Ugh. People (and for God’s sake, children) don’t get sexually assaulted because they lack “inner strength.”
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If this is who I think it is, the relationship was also mentioned in the TV show 14 years ago or so and it was presented like it was totally normal. :ambivalence:
I knew that might not be the right words (hence my disclaimer)… I’m digging myself a hole!
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I am absolutely sure that that was not at all representative of how you feel.
But in these conversations you can see there are other people on even this thread who are saying gross things they do mean, and 1000% sure you have victims who have never come forward reading this (general commentary, not your response in specific) either thinking and this is why I never said anything or it was my fault.
So the need to pull these threads out and scrutinize them I think can really help people examine their own even subconscious preconceived ideas about who becomes a target of sexual assault.
And the answer really is anyone.
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Absolutely!
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I think it’s important to continue the discussion, and to really think through things. It took me 30 minutes of thinking through what bothered me about your post to really land on it.
Empowering or not, your inner strength does not mean you won’t be assaulted in the future. Like I said, it’s a coping mechanism. And it’s a smart one. I’m not at all saying that us females shouldn’t do what we can to stay aware and be safe. I myself have taken an extensive self-defense class and operate entirely differently now because of it.
But it still doesn’t mean that I won’t be assaulted, inner strength or confidence regardless.
In my opinion, the problem with how you’re thinking of this is as follows:
Let’s say you’re a strong, confident woman who is 5’9, blue eyes, dark hair, works out, is otherwise a tough badass sort of woman. Let’s say you’re leaving the gym at night. You do all the right things - you walk out with a guy from the gym, your keys and cell phone are out, you check your car before entering, immediately lock the doors when you get in. You check your mirrors for a tail, you’re projecting the energy that anyone who messes with you will be messed with. You’re rocking this.
However, unbeknownst to you, the man you walked out of the gym with happens to be a serial killer and you happen to strongly resemble his ex girlfriend of 40 years ago who cheated on him. He’s been working out his pain and suffering over the past 10 years by kidnapping, raping, and murdering women who resemble the ex. Over the next few months, you strike up a gym friendship with this man, as he’s a happy, likable, caring fellow. One night, you don’t notice that he follows you out of the parking lot when you pull out. He follows you home, and with the element of surprise on his side, kidnaps and rapes you. You’re able to escape, but now you have to live with it.
You were strong. You did everything right. You had inner strength, you practiced safe tactics and in the end, by your logic, it wasn’t enough. So you self blame. You shouldn’t have been nice to him. You shouldn’t have let your guard down. You should have noticed him following you. Right?
Wrong. You did all the right things, as we ALL should. But sometimes, people are evil enough that they still succeed. And if that happens, the victim shouldn’t be left wondering what they should’ve done to prevent it. Because sometimes nothing can be done.
To make this JW relevant, what if one of his victims, being a young girl, wasn’t super tough and secure? What if she was unsure of what to do when confronted with his attention and power? Is the lack of her “inner strength,” is her vulnerability, then, a reason why he abused her? No, in my opinion not. It’s perhaps something he looked for in his victims, but it still isn’t her fault that he took advantage of that.
The thing is, and if you read up on any amount of crime you’ll know this is true, the sickos out there are attracted to all kinds of crazy things. We simply can’t avoid being all of those things.
To be clear, we should ALL be smart, strong, intentional about our safety, etc. because unfortunately, we have to. But if we make a mistake and get attacked for it - it’s still not our fault. If we leave the gym distracted and don’t have our keys out that 1 time…still not our fault. It’s our predator’s fault. And actually, I find that to be relatively empowering.
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There is an issue with WHO to tell. i know I never mentioned my assaults to my parents because I knew they wouldn’t let me go to horse shows any more. I was poor and a working student and horses were my life and I didn’t want to lose that.
My male trainer was great. I also took lessons from a few female trainers who were complete bullies in other ways. And some good ones!
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I think that all of this is perhaps getting off the track of Jimmy Williams, and his enabler’s!
It’s an excellent and enlightening conversation, though. If we all stay “on track” and just talk about JW, at some point, won’t it just turn into repeating the same sentiments over and over again and/or gossip that gets us nowhere? I feel like right now, people are learning something and seeing things from other points of view, and that’s what we need to happen.
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Jimmy Williams is indicative of a larger issue outside of his immediate circle, but still pervasive in our sport.
There is in every sport, but I feel our sport is especially susceptible because of the horses. A desire to be around and work with horses I firmly believe makes someone a more open and empathetic person and thus so much more susceptible to emotional manipulation and even blackmail by those who have the power to limit or destroy our connection to the other half of our soul.
We have to work together to protect one another and the next generation, which can still for some of us mean alienating or jeopardizing our place in the community. It’s not an excuse, but it takes a lot of fortitude.
Expanding the conversation helps me at least see that I’m not alone in the fight.
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This is it! I totally agree. This is why I love these boards. For all of the white noise that can float around, I find myself learning and questioning my own thought process and beliefs, narrowing down ideas and having tough conversations that I might not have everywhere else with people I would never encounter otherwise. This thread has been eye opening in more then one way and these thoughtful responses are much appreciated.
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Whether anyone on this thread, including the one who I’m pretty sure who just called me out for “saying gross things I do mean,” wants to believe it or not, you’ve stated what I was trying to get across, in a much better way and with much more clarity. So, thank you.
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I want to add because I’m long winded, this can’t just be about Jimmy Williams and his victims. Because I can’t help them. And I bet for every Anne Kusinski who made it through, there are 100 girls who were not able to continue to function at that level. And statistically speaking this destroyed some of their lives. I imagine that this led some to drug addiction, I imagine someone killed themselves, because that’s what happens. We can’t help them now, because those children are gone. But we really can and we must do our best to make sure that this kind of trauma doesn’t happen to anyone else.
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No, not the same. I’m not going to name the one I know about because it didn’t happen to me (a friend of mine rode with, and slept with, him when she was in high school) and he is no longer living.
Agree with all of the above… However, Jimmy Williams sexual abused are merely the tip of the iceberg. I was p.m.ed that he was involved in a lawsuit by the insurance agencies over the killing of multiple horses for insurance. None of this can be proved, however, I believe if some research is done, it can be proved that he was in a lawsuit over some horse murders The same year he died.
This is a really Dark and ugly iceberg! I truly believe we have others at the top of our sport who have been just as horrific as Jimmy Williams has been alleged to be. Glad they took his name off of the year-end awards….Is that is really the only thing anybody could do at this point.
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well I don’t know about JW but certainly Barney Ward, who assaulted Sarah, was convicted of this. As much as I love horses his actions against her are worse IMO.
Killing horses for for insurance is abysmal of course but assault/rape…that is another level of evil.
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By the way, JW was the resident trainer, meaning that he lived in a house on the Flintridge property.
I’m very curious to see how Flintridge handles these revelations. He designed the barns; the ring is named after him and so is one of the cross country jumps. They weren’t figuring all this would come out, although it is common knowledge around the club.
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I think those discussing the reasoning why perpetrators target their victims are missing that sexual predators cannot all be lumped together. The child molester and the date rapist are disparate crimes and motivations. They are only under the same umbrella because of the sexual nature of the crime but really cannot even be studied by the same metrics.
My best childhood friend was molested by someone we were both very close to. Someone who had similar access to both of us, yet I was never targeted. Point blank his answer to why I was not abused, “She would have told.” He assessed us both and realized for whatever reason that he could not groom me enough to cultivate my silence. That may not have been because of any trait I innately possessed, it could simply have been because of life circumstances. She was vulnerable in a way that I was not to this particular predator.
The rapist that grabbed my dorm mate as she jogged across campus did not give two hoots about grooming or whether she would tell about her assault. He did however care that she was jogging right passed where he was walking, that she was brunette and that she was wearing a running skirt instead of shorts because he “liked the idea of easy access”. She was vulnerable to this predator in a way that I was not.
My dearest adult friend was molested by her grandfather, her sister was spared despite being only a year and a half younger and having the exact same access. They even look eerily similar. Only he will ever know why he chose the one.
The date rapist rarely rapes every single date. There are always stories about other women who went out with him and were not assaulted. Whatever reason made him chose his victim is not the reasoning that the other perpetrators chose theirs.
Vulnerability is not culpability, but it is a factor. Each of us is vulnerable to predation in different aspects of our lives. As a child I was not vulnerable to my friend’s perpetrator. As a college age adult I also was not vulnerable to my dorm mate’s perpetrator; I am blonde, do not jog and do not wear skirts, I would never have been a target he selected. As a working age adult I was vulnerable to the sexual harassment of a boss. He did not target all female employees, but some of us were vulnerable in his eyes. None of these targeted traits were in anyway things the victims could control, but they were still vulnerabilities.
Vulnerability, subjective physical attractiveness in the perpetrators’ eyes, accessibility, reminder of an object of past hurt/rage, all of these can absolutely be the reason a perpetrator targets their victim. None of these traits are EVER the fault or responsibility of the victim, but it does a disservice to discount any of them as factors when we are trying to understand the dynamics of sexual predation.
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I wonder if the ring will be re-named by the horse show in four weeks.
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So…instead of putting this allegation out there without naming a credible source that will go on the record (news article, court documents), and saying the killings can’t be proven, but research could verify the lawsuit…perhaps you could do the research, and report back when you have something credible ?
I’m not saying it didn’t happen (!), it’s just we have to be mindful when making allegations based on private messages.
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