It Ain’t Fiction!

Fictional Jeffrey Epstein (Jordan Hayes) Being Led Off By Fictional Feds

Law & Order SVU 2011 Episode, "Flight"

Fiction is the best way to tell the truth. Many writers agree with me and over the years they have tried to tell us many times about things that are going on all around us that we are too busy or too good to see. Good people, I find, can imagine evil, but they usually don’t. They usually assume most people are like them, busy minding their own business, not busy trying to hurt others.

To name a few fictional truth tellings - Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson, along with revealing certain CIA mind-bending antics, Conspiracy Theory was the first to call John Lennon’s death an assassination. Michael Clayton, “I am Shiva, God of Death!” aimed at a fictional Monsanto-like super company busy poisoning the world. Prime Suspect for its 1993 Season 3, "The Keeper of Souls," about the organized abuse and, sometimes, murder of street kids and orphans by rich and powerful men. Even comedian Seth MacFarlane tried to tell us with his 2005 Family Guy cartoon of Stewie running naked through the mall screaming, “Help! I just escaped from Kevin Spacey’s basement!”

For years, I have been reading in The Daily Beast about this fellow named Jeffrey Epstein who was a pretty intense partier. Thank you Daily Beast for your courage in speaking out. You’ve been telling us about Epstein’s Fantasy Island, about his ranch in New Mexico, about his buddy Ghislaine Maxwell who procured very young girls for him, about Prince Andrew, Trump, Bill Clinton, about the parties and the after-parties, and the wee small hour romps with under-aged girls in the manses of rich and powerful men. You have told us oh, Daily Beast, about the Catholic Church, about the Vatican, about the culling of child sex slaves from private schools, from orphanages, from the homeless children on the streets. We still haven’t paid attention to these last, “suffer the little children to come unto me” said Jesus to his disciples.

I find it remarkable that people still need to see it on TV before they will get it. No, that’s not so because it WAS on TV and they still didn’t get it.

Thank you Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, cast & crew, and especially creator, Dick Wolf, who along with writers Dawn DeNoon and Christina M. Torres, tried to tell us in their 2011 episode, “Flight,” about the exploits of super-rich financier Jeffrey Epstein. Specifically “Flight” echoes the time Epstein, fictionally called Jordan Hayes (cloyingly played by Colm Feore) received a French girl as a birthday present. (In real life, Epstein has been accused of having received three twelve-year-old French girls as a birthday present.) In the episode, the French girl is tricked into giving Jordan Hayes a massage, during which he requires her to be naked. (What is it about this guy and massages? Epstein seems to have gotten several nude virginal massages daily. Ugh!) She’s trapped in the room. Later, before she is allowed to leave, an attendant makes her offer up a friend to be Jordan’s next victim. In fact, SVU went on to describe several underaged girls paid to give weird, creepy massages to Jordan Hayes, Jordy to his friends, namely an older French girl who used to be is lover and was now his procurer of very young girls. This dark-haired young woman eerily reflects the real life older beauty, Ghislaine Maxwell, a beautiful socialite who allegedly procured Epstein’s victims, one wonders why she didn’t have better things to do with her life. Perhaps like many real life female sex slavery procurers, she’s angry about her own victimization and just doesn’t care about anyone else. Or maybe she’s just plain evil. According to the SVU episode and also the real life victims, the procured girls were kept hostage till they performed whatever bizarre sexual act Jordy (Epstein) wanted or the tender, underaged girls would be sent out to perform for Hayes’ (Epstein’s) rich old cohorts.

The Real Life Ghislaine Maxwell

Spoiler alert:

Unlike the real life Epstein who supposedly committed suicide (I think he was murdered, hung, dispatched by his old cronies who wanted to silence him. They always kill their friends.), in the SVU story, Jordan Hayes isn’t punished for his crimes. The Feds swoop down to save Jordan in a deus ex machina move because he is too valuable as a witness to allow him to rot away in prison with other Level 3 sex offenders. As Jordan is swept away by this accommodating nebulous Federal agency, his ex-girl friend turned pimp now facing 80 years in prison, is handcuffed and left screaming, “I love you, Jordy!” 

Fictional Ghislaine Maxwell (remarkable resemblance!) handcuffed, facing 80 years

In real life, Epstein’s facilitator, Maxwell, who was photographed aprés Epstein’s arrest having a carefree lunch at an In & Out Burger, seems to have gotten off Scott-free. I would think she knows too much. Remember, they always kill their friends. Her brain must be what we used to call “a little black book” full of names and dates and addresses. 

All perfectly useless now. Unless real life coppers step up to do what fictional ones have done.

Fictional Special Victims Unit

Next time you hear yourself talking about Jeffrey Epstein and others like him, don't just talk, do something - stop for a minute to give to the orgs that are out there fighting for the victims of sexual abuse. Anything you can afford, even $10, can help someone escape their captors. Here are two of my favorite orgs - The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Polaris.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

HOLY DAYS - Love & Horror

“They tried to kill me in this place of love and horror. They tried to kill me, but they couldn’t because I loved too much.” – Gloria Wisher, Holy Days

This morning I read an AP news story about the terrorist shootings at a Tunisian resort in which a shooter opened fire on tourists relaxing on a beach. The writer, Elaine Ganley described the scene: “From accounts of the attack by shocked survivors, tourists who stayed on, lifeguards and beach employees who helped at the site of the massacre emerge stories of love and horror.”

The same can be said for the terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon, during which some people ran from the disaster and others ran toward the horror to do help all they could. Or the 911 terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers, most people ran away, others, some of them trained professionals, some extraordinary citizens, ran toward the danger to give aid. Our own soldiers rush toward horror in war and they do so out of love, love for country, love for duty, love for honor. Abused children, it has been noted, suffer from the same PTSD as our soldiers. However, in the case of child abuse, the trauma is ongoing like war, not past, until the child grows up.

This morning, I was struck by the similarity of the words Gloria speaks about her home and the description of a terror attack. I have often compared my character, Gloria Wisher to someone who is being terrorized. Nothing so overtly terrible as gunshots or bombings is happening to Gloria. She is being covertly harmed by the very people who are supposed to love and protect her. However, unlike the other terror victims, Gloria is too small to run away. In Holy Days, Gloria Wisher has no choice but to remain in the place of her horror, in the family and the neighborhood where she is being molested.

In another sense, Gloria also runs toward the horror. Gloria never stops loving her family, and her father. In a larger sense, Gloria also loves her home and her neighborhood. She clings to them as a kidnapped victim clings to her kidnapper for food, shelter, comfort – and identity - creating a  Stockholm Syndrome of childhood. She loves the boy who will rape her. How can this happen? Maybe it’s because Gloria, though young, is a devout Catholic. But, this love does not involve the Catholic Church or Catholic doctrine. She loves as Jesus loved. This love is not about forgiveness. It’s pure love. Love of life, love of the pain as well as the joy. Gloria’s rapist was hit by a truck when he was little, but survived with a disfiguring scar over his eye that mirrors his disturbed mind. Gloria admires him for surviving such an ordeal. She admires his toughness and his bravery. But, she is also afraid of him. The rapist in Holy Days is a metaphor for the larger scene of horrors that Gloria must struggle with every day. How much of what happens is a part of her? How much should she transform or reject? Gloria loves the people, the smells, the roughness, the softness, the fear and the comfort. On one hand, we love our homes, on the other; we are sometimes hurt by what happens there. By no means am I suggesting that women should love their rapists. It is a fact, however, that the terror of a bad home is very bound up with love.

            A few years ago, I was asked to write a poem for peace. The occasion was a Day of Peace, and I wrestled with this request. Many of my friends were going to be present. They were all writing poems. I was expected to come up with a poem about peace. But, I was bitter. I did not believe in peace. I did not think mankind could ever achieve what my wonderful friends and colleagues were so starry-eyed and hopeful for. So, when I sat down to write, I began with those words, “I do not believe in peace.” I ended the poem with these words, words that describe terrorism of all kinds: “And, I do not believe in hate, because all hate is really love of something else.”  

©Patricia Goodwin, 2015

Patricia Goodwin is the author of Holy Days, about the survival and transformation of Gloria Wisher, When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low.

HOLY DAYS - Sexual Memories

     Holy Days used to be titled Sexual Memories. Sometimes I wish it still were. It wouldn’t have a child on the cover, though I often talk about Gloria Wisher’s early sexuality in the novel, in such chapters as “Feeling the World,” for instance, because that’s how I remember life. “What a riot, what an orgy of living my little life was for me! I wondered at the peculiar mixture I was of Mama and Daddy, Nona, Grandma and Grandpa and all the things I saw and felt and ate and breathed. A part of me was perverted as though the good in Mama and all her generations had met the bad in Daddy and all his generations, had somehow twisted like a curious string of DNA creating this perversion, putting me beyond them both and everything.”

    Early chapters are structured around strong male and female images, sensual eating, beautiful gardens, wine, powerful paternal and maternal figures, brothers, sisters, men in uniform, women in soft sweaters, cigarette smoking, laughing, lipsticked lips, and the barren city street alive only with people. From the chapter “Love Parties,” “The house banged and stomped and ran with people; it called out and answered in happy shouts. They didn’t talk to each other in normal voices, they bellowed from deep in their bellies, with joy, with rage, with a deep relish of their joy and rage; from room to room, up the stairs or down, from the refrigerator to the stove, from adjoining beds, they loved the sound of themselves.”

     I describe the streets of East Boston in a chapter called “Sexual Law.” Gloria’s mother, Rosie, was forbidden by her father to ride a bike or skate in the street. Gloria’s response was this, “Grandpa knew how provocative these motions could be: her limbs rising and falling, her behind, a smooth, stiff outline, her red curls beckoning in the breeze. Mama on a bike! Mama on roller skates! I can feel Grandpa’s shudder going through me!

     But, Grandpa’s law couldn’t stop sexual law and restraint made Mama even more innocent and desirable. Especially to the bad boys. Boys like Jake and Daddy. Mama was really good. She prayed and went to mass and confession. She received Holy Communion every Sunday. She obeyed her father and her mother. She had that good look: round and soft and unaware of her power, a labyrinth of red curls, chubby legs in ankle socks and thick high heels stepping up into the corner store. The bad ones, without jobs, without homes, dropped out of school, squinting through the haze of cigarettes, were pulled right to her, without knowing what on earth had happened to them.”

     I remember life in the poor neighborhood as being shot through with sex: “When a young woman stepped out of the house, her sex went up like a shot and young men, standing around all day in the company of other men - like soldiers or sailors who’d been deprived of softness and a sweet smell - stood alert suddenly, even though they seemed not to have altered their slouches against the tenement wall or the store window. They squinted over their cigarettes and a hush, as though decided communally, instinctively, fell over them and inwardly, their feelings swelled as she walked by. Maybe one or two didn’t look at her: they watched her without looking. The others gave her the eye, up and down, through the haze of smoke. In the hush, the tension gathered, to be let out as soon as she passed, when they could still smell her, when she could still hear them, they’d let it all out, swoosh, as remarks she could just barely - or not - hear, but could feel, in a rush of heat through her veins.”

     The poor neighborhood is especially vulnerable to sexual power: “The tenements were close, less than two feet of alley separated them. Sometimes one wall held two houses together. Clotheslines crisscrossed, colored flags flapped from them; women’s voluptuous arms tugged the ropes and pulleys. Windows slid open and women’s arms tossed buckets of water out the windows. The women sang out to each other all day, their voices calling Italian like a song. We lived window to window, door to door, radio to radio, telephone to telephone - how many times did Daddy answer another man’s phone, picking up our receiver, saying “Hello?” into the dial tone? How many times did he look across to see another man’s wife naked in the dark?”

     Gloria is a victim of incest. For years, therapists have been telling victims of incest, “Incest is not about sex, it’s about power.” Rape – and incest is rape – may be about power for the rapist, but it is about sex for the victim. Incest is about sex.

     Sex is about power. At it’s best, sex is about the mutual power of the beloved: being loved is empowering, being made love to by the one you love who also loves you is empowering. If either partner is unwilling or uncomfortable, then the power structure becomes unbalanced. Sex becomes seduction at the least, rape at the most extreme. My definition of rape – would it have happened if you were in charge?

     Therapists mean well when they tell victims that incest is not about sex; it’s about power. But, victims know better. Therapists admit that sexual pleasure experienced during incest confuses victims. Victims ask themselves or their therapists, “Then how come I had an orgasm?” “How come I sexually fantasize about incest?” “How come incest has become the source of my desires?” “How come I cannot have a happy sex life?” “Why do I always feel guilty or dirty when I have sex?”

       The answer to all of those questions is for the victim, incest is about sex. For most victims of incest, incest is their first sexual experience, one that can both mar and make their sexual identity.  Their rapist is usually someone familiar, someone in authority, someone they trust: the very person who is teaching the child about the world, about reality. Incest becomes the child's view of reality. In Holy Days, Gloria envies what she calls "real people doing real things." She watches other kids, rich kids, going to a local baseball game dressed in real baseball uniforms and feels excluded from such wholesome activities.

      In Holy Days, incest is but a symptom of the over-riding sexual power of the neighborhoods and the families. Gloria is incested by her father. She is also raped by the boy next door. Her brother, who “sells” her to her rapist, becomes a thief at 10 years old. All these crimes are symptoms of the larger, overwhelming Stockholm Syndrome going on in Gloria’s life. The way of the poor neighborhood is to overpower those who live there. Gloria’s father, though good at his job and able to solve monumental problems in the factory, is overlooked by the bosses for advancements that go to, according to Billy Wisher, “college men with their heads up their ass.” In the Chapter “A Child’s Christmas in Revere,” Billy tells a black man that he knows what it means to be black. Why? Because he perfected the shrink-wrap machine and didn’t get any credit or reward while his boss walked off with the patent and the profits. Class becomes another form of slavery.

    In a very real sense, the neighborhood is raping the people every day through violence, poor conditions, neglect and disrespect, and the people, in turn, abuse each other and are proud of being abused as red badges of courage. “I come from Revere, I come from Southie, I come from East Boston,” become wounds worn with pride, a daily war that has been survived with an injury to show for it like a Purple Heart, a shining medal of honor.

     Gloria’s father acted his power upon the one thing in his life that he could control – his daughter. But, for his daughter, incest became a sexual battle she had to fight in order to regain her self-respect. Gloria begins to sink down into sexual promiscuity. Only the love of another troubled girl can help bring her out, into the light of her own promise and recovery. 

   As Gloria says in the chapter, “An Ounce of Pride”: “Romantic and idiotic as I was, what gave me that ounce of pride to keep myself safe? So many kids before and after me went under, looking for love in an alley, oblivion in a bottle or bliss in a joint or a needle or a pill, hit by a Mack truck, rolled and left under an overpass, buried under layers of pigeon shit. So many kids ran away from home. I knew I was supposed to run away, but I was afraid.

            I thought street kids must be very brave. I admired them that they were filthy and slept in doorways and drain pipes, that they ate out of trash barrels like refugees of war, a trash can lid for their plate, maybe scraping it with a spoon. I admired them that they coughed and bled and washed in the gutter, that they went crazy with disease and malnutrition and the street. They were brave! Brave!

            I, on the other hand, ate and drank at my father’s table. I sat right next to him and sincerely laughed at his jokes. I snuggled under the cool, crisp sheets my mother washed for me and, on them I had sex of varying sneaky, cowardly sorts with her husband, her boyfriend, my own father. Under the illusion of a contract of innocence and obedience, I let my parents keep me safe - yes, safe - from murder and robbery, beatings and what I came to think of as violent rape.

            But, there are so many subtle violences. And I was tormented by guilt. For having done bad things, for having enjoyed them much of the time, for having become these things out of doing, memory and time, and for not having the guts to run away. I was guilty. I didn’t want to leave my mother’s lap, soft and flowery in her cotton housedress. I used to sit at her feet and kiss them in their old slippers. I loved their smell, like warm, roasted nuts just out of the oven. I couldn’t leave her refrigerator that I could open anytime for fresh bread and butter, a half wheel of Romano cheese, pounds of sweet ham and hot salami, cakes, pies, ice cream, puddings, apples, peaches, grapes, strawberries, milk and cream. The warm, steaming windows dripping with cooking and tables warmly full of people as the winter howled or sizzling barbeques outside in summer. I was weak and as I tasted these things and wrapped myself in warmth, I nearly vomited with shame. And, among these things, I wouldn’t leave my books and my drawings. And, on Sunday nights, as though I deserved it, I wanted to watch “The Wonderful World of Color,” in black and white and imagined the colors. I reminded myself of the Jews who stayed in Berlin because they couldn’t bear to leave the piano and of the Jew who admired a weed blowing in the icy wind because he knew it was as alive as he was, while the bodies he buried were not alive.

            Why didn’t I go under? What gave me the pride that swelled in me like the dirty grey storm waves at Revere Beach, the pride it took to not get pregnant and the gall instead to tease Boy Scouts and sailors? What gave me the madness to bat Rick Likus about with my paw? It was Mr. Lanza giving me a large gold star for my stories. It was Mrs. French and her long-taloned hand on my shoulder telling me I could write. It was Ma and Daddy - yes, Daddy - bragging that I might be a teacher, that I was going to college and that I would be the first in the family, telling their friends and neighbors with pride about the books I read, about my grades, asking me for information like I was an expert or an encyclopedia. Grown men and women, neighbors, calling on the phone to ask me how to spell a word. They let me know I was worth something: but, they didn’t know how to help me. The very people who confused me, hurt me and neglected me also exalted me. They gave me life, but it was a long struggle out the birth canal.

            And, my angel was out there, looking for me. I had one more very important step to take before I could meet her.”

©Patricia Goodwin, 2015

 More to come about Patricia Goodwin's latest novel, Holy Days, now available on Amazon.


Need help? 
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)


Call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.

How does it work?

When you call 800.656.HOPE (4673), you’ll be routed to a local RAINN affiliate organization based on the first six digits of your phone number. Cell phone callers have the option to enter the zip code of their current location to more accurately locate the nearest sexual assault service provider.

Underinflated Balls

UPDATE!!

NATIONAL SEX TRAFFICKING STING 

nets nearly 600 arrests before 

2015 Super Bowl

"As part of the "National Day of Johns" sex trafficking sting, spearheaded by the Cook County, Ill., Sheriff's Office, police said that they captured hundreds of men and women attempting to hire prostitutes through websites such as Backpage.com and Craigslist. Police also said they rescued dozens of women who said they had been forced into prostitution…" READ MORE 

Is this still a man’s world or what? 

Why are they still talking about underinflated balls? Why? Because they’re not really talking about underinflated balls, they’re talking about money. About men making money. About men losing money.

I don’t want to talk about or hear any more about underinflated balls.

I want to talk about the under-aged sex workers men will be bringing in to Glendale, Arizona for the 2015 Super Bowl.

It’s hard to be ahead of the times on this one. The trouble with statistics is that you have to wait until after the fact to gather them. I have no stats on how many child prostitutes will be unwillingly brought into Glendale next weekend. I do have stats on previous Super Bowls, however: an estimated 10,000 women and minors were brought into Tampa, FL for sex at the 2009 Super Bowl. The numbers for actual arrests are almost comical by comparison – “One human trafficker was arrested and jailed for advertising a 14 and 18-year-old for $300 on Craigslist as a ‘Super Bowl Special’.”

            The Super Bowl may be the Las Vegas of sports events, sex, drugs, alcohol, whatever happens here, stays here, but for the young women who are forced into sex trafficking, it’s no picnic. Most of the men who pay for sex are married with the children, have good jobs and are obviously earning enough money to buy a Super Bowl ticket, travel and pay Super high hotel rates. They will return with no regrets to their wholesome lives after engaging in vacation sex with a child. The child, however, will regret each moment she is forced to have sex with anywhere from 25-50 men every day she (or he) is at the year’s most prestigious event. Makes one wonder about other events – say the political Conventions, I don’t want to single out a political party here – or any other such event you can imagine.

Good people, I have found, do not like hearing about this situation. Good people like to concentrate on the game itself, on the wholesomeness of this family sports event, on having enough snacks and booze for their friends and colleagues at their Super Bowl party. They didn’t even want to see Janet Jackson’s pink nipple - that was too shocking! So, it follows, that during the game no one wants to think about a little girl chained to a bed, shot up with heroin to keep her docile, trained to not gag by an older girl, trained by an older girl to act sultry or scared – most of the men want scared – if I go on about this, you’ll blame me for telling you. How can you say such things?

            How can you ignore them? How can you eat your snacks and enjoy the game knowing that women and children are going to be hurt afterward – for fun?

            You need to know about the damage group. The damage group is made up of the girls to whom men are allowed to do anything they want, usually involving horrible beatings and torture while performing sexual acts. In the documentary Playground by filmmaker, Libby Spears (now streaming on Netflix) about sex trafficking in the United States, one official commented that some of the acts they were seeing he couldn’t describe, against children so young, that no normal person could look at them without being disturbed. Officials blame easy access of child pornography on the internet for the increase in more extreme sexual acts. Users have become dulled by the nightmares they've witnessed there and are looking for more and more perversions.

Most people think sex trafficking is a problem found only in other countries. That’s simply not true. The United States has 100,000 to 150,000 under-aged sex workers; most of them are runaways or captives who were forced into a life of prostitution. Take the example of Debbie, an A student from a good family in Phoenix, AZ who was abducted from her driveway at age 15, held at gunpoint in a dog kennel, given dog biscuits to eat, forced to have sex with multiple men, raped by her captors for sport, stuffed into a drawer under a bed where she was found by police 40 days after her abduction. She was lucky. Most abducted children are never found.

Here is a quote from Gregg Abbot, Texas Attorney General: "The Super Bowl is one of the largest human trafficking events in the United States."

If you click on the NBC News link, the page says, “We're sorry. The text content of this page is no longer available.”

            But I found it: in a great article by USA Today’s Rick Jervis about efforts by Texas law enforcement to meet the challenges of what was expected to be going on underneath the surface glamour of the 2011 Dallas Super Bowl: "The Super Bowl is the greatest show on Earth, but it also has an ugly underbelly," Abbott said. "It's commonly known as the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.” Ernie Allen, President of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said, “Each year, 100,000 to 300,000 American kids, some as young as 12 years old, are exploited in the sex trade. The traffickers use the Super Bowl and other large events such as the World Cup to ply their trade. The traffickers try to seize that opportunity to do business.” Traffickers are making money by exploiting children and their co-conspirators are men, most often family men, who are literally lining up to purchase sex with a child.

            Back to underinflated balls. How appropriate. Because that is exactly the kind of balls men have who need to abuse children, who need to scare little girls, who need to force children, who need the perversion of having sex with a toddler or younger - oh, yes, it’s too awful, and too true. Maybe strong women have scared them. Maybe the media has shown them too many sexual images of girls and boys at younger at younger ages. Maybe the easy access of the internet is to blame for the increase in cruelty and perversion. Probably. The sheer number of these easily available, horrifying acts have dulled the senses of perverts who now want more and more aberrant acts performed. But, that’s no excuse. Child prostitution is as old as time. Children are easy prey for monsters. Who knows what horrors existed in ancient Rome or medieval China. It’s always, always, always the same – it’s bullying. Men who need to hurt a very small, very helpless person in order to feel large.

            Men with underinflated balls.

©PatriciaGoodwin, 2015           

What you can do:

If you suspect trafficking, CALL the National Human Trafficking Resource Center: a toll-free 24-hour hotline at 888-373-7888.

Give as much as you can:

Polaris Project

Amirah

List of Human Trafficking Organizations

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater.