Column
The Sexual Abuse Epidemic Is Much More Mundane Than Ghislaine Maxwell
Americans tend to focus on the most outrageous crimes because they give cover to more everyday misconduct
Nearly a year after the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and serial sexual abuser of young girls, the country is still captivated by his story and crimes. That fascination stems in part from the outrageously heinous nature of his crimes (the age of his victims, the flagrancy of the assaults, his powerful collaborators, and his lack of fear of being held to account); in part from the coverage around his crimes (the Netflix documentary released in May, for example); and in part due to the the ongoing nature of the horrible saga: Ghislaine Maxwell, who is alleged to have procured girls for Epstein and his associates, was arrested just a few weeks ago.
But there’s something else, too, a well-meaning focus that actually ends up hurting the fight against sexual assault. Americans have an obsession with the worst kind of sexual abusers because it allows us to ignore the more common sexual assaults that happen every day. If rapists and abusers are monsters, rare and separated from our everyday lives, we can feel safer from the truth: Abuse is common and mundane.
