TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — I arrived in Taiwan as a wannabe young man just one month after my 19th birthday, alone, with no job waiting for me, and with only a return ticket home as a backup in case things went badly. I found work and, within a few months, found myself in a social group.
They were all older than me, but they accepted me anyway. They were an exciting, fun, interesting, and cosmopolitan bunch, and I was happy to have made such a cool group of friends.
Being alone and so young in a foreign country, they were about the closest thing I had to a family. I am sure many readers of this column understand this well.
One evening at the once legendary nightclub Buffalo Town, a small group of us discussed winding down the evening at an MTV, which featured small KTV-like rooms, but instead of singing, they were for watching movies. There was one member of this social group who often took the lead in organizing these activities. She came over to me and said she had talked to the others, and that the two of us were to go ahead together, and the remaining people would join us soon.
The two of us went to an MTV a few blocks away, chose our movie, and went into the room to watch it together. This person was a woman who was an influential foreign 'elder' in this social scene, and five or 10 years older than myself.
Nightmare unfolds
I was a drunk, naive teenage boy. The others never showed up as she said they would, and she demanded I have sex with her.
I had no interest in her. At first, she cajoled me, but it quickly escalated to taunting.
I still resisted. Then she threatened to spread all kinds of lies about me, including that I had raped her.
With my entire existence and everything I held dear and that had sustained me in Taiwan about to collapse before me, it was clear she had trapped me. Drunk, confused, and terrified, I finally relented to her demand, eyes tightly shut.
Afterward, I felt degraded, used, humiliated, ashamed, disgusted, manipulated, tricked, and all-around pretty awful. Mercifully, she left the country soon after. I never wanted to see her again.
Years later, after I had put the incident behind me, the #MeToo movement broke out in the United States. Reading the descriptions of what people like Harvey Weinstein and Roger Ailes had done, it hit me what had happened to me all those years ago: I had been raped.
I had always thought of male rape as the type that happens in prisons: violent and brutal. Instead, I had been abused by a more common type of rape: coercion, blackmail, and cunning.
Not just a women’s issue
I bring up this story for two reasons, both related to the explosion of people coming forward with stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment over the last few days here in Taiwan.
The first is to point out that this is not exclusively a woman’s issue, in spite of some trying to frame it that way. Indeed, one of those people who already came forward about their experience with sexual harassment is a man.
However, the reason why this is an important issue for everyone is basic. Fundamentally, this issue is about people abusing, taking advantage of, humiliating, or trying to establish dominance over others, and the people who enable or cover up for them.
While statistically, with different genders, this sort of behavior is likely to take different forms (though as my experience makes clear, not exclusively by any means), the basic truth is that this behavior is exhibited by a certain percentage of our species as a whole. The majority of us who find this abhorrent, regardless of the form, should work to stop those who engage in it and ensure those who help them incur costs for doing so.
'You just wouldn’t understand'
The second reason is to combat the notion that others can not understand what has happened. When anyone tries to convince you, "You just wouldn't understand," you should be immediately suspicious. There is an agenda at work.
Either others convince themselves of it, or worse, they, for their own interests, claim in order to 'own an issue', say “you just wouldn’t understand.” In a literal sense, that is true, even when two people experience the same thing, the circumstances and the individuals involved will be unique.
In addition to the story above, among other things, I have been mugged at knifepoint by a gang in Johannesburg and beaten up by a group of gangsters in a bar in Taichung. Obviously, someone who has been raped, mugged, or beaten up is going to have a better understanding of what I went through in each case.
However, that does not mean that others can not have some understanding. Everyone has experienced humiliation, being used, fear, pain, and the full range of human emotions, even if the circumstances were different and less extreme.
I think everyone is capable of some understanding of even my most awful experiences, and I would never tell anyone, “You just would not understand.” This is because of two of the most wonderful aspects of our species: empathy and extrapolation.
We are capable of taking our experiences and extrapolating how we might feel or react in circumstances that others have experienced. By the process of putting ourselves mentally in someone else’s shoes, we have the ability to gain some understanding of what others are going through, even if only partially.
After all, this is the very basis of fictional stories. Imagining ourselves in another person's shoes is how we make sense of the complicated world around us.
Crucial for change
It is also crucial for societal change. Even a partial understanding and empathizing with the suffering, difficult situations, or challenges of others is enlightening.
From that flows outrage and anger. It is powerful both in politics and society as it leads to demands for change.
People who accept, “You just wouldn’t understand,” are in effect giving up. Those who tell you to do so are lying about the basics of human nature. Worse, there is an entire class of people who make their living across the political spectrum by pretending to represent those who have suffered from these horrible things. They often have not suffered themselves, but they want to convince you there is no way you can have any normal human sympathy or understanding because you are 'different.'
That is wrong. It is hard to understand others' experiences and challenges, no doubt about it, but we should never give up on trying to understand and listen. Remember, others trying to understand you, as challenging as it may be, could change your life. The people who have shown the most impactful effort at making a change are not always the people you would expect. That is life, and surprises can come from any end of the political spectrum.
Let us consider the story of the first woman who came forward, and as best as we can put ourselves in her shoes. Understand and accept that it will be partial and imperfect at best, but with the knowledge that some understanding is better than no understanding.
Her case came to light last Wednesday (May 31) via a Facebook post. The events took place last September, but she finally came forward after watching an episode of the television series "Wave Makers" that discussed the subject.
She worked for what was then called the Women's Development Department in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has been renamed the Gender Equality Department. She, along with some others, was returning in an SUV from a film shoot, exhausted from the long day.
While the other crewmembers were sleeping, the renowned and well-respected film director assaulted her, groping her breasts and stroking her face and shoulders. She fended him off, but let's pause and give some thought to the range of emotions she must have felt at the time of being assaulted, and how she must have felt afterward.
Take your time. It is not a small thing.
Do the right thing
She did what is commonly communicated one is supposed to do in such a situation. She reported this to her superior, Hsu Chia-tien (許嘉恬), who was the head of the Women's Development Department at the time (later promoted to deputy secretary-general of the DPP). Hsu responded coldly, asking the victim “Why didn't you cry out,” and “Why didn’t you jump out of the vehicle,” as well as saying, "What do you want me to do about it?”
I have learned from experience that I am also not the sort of person whose impulse is to cry out, and there are many people who are psychologically built that way. I am also not the sort of person whose impulse is to jump out of a moving vehicle, nor likely are you.
The victim most likely took the job at the Woman’s Development Department to genuinely help women. It is an idealistic job, and at the time she likely felt quite proud of what she was doing for society in a party whose founders included some of the leading women fighting for their equality at the time.
Try to imagine, after all the emotional turmoil she was already having to endure, how she must have felt hearing the responses from Hsu, the head of that department. The head of the very department intended to help women instead taking the side of the man who assaulted her.
She is now described as an “ex-DPP employee” in the news, which is an obvious indication of either her disappointment, or worse, her department head's reaction to her doing the right thing and sacking her, or both -- we do not know the details.
After she posted on Facebook, she no doubt was totally overwhelmed with calls and messages from the press, of which Taiwan has seemingly thousands of outlets, many sensationalistic. Some or even most of those messages were likely very insensitive in nature precisely to provoke a response that would generate headlines.
Her Facebook messenger inbox and the comments section below her post would have been flooded. No doubt many were well-meaning and expressing support, but always in these circumstances, haters come out attacking and insulting the victim in the most vile ways.
That there have been no quotes in the news from her, and the Facebook post has been taken down -- she is clearly not reveling in the attention and firestorm her post unleashed. That should give some indication of how she must have felt and, worryingly, how she might be feeling now.
It also clearly shows she was not in this for any personal gain. She has totally withdrawn from public view.
I hope you made the effort. I hope you (and myself) now have some, even if understandably imperfect, flawed, and limited, understanding of what she has gone through.
Does thinking about how she must have felt and how badly she was let down make you feel uncomfortable?
I hope so. That is how change happens.
If you have encountered sexual harassment, sexual assault, or domestic violence, you can dial the "113" 24-hour protection line for direct assistance from a healthcare professional. For more resources and information, please visit the Sexual Harassment Prevention page of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
