-love, and self-grace. I have found that I can trust myself and I feel in my bones when someone is a user, abuser, sociopath, etc.
I was so disappointed in Platner, especially after hearing Allison Gill talk about her interactions with him during her military career.
It is a beautiful thing, Tara, that your reporting does, by putting front and center these outrageous abuses by people in power. More importantly, you shine a light on the girls and women who have suffered, lived with, survived, and even thrived in the aftermath of their most painful times in their lives, showing the world that women and girls, and survivors and victims everywhere, no matter race, gender, financial circumstances, must he believed and above all, these people matter and we all deserve justice for what those predators have done.. thank you for your compassionate, tireless reporting on the important issues of our times.
Sadly when you are abused, you not only attract abusers but you believe everything is your fault and you are trained to believe you are worthless.
The cycle is very hard to break. I was in therapy all thru high school & put in group therapy in my hschl because I wrote in an English essay final that I wanted to kill myself.
The bf who abused me at 17 yrs old pretty much replicated what had been done to him, to me. He was abused, neglected & molested by his father as a child. I felt sorry for him and I thought I could save him.
I had a handful of abusive relationships after, some online and several nervous breakdowns. Diagnosed with depression & anxiety by my late 20’s. Married, abandoned, divorced then married again.
Relationships are difficult. I chose to marry someone nice but someone who is emotionally unavailable & emotionally neglective. Life has not been easy.
I have had years & years of therapy. If I could find a good one, I would be in it now.
In the past, I believed that love was pain & that sacrificing my entire self to who I was with was required. I realize that it is not. Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry for all you have been through.
Allison Gill warned about Platner last yr & I never forgot it. She talked in depth on Waj’s live about his tattoo, reddit & his belief that it’s a woman’s fault if she is drunk & gets raped. She voiced serious concerns about him & I believed her, as she had been a victim of rape & was a vet who was in a documentary on military & ptsd with Platner.
This article by Tara is very inspiring & moving. Thank you.💜
Thank you for sharing your story.. I feel your pain, and I am glad you are in a better place. We all deserve grace and the love of self that unfortunately, most women are taught is not ours to have.. This culture has the misogyny built in, from the very beginning of the country. It is so far past time for the country we love to realize the idea and ideals that the Declaration of Independence aspires to.
Thank you. I grew up in the 80’s. Sexism, misogyny were pretty embedded back then. I think it is a societal & cultural thing.
My father was sexist and misogynistic. He believed women were inferior, only good for cooking & sex. He reminded me of “Archie Bunker” My dad is no longer alive. I lost him during covid.
My dad was at his worst when he was an alcoholic & my mother was codependent, compliant. Sometimes she would gang up on me with my dad. He abused her too.
I was the only girl in my family out of 2 boys and I was the scapegoat & the one most targeted for abuse by both of my parents. I read all kinds of self help books when I was 16 in order to understand and cope. I had always been an avid reader.
I started to realize I was being abused by my bf in high school when I read a book called: “Men who hate women & the women who love them” by Dr. Susan Forward in 1991. It was about misogynistic relationships.
When I left him, he threatened me & stalked me. It was the yr OJ Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson. I was terrified for a long time. Later I went to college & I read a lot of feminist writers.
You are not worthless! Never believe you are! I know you have a lot of good qualities. It’s has to be hard for what you have been through. If you decide to look for someone else, know the qualities of that person before you commit.
Thank you. At this point, I have been married since November 2008 & I am too old to start over again.
I’m so sorry for what you have gone through. Nobody should have to. Many jerks in this world.
I think you’re correct in your assessment.
How men treat women these days, I wonder how any men are in any relationships? Being treated like what you have described is not acceptable and never should be.
In my opinion, it is embedded in our society & American culture, and the patriarchy. You can see it in movies (especially the 80’s) and even in sports.
The current generation of men do have a problem. This is where the manosphere comes in & incels (men who are virgins & can’t get girls, often gamers who hang out on twitter and congregate because they hate women)
Social media has had a negative toxic effect. It is very disturbing.
Many of the men who end up doing mass shootings & school shootings fit into this clique. They are also the ones connected to white nationalism & white supremacy (Neo Nazi’s)
Everything is connected.
Tara I love your work so much, it’s honestly genuinely amazing the perspective you have built around this topic. This article brought me to tears because of its truths. It brought me back to a moment when a young therapist blamed me for being raped and told me to take some responsibility for putting myself in that position.
Hard to take responsibility for something done by force. That wasn’t the first or last SA. The previous one I tried to report to the police and it was a traumatic nightmare that caused me to have to actually call and confront the person on the phone in front of a male police officer - as if they were going to admit it and as if that was ok to do to me. My mom didn’t care about anything my dad did and by the time I got away from my abusive ex I was barely learning what non-abusive life was even like. I was 33. I had to be told by a therapist that what I was used to was abuse.
Sexual assault doesn’t seem to be the exception based on everyone I’ve talked to over time. I’m now 48 and most females I know have been sexually assaulted at some point, some brutally like by gangs of people. The problem is that it feels so shameful and people like even someone in this thread who will just excuse rape as a mistake make those who are assaulted feel dismissed whether we want to or not.
Society does not encourage victims to speak out - so thank you, for holding space and allowing the process, for respecting grief and pain and trauma that lives in the very cells of the body and will never go away. I dont think this society will ever be healed until the truth of all the corruption is realized by the masses. It’s only through steadfast work like you’re doing that it will become possible 🙏💜
This was an award-winning (or should be) piece of writing from depth of experiences, sitting with them individually and collectively and understanding the nuance of what was heard, seen, felt and meant. To synthesize it afterward with such a high degree of clarity is impressive. Holy Wow.
Thank you
I concur.
Tara, this piece is excellent. It is so difficult for victims to speak out the first time, even without the knowledge that they may have to repeat that story for years and continually be challenged, criticized, and denied justice. An expert in the legal field supporting victims once told me that people who had never experienced sexual violence can't comprehend what victims go through or that someone would commit a horrible act against another. This article is a step towards bridging that gap. Thank you for your reporting.
Thank you Jennifer ❤️
Definitely felt like there was more that was going to come out. Very glad she’s speaking out now.
Platner was endlessly coddled as the PTSD issues were used to avoid accountability. Too many were too forgiving. A Senate campaign is not the place to "evolve."
Proud to support your work, Tara.
thank you