Gothic Soap Opera Onions

Righting wrongs, in my head and on the page

My mom and me, early 1970s

It’s just a few bad apples. It only happened once. It’s only one percent.

When people minimize bad shit, they are shit.

I stayed up way past my bedtime last night watching a feel-good (aka disturbing and depressing!) double feature—Great Photo, Lovely Life on “max” and Trainwreck: Woodstock 99 on Netflix. The first documentary is about a photojournalist processing the fact that her grandfather was a pedophile and the second—a three-parter that dropped way back in 2022—is the story of just how wrong everything went at Woodstock ‘99. (I know, I’m late to the party.)

In both documentaries, girls get raped. In both documentaries, men in charge minimize the damage.

Pedo Grandpa says things like, “She loved it and I loved it and that [bath we took together] was as far as it went.” And, “Little girls threw themselves at me. They wanted to learn. So I fell into it…” Oh he just fell into pedophilia, like tripping over Legos. It can happen to anyone!

Woodstock promoter Jon Scher says, “Woodstock was like a small city. I’d say in a city that size, there’d be that many or more rapes… It’s horrible, but considering there were 200,000 people there, it wasn’t something that gained enough momentum so that it caused any on-site issues—other than, of course, for the women it happened to.”

Woodstock creator Michael Lang says, “I didn’t find out about the allegations of rape until afterward. (Emphasis mine.) I thought we were responsible for everybody on the site. And so we bear responsibility for what happened to the women. But, you know, it happened in secret. It happened in tents.” He adds, “Somebody said it happened in the mosh pit, but I can’t even imagine it.” He rolls his eyes.

Obviously it’s not his fault.

Sometimes women too, instead of supporting their sisters—or daughters—stand by their men instead. Grandpa molests his daughter Bonnie, and decades later, his granddaughter Angie. When adult Angie confronts her mother, confessing long-held anger at not being better protected, Bonnie says, “I’m sorry, but I had no job, I was divorced, I had nowhere else to go and Grandma promised to not let anything happen to you…”

Psst—“I’m sorry, but…” is not an apology.

Angie replies something to the effect of, “It sounds like your troubles were more important than mine, and I still don’t feel cared for.” Bonnie then cancels the rest of her documentary interviews and leaves town, sobbing in a voicemail about being “sick and tired of never meeting expectations, bending over backwards for everyone in the family, and slipping out of their lives so everyone can finally be happy without crazy mom around.”

🎻

It reminded me of when my brother molested me when I was four and he was twelve. My mom found out and that night, putting me to bed she said, “Oh honey, boys will experiment.” It would have been SO MUCH BETTER—I would have turned out so much better—if instead she said something like, “I am going to punish that little shit for what he did to you. He was WRONG to do that. And I failed to protect you but I will protect you now and I promise he will never do anything like that again. You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I’m so sorry I failed to teach him to be a better brother and I’m so sorry I let this happen.”

Fast-forward to 2021 when my daughter unwittingly names herself after my brother’s daughter, who died a few years back from a drug overdose—twenty-seven, unmarried and seven months pregnant.

So many layers of so many gothic soap opera onions…

This is probably why true crime appeals to me as a genre. It’s like watching home movies, waiting for a do-over where finally—FINALLY!—the bad guy gets what he deserves.

But it didn’t happen in real life, and it didn’t happen last night. Instead it was one of those interactive viewing experiences where I found myself at two AM muttering through clenched teeth at the screen—things like, Oh fuck off you lying piece of shit. And, You’re a fucking con shit-stain piece of shit. And, I would kill you right now if you weren’t already dead you son of a piece of shit.

Finally I drifted off to sleep, fantasizing ways to avenge the greedy, violent violations of all those girls. I decided a rape for a rape would be most satisfactory—on camera, in front of a live studio audience, with Olympic-level play-by-play commentary—

The top-ranked female MMA fighters are now spreading Mosh Pit Rapist Number 13’s buttocks. There’s his phone number and home address at the bottom of your screen, for those of you watching from home. Look at how Ronda executes that single-hand spread technique. She’s been training her southpaw for months, working this highly technical move with the controversial Russian coach, Bela Yakov, at his compound in Siberia. The tactical strength of her finger biceps has broken every record in the world. And now Holly’s grabbing the anal speculum! Did she just dip it in—what is that, raw sewage? Battery acid? Folks, we are in for a SPICY event tonight! We’re here till midnight with all the dizzying highs, and the bone-crushing lows. Stay tuned!

I can’t help but be reminded of what trans activists say in the same vein—minimizing the occurrences and harms of minors transitioning, while simultaneously framing themselves as virtuous, and skeptics as hysterical or worse…

Minors aren’t getting trans surgeries. Detransitioners are rare. Rates of regret are low. You need to let people be who they are.

The minimization of bad things. The deflection, denial, spin, and then—the turnaround—

Why do you care so much about children’s genitals. Sounds pretty perverted to me…

In the wider DARVO world, people say things like—

You’re overreacting. You’re making it bigger than it is. It’s not that bad. Let it go. Your anger is poisoning you.

Girls need to keep quiet.

Boys need to experiment…

Narissists do not like being criticized, especially when their critic has a point. There’s no nectar more tempting than diminishing a critic to make yourself feel—and look—better. The honey goes down sweet but grows bitter in the gut, twisting, ever twisting.

From the truth, you can run, but you can’t hide. Even self-deception must be exhausting after a while.

A con for a con. A rape for a rape.

An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind they say, but I’m not sure I believe that anymore. Leaving everyone unharmed seems to lead to more harm, not less. Showering people with understanding and empathy leaves little room for the kind of shame that breeds true growth and meaningful transcendence. You must get caught on the hook of truth in order to then free yourself. You must come to the mortifying conclusion that YOU are at fault, that YOU is responsible for the hurt you’ve caused others.

And so I fantasize too about forcing a little gender-affirmative surgery on people like Dr. Teetus Deletus, Will Thomas and Dr. Michelle Forcier, blue of hair, from that delightful romp, What is a Woman.

For all of you who share my rage—with or without imaginary visuals—who would you like to see scheduled for surgery?

Snip snip!

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