XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: leftwing@democrats.org   
      
   (A note from Nicholas Kristof: In 1993, accusations that Woody   
   Allen had abused his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, filled the   
   headlines, part of a sensational story about the celebrity split   
   between Allen and his girlfriend, Mia Farrow. This is a case   
   that has been written about endlessly, but this is the first   
   time that Dylan Farrow herself has written about it in public.   
   It’s important to note that Woody Allen was never prosecuted in   
   this case and has consistently denied wrongdoing; he deserves   
   the presumption of innocence. So why publish an account of an   
   old case on my blog? Partly because the Golden Globe lifetime   
   achievement award to Allen ignited a debate about the propriety   
   of the award. Partly because the root issue here isn’t celebrity   
   but sex abuse. And partly because countless people on all sides   
   have written passionately about these events, but we haven’t   
   fully heard from the young woman who was at the heart of them.   
   I’ve written a column about this, but it’s time for the world to   
   hear Dylan’s story in her own words.)   
      
   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. 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. 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.   
      
   For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things   
   to me that I didn’t like. I didn’t like how often he would take   
   me away from my mom, siblings and friends to be alone with him.   
   I didn’t like it when he would stick his thumb in my mouth. I   
   didn’t like it when I had to get in bed with him under the   
   sheets when he was in his underwear. I didn’t like it when he   
   would place his head in my naked lap and breathe in and breathe   
   out. I would hide under beds or lock myself in the bathroom to   
   avoid these encounters, but he always found me. These things   
   happened so often, so routinely, so skillfully hidden from a   
   mother that would have protected me had she known, that I   
   thought it was normal. I thought this was how fathers doted on   
   their daughters. But what he did to me in the attic felt   
   different. I couldn’t keep the secret anymore.   
      
   When I asked my mother if her dad did to her what Woody Allen   
   did to me, I honestly did not know the answer. I also didn’t   
   know the firestorm it would trigger. I didn’t know that my   
   father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover   
   up the abuse he inflicted on me. I didn’t know that he would   
   accuse my mother of planting the abuse in my head and call her a   
   liar for defending me. I didn’t know that I would be made to   
   recount my story over and over again, to doctor after doctor,   
   pushed to see if I’d admit I was lying as part of a legal battle   
   I couldn’t possibly understand. At one point, my mother sat me   
   down and told me that I wouldn’t be in trouble if I was lying –   
   that I could take it all back. I couldn’t. It was all true. But   
   sexual abuse claims against the powerful stall more easily.   
   There were experts willing to attack my credibility. There were   
   doctors willing to gaslight an abused child.   
      
   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.”   
   Woody Allen was never convicted of any crime. That he got away   
   with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken   
   with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls.   
   I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating   
   disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by   
   Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind   
   eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, “who   
   can say what happened,” to pretend that nothing was wrong.   
   Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV.   
   Critics put him in magazines. Each time I saw my abuser’s face –   
   on a poster, on a t-shirt, on television – I could only hide my   
   panic until I found a place to be alone and fall apart.   
      
   Last week, Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar. But   
   this time, I refuse to fall apart. For so long, Woody Allen’s   
   acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the   
   awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go   
   away. But the survivors of sexual abuse who have reached out to   
   me – to support me and to share their fears of coming forward,   
   of being called a liar, of being told their memories aren’t   
   their memories – have given me a reason to not be silent, if   
   only so others know that they don’t have to be silent either.   
      
   Today, I consider myself lucky. I am happily married. I have the   
   support of my amazing brothers and sisters. I have a mother who   
   found within herself a well of fortitude that saved us from the   
   chaos a predator brought into our home.   
      
   But others are still scared, vulnerable, and struggling for the   
   courage to tell the truth. The message that Hollywood sends   
   matters for them.   
      
   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?   
      
   Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails   
   the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.   
      
   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?   
      
   http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/an-open-letter-from-   
   dylan-farrow/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)