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Sexual harassment is not confined to the workplace or classroom. It can occur in situations and settings where a person ought to be safe, like in a doctor’s or counselor’s office.
I learned in adolescence that psychologists and people who do work of that kind are voyeurs, that they have an overarching and consuming interest in the sex lives of their patients/clients, and all the more so if the patient or client is disabled.
The man I am going to tell you about was no exception. If I remembered his name I would give it in full, because he is an unprofessional, unethical swine. Sadly, my mind has totally blocked out any recollection of his name, though what he did remains clear in my memory. This is what happened.
Our GP recommended that my mother attend a stress reduction course. Naturally, though, she had all kinds of reasons and excuses why she couldn’t. So the doctor, being an insightful man, prescribed the course for me. Mothers being what they are, able to do things for their children they never could or would do for themselves, the ploy worked like a charm. Off we went to the stress reduction course.
To begin with, there was the initial interview. Since everyone knew I was there solely to accompany my mother, my interview was pro forma. The young woman I saw asked me all the questions, but we pretty much chit-chatted and giggled and had a pleasant time. I remember it was an election year, and one of the questions concerned my hopes for the future. I promptly replied that I hoped Jerry Brown would be elected president. That’s the sort of session it was. I told the truth as far as it went, but on the other hand nothing deep or personal was discussed.
The course proceeded for how ever many weeks. Since it didn’t really apply to me, I was bored; but, it seemed to help my mother, or would have done.
At the end of the course came the concluding interview. Foolishly, I assumed this too would be a mere formality. But the head of the program, the man who conducted the course, wanted to interview both Mom and myself. I don’t now recall whether he determined the order or whether I volunteered to go first. In any case, go first I did. And it wasn’t a formality.
He looked through the material from my initial interview and seemed displeased. He wasn’t interested in my politics or my plans for grad school or, apparently, anything else. He wanted me to tell him about my sexual activity, and he told me so point blank.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. I was also hurt and angered. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for. I tried to point out that I was only there to keep my mother company, that I didn’t actually need the course because there was no unusual stress in my life. I tried to deflect his questions politely. I tried to deflect them rudely. I tried everything I could think of short of walking out. That wasn’t an option, since he was sitting between me and the door.
Growing increasingly angry and desperate just to get the session over, I gave in.
You must understand, I do not think well on my feet. My improvisational skills are pretty much nil. But I had to tell the son of a bitch something. So, I spun him a yarn – not a particularly good yarn. I used some of my real feelings and daydreams, incorporated a few standard tropes and, for lack of any better ideas, made my mother the villain of the piece. I even managed to cry a little at strategic points.
It was an incredibly lame story with, needless to say, no actual sex but plenty of anxt. Any normal person would have seen that it was a put-up job, and a clumsy one at that. But the so-called psychologist ate it up. He was so stupid and eager to be fed bullshit that I ended by rather enjoying myself. After all, it was completely meaningless. Doctors and professionals of that sort are bound by codes of ethics, much like lawyers and priests, right?
Eventually, he ushered me out and called Mom. I listened to my audio book in blissful ignorance till she emerged. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place what till we got in the car and she exploded.
This so-called mental health professional had not only failed to discuss my mother’s case, why she was there and whether she had benefited from the course, but he had violated his ethical obligations by repeating to her everything I had said and then accusing her of being a cruel, unfeeling mother!
As you may guess, it took quite some time for me to make her understand the position he had put me in, that I had to tell him something, and that of course I never would have cast her as the villain if it had occurred to me for one moment that he would be such a heel as to repeat the load of claptrap to her.
What upset me more was his shabby treatment of her. She was there because she needed the services his program was supposed to provide. But rather than reinforcing whatever benefit she might have derived from the course, he vilified her, made her deeply distraught, and drove a wedge between her and me for a while.
Yet in its own way his treatment of me was almost as bad. If I had in fact suffered some sort of sexual trauma, being forced to discuss it with a strange man would certainly not have helped matters. (Thankfully, I have not suffered any such trauma.) On the other hand, had I at that time been in a happy, committed, sexually active relationship, being forced to discuss its details with a strange man would have been quite damaging. Had I been uncommitted but playing the field, that also would not have been a subject I’d have wanted to discuss. As it happens, I was unattached and not sexually active at the time. In fact, I told him so, several times. He refused to believe it. I can only suppose celibate twenty-somethings, even Catholic ones, are so vanishingly rare that he had never encountered one.
Like every other shrink and pseudo-shrink I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across, he clearly thought it would be entertaining to hear a multipli-disabled girl’s account of the sex act. I must stress, that is the only thing he wanted me to talk about. He accepted an account of a baffled love affair halted by an over-protective, etc., etc. mother, since that probably opened lovely vistas of dysfunction to his twisted mind. He didn’t want to help me, he wanted to use me for my entertainment value. And he had no scruples about bullying and hounding me to achieve that gratification. Harassing and upsetting another patient, my mother, was only dessert and possibly an afterthought.
I didn’t report him because I didn’t know whom to report him to, and because I doubted they’d believe me if I did. This man was a well-respected member of the University of Massachusetts’ Psychology faculty. Even with my mother’s backing, I was unlikely to get a serious hearing.
This is exactly why sexual harassment and sexual predation continues: Victims either don’t know where to report the incident or feel they won’t be believed, or both. Harassers and predators all too often are older, better established or in some other way more credible than victims. Like bullies, they see to it that a victim looks foolish or weak if she or he manages to report the abuse. Meanwhile, the harasser of predator carries on the same behavior with impunity. I have no way of knowing how many other young women this particular skuzzball emotionally abused for his own prurient amusement. I am certain, however, that I was not the only one.
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