XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: leftwing@democrats.org   
      
   For more than two decades, legendary Hollywood director Woody   
   Allen has been battling allegations that he sexually abused his   
   adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow. The claims first surfaced in   
   1993 and they have reemerged periodically ever since.   
      
   However, on Saturday the alleged victim at the center of the   
   case publicly wrote about it for the very first time.   
      
   In an open letter published on Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times   
   blog, Farrow details her extremely disturbing account of what   
   happened in a “closet-like attic” when she was only a child. It   
   should be noted that Allen was never prosecuted and has denied   
   any wrongdoing.   
      
   “What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you   
   should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by   
   the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second   
   floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play   
   with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted   
   me,” the open letter begins.   
      
   “He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good   
   girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris   
   and I’d be a star in his movies,” Farrow writes. “I remember   
   staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its   
   circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to   
   look at toy trains.”   
      
   Farrow alleges that various forms of sexual abuse occurred “so   
   often, so routinely, so skillfully hidden from a mother that   
   would have protected me had she known, that I thought it was   
   normal.” She also claims her father would “use his sexual   
   relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted”   
   on her.   
      
   It wasn’t until she says Allen sexually abused her in the attic   
   that she “couldn’t keep the secret anymore.” That time it just   
   “felt different,” she said.   
      
   “After a custody hearing denied my father visitation rights, my   
   mother declined to pursue criminal charges, despite findings of   
   probable cause by the State of Connecticut – due to, in the   
   words of the prosecutor, the fragility of the ‘child victim,’”   
   Farrow writes. “Woody Allen was never convicted of any crime.”   
      
   Because of what she went through, she claims she developed a   
   fear of being touched by men, an eating disorder and even   
   started cutting herself. She also wrote about how hard it was to   
   see her “abuser’s face” all over TV as actors “praised him at   
   awards shows” and “critics put him in magazines.”   
      
   Today, Farrow says she is “happily married” and enjoys the   
   support of a loving family. However, other victims of sexual   
   abuse are “still scared, vulnerable, and struggling for courage   
   to tell the truth — because the “message that Hollywood sends   
   matters to them,” she notes.   
      
   In the disturbing letter, Farrow also appeals directly to some   
   of Hollywood biggest stars, including one actress who apparently   
   knew her as a child.   
      
   “What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec   
   Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett   
   Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton.   
   Have you forgotten me?” she writes.   
      
   Woody Allen, she continues, is a “living testament to the way   
   our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.”   
      
   Farrow concludes her open letter on a chilling and disturbing   
   note:   
      
   So imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic   
   by Woody Allen. Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with   
   nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that   
   celebrates her tormenter.   
      
   Are you imagining that? Now, what’s your favorite Woody Allen   
   movie?   
      
   Read the entire open letter here.   
      
   http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/an-open-letter-from-   
   dylan-farrow/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0   
      
   http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/01/read-this-extremely-   
   disturbing-open-letter-and-you-may-never-look-at-this-hollywood-   
   legend-the-same-way-again/   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)