EXPOSING Enablers and Bystanders of Sexual Abuse

Those who choose inaction or deliberate poor action after witnessing or being informed of sexual abuse detrimentally impact survivors.

In this episode, you will learn the reasons why individuals choose complicity, the effects that has on survivors, and what an individual should do if informed of sexual harm.

I also vulnerably chat about my experience with enablers, details on how I've been impacted, and realizations helping me heal from the pain they've caused me.

This episode was inspired by Amos N. Guiora's book, Armies of Enablers.
Channel Miller's book, Know My Name (I highly recommend reading!)
Find links here! https://linktr.ee/traumachatspodcast

Healing requires energy, vulnerability, and hard work. It’s a lifelong journey and it's never linear. Whatever season you're in on your healing journey, hold on to hope. <3

I hope you have a lovely rest of your day!
Love,
MacKenzie Mae


For help NOW!
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE

For boys and men specifically: 1-800-656-4673

More resources here! https://linktr.ee/traumachatspodcast

Transcript

Hello, fellow survivors and allies of survivors! I hope everyone listening is having a lovely morning, afternoon, or evening! I wanted to extend my gratitude towards you all before getting into today’s episode, because I’ve been receiving such kind, encouraging messages on Instagram as well as in apple podcast reviews. Survivor Ally said… Thank you so much Ally for leaving this sweet review! Every message or review seriously means so much to me and lets me know that what I’m doing has value and it actually is helping others. This community of survivors and allies is already becoming a safe space for me where I feel I can be myself and truly heal and grow alongside you all and I hope you’re feeling a similar way! So thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart! I also just wanted to highlight how it’s important to heal at your own pace. I know the episodes I create can be heavy, maybe triggering, but I don’t want to sugarcoat anything. I want to be real and vulnerable because I know if I’ve felt or am feeling a certain way, someone else out there is as well. I truly don’t want to trigger anyone or make anyone sad. The reason I’m sharing all of this is to hopefully make someone feel less alone in what they’re feeling, and educate others on the reality of this topic, but unfortunately triggers and sadness can come from that. So this is a reminder to take care of yourself. If you think you could become emotional while listening make sure you’re in a safe space, stop the episode if it becomes too much, and just overall please be mindful of your own well-being. Alright with that being said, let’s get into today’s episode. 

In this week’s episode of Trauma Chats, I will be chatting about the impact enablers and complicit bystanders of sexual abuse impact survivors. I touched on this in my first episode where I shared my personal sexual abuse story and mentioned how I wanted to make a whole episode on this topic, so here it is! I will define who enablers and complicit bystanders are, reasons why they don’t intervene, the negative impact their complicity has on survivors, and what people in those positions need to do instead. I’ll be sharing knowledge I’ve gain from my personal experiences, as well as from therapy and other research I’ve done. I recently read a book called Armies of Enablers by Amos N. Guiora (gi-er-a) and it inspired me to create this episode. I never reflected on the ways complicit individuals in my sexual abuse impacted me before reading this, and I was surprised what feelings it brought up. So, I have linked this book in the episode description if you’re interested in reading it. 

The truth is sexual abuse happens all around us. Many of us have heard of institutions such as USA Gymnastics, the Catholic Church, Miramax, and Michigan State University who faced scrutiny after the world was informed of how vulnerable members of those institutions were not protected and sexual abuse was enabled and perpetuated as a result of people in positions of authority being complicit. There is countless evidence proving many individuals in those institutions were notified of harm and protected the institutions and perpetrators at the expense of the victims or survivors. The very people who were supposed to protect their members betrayed them, abandoned them, and facilitated harm against them. In my experience, the institution that I was a part of was called Gateway Moo Do Kwon in St. Louis, Missouri. That organization failed to protect me. Several of the authoritative figures of that organization not only dismissed the years of abuse I endured by a member of their organization but allowed the person who abused me to continue to be a part of the organization and still is today, affirming their support of abuse, and enabling a perpetrator to potentially abuse more members of their organization in the future. This situation perpetually plays out all over the world, and it must end, but how? These horrifying situations are part of a massive systemic problem that will take years to combat. The fight to end abuse and empower bystanders and those in power to intervene has been happening for a long time. Strides have definitely been made, especially in recent years from the #METOO movement and countless survivors publicly breaking their silence to heavily televised condemnation of well-known perpetrators to the emphasis on enhancing child advocacy and sexual abuse prevention work to improving legal policies and procedures related to abuse. Although strides have been made, so much more work must be done. A big way to move the needle towards ending sexual abuse is by education. Everyone should be educated on sexual abuse, its impacts, how to prevent it, and what to do if one witnesses or is notified of abuse.

To begin, let’s define what enablers and bystanders of sexual abuse are. As Guiora puts it, bystanders are individuals who are present when another is in harm’s way and enablers are individuals who create the environment that facilitates that harm. In other words, people who see someone in harm’s way but don’t participate in that harm are bystanders. Bystanders typically are a 3rd party who don’t know the individuals involved in the harmful situation or have a fleeting encounter with them. There are active bystanders who witness harm and act to stop it and there are complicit bystanders who choose not to act on what they witnessed. The only viable reason why a bystander should not act is if it puts their own safety at risk. Enablers are people typically in positions of authority or having some type of relationship with the individual being harmed, who are informed of abuse and make the abuse possible through their inaction or deliberate poor actions. This type of enablement is commonly found at institutions such as sports and religious organizations as well as universities by coaches, board members, priests, organization owners, or many others. Both enablers and complicit bystanders have knowledge of abuse and make a conscious decision not to act. 

Why do many bystanders choose not to intervene to help the person being harmed? There are several reasons. Remember, bystanders are generally a 3rd party who don’t necessarily have a relationship with the individuals involved in the harmful situation. This can cause them to feel removed from the situation, like it’s not their place to step in because it doesn’t involve them. 

They could be fearful they are interpreting what they see the wrong way, and not want to make a mistake if what they’re witnessing is truly a misunderstanding. They may fear they will be blamed or get in trouble if they say anything or get involved. They could also fear that the person causing harm will attempt to harm them if they step in. Enablers are a different story. They commonly have some type of relation with the individuals involved in the harmful situation. Some common reasons why enablers deliberately choose to protect their institution and the perpetrators at the expense of survivors is they don’t want their institution to look bad or they don’t want to be affiliated with an institution that looks bad, even though although the public may not look down on the institution, they are still affiliated with a bad institution. They could have similar fears of bystanders as well. But with enablers, they generally take deliberate poor action, such as sweeping it under the rug, not notifying authorities and either not reporting at all or only bringing it through the chain of command at their institution so they can collectively figure out a way to silence the survivor and keep the institution’s name in good standing. There are several organizations in the past that have been found to have written policies for assault cases where they must work through it internally and not immediately go to outside authorities such as law enforcement. In Armies of Enablers, Guiora discusses how the Catholic Church had several instances where multiple accusations were made against perpetrators, the church decided the accusations didn’t warrant any law enforcement involvement, so the perpetrators were then just sent to another location, enabling them to continue grooming and abusing more and more children at each location. Many enablers are informed of harm or abuse and blame or gaslight the survivor, maybe because they truly believe there is no way the perpetrator would do such a thing and dismiss the survivor’s accusation, especially if they have good relations with the perpetrator, or they need to silence the survivor so they won’t report it, which means the institution again will remain in good standing to the public. Additionally, there are several cases of legal settlements being made to silence survivors. For example, numerous survivors of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements and accept financial settlements to sweep the abuse under the rug and allow Weinstein to continue getting away with abuse. 

The conscious decision made by complicit bystanders and enablers to either not take action at all or take deliberate poor action to perpetuate abuse exponentially impacts survivors, loved one’s of survivors, and potential future victims of perpetrators. First of all, for cases when the information is known while abuse is still present, the victim remains being abused and in a harmful environment. In some cases, the abuse can worsen, especially if the perpetrator is aware of the inaction by a bystander or cover up being done by enablers. This can cause a boost in confidence that no one is going to stop them, and in fact, maybe they can act even more harshly because they weren’t stopped then so why would they be now. If the survivor informed an enabler who then informed the perpetrator of the disclosure, the perpetrator could use that against the survivor as a way to manipulate them more, use it to punish the survivor with worse abuse, and then blame them for that worsened abuse. In any case, whether the survivor is still being abused or it has ended, they will be negatively impacted mentally by the inaction or poor action done by any complicit bystander or enabler. If a survivor decides to disclose their abuse to someone and is dismissed, not believed, gaslighted, or made to feel ashamed or guilty, they could decide never to tell anyone again, internalize that they are not worthy of support or love, have intense feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and struggle to trust or feel safe around others from then on, especially because most survivors only decide to tell people they trust or believe care about them. I talked a lot about the impact responses to disclosing abuse has on survivors and how to appropriately respond in episode 4 if you’re interested in learning more about this topic. Unsupportive responses can re-traumatize survivors, make them feel even more beaten down than they already feel from being abused, make them feel truly alone in their battle, or hopeless. Complicit bystanders and enablers betray survivors. They facilitate further abuse, cause survivors to develop abandonment issues and insecure attachment styles that will be detrimental to their future relationships with others. Enablers create perfect environments to facilitate abuse, proving to the perpetrator that what they’re doing is accepted and they won’t be punished, perpetuating the abuse and exponentially worsening the perpetrator’s detrimental impact on survivors and their loved ones. Enablers give perpetrator’s a clear path to abuse MORE victims when those victims could’ve been saved from such abuse if only the enablers did the right thing. In the case of Larry Nassar, there were several enablers part of USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University who were notified of abuse and did nothing to stop it leading to hundreds more survivors experiencing abuse from Nassar. The first accusation against him was made in 1994 followed by countless more, yet he wasn’t arrested until 2017. A massive failure of enablers and complicit bystanders at USAG and MSU.

MY EXPERIENCE

I had various enablers in my experience of abuse. As I mentioned before, I was part of a taekwondo organization called Gateway Moo Do Kwon. When I disclosed my abuse, meetings were held by several board members of the organization to determine what to do. Many of them had initial thoughts of how horrible this was, how it was not acceptable, and that Thomas, the person who abused me, needed to be punished. Multiple of them even said those things straight to my mother’s face. But their opinions and actions took a complete 180 after speaking to Thomas to hear his side. Thomas was a beloved instructor in the organization and perpetrators are extremely manipulative, so I’m not surprised he was able to change the people’s minds who were 1. Uneducated on sexual abuse and 2. Caught up in Thomas’ manipulation unable to see the situation objectively or make the right decision. So, the majority of the board members ended up deciding to keep Thomas in the organization, showing that the organization in fact, did tolerate child abuse, and not only supported, but praised a child molester. Thomas is still part of Gateway Moo Do Kwon and once let go by the head instructor where I trained, he opened up his own studio called Twin Dragons Taekwondo where he has had complete access to children and still does to this day due to enablers who failed hold him accountable. Those same enablers who betrayed me and supported a child molester still hold the highest positions in Gateway Moo Do Kwon. In addition, several adults in the taekwondo community I was a part of disregarded the abuse I endured, supported the person who abused me, and even went as far as accusing me of lying. I’m not going to name any names, but we’ll called this enabler DJ. DJ and his wife were close friends of my mom and even had a daughter a little younger than me. My family and I spent a lot of time with DJ and his family and would even go to DJ’s home often for get-togethers. When I disclosed my abuse and Thomas was let go from my studio, DJ accused me, as a 13 year old, of lying, said my mom had coached me on what to say in order to bring Thomas down. A reason he believed this was because he had a conversation with Thomas at some point prior talking about how his daughter had been abused in some way. Thomas’ reaction was that of someone who is stunned, shocked, saying how unacceptable that is and offering his love and support. So DJ began gossiping about this rumor he made up of me lying and my mom coaching me to disclose such abuse to get Thomas fired. It was incredibly disappointing to hear a grown man who I thought cared about me, calling not only my integrity, but also my mom’s integrity into question and accuse me as a 13 year old of lying when they had a daughter close to my age who went through some type of abuse as well, all because Thomas would never abuse a child because of how he responded to him about his daughter. I was beaten down even further after enduring 3 long years of being manipulated, groomed, emotionally and sexually abused. Now it was multiple adults I trusted in my life, completely retraumatizing me. I knew Thomas had betrayed me, and I came to terms with knowing he did not care about me. But having several people who I did think cared about me betray me almost hurt as much as the abuse I endured. Only recently have I reflected on how the enablers in my life have impacted me. They genuinely fractured my faith in people to do the right thing. All of the enablers in my experience were adults whom I looked up to as role models, trusted, and thought cared about my well-being. Their betrayal has led to my struggles in relationships with others and myself. I’ve always battled with abandonment issues which led to me developing an anxious attachment style. This has consisted of me latching on to people and becoming extremely codependent, losing my entire identity to match whatever I thought my partner or best friend, whoever I was codependent on at the time wanted, so they wouldn’t leave or abandon me. Feeling incredibly insecure in relationships because of losing my identity, I didn’t know who I was without them, and having complete mental breakdowns and panic attacks when I would make my partner upset or make any tiny mistake in fear they wouldn’t love me anymore and again would abandon me. This anxious attachment style has been such a sore spot in my relationships with others, and just now am I learning how to break down that style of attachment and move to a secure attachment style. I’m definitely going to make a whole episode on attachment styles at some point because of how much I’ve struggled with it. In addition to impacting my relationships with others, enablers have also negatively impacted my relationship with myself. Their actions or inaction has created self-doubt, low self-esteem, and feelings of being unworthy of love, care, or protection. I still deeply struggle with this today. I’m constantly doubting myself, always asking others what they think, if they think I’m making the right decision, if they think I’m this or that. Never feeling confident in what I know, my decisions, my value as a human being. I think this is the result of being questioned, not believed, doubted, called a liar. The enablers in my experience demonstrated what my worth and value was to them through their poor actions or inaction, and I really took those to heart because I loved those people, I thought they loved me, and I was incredibly impressionable as a young girl. I was confused. I thought, “well, I trust these people and if this is how they act, I guess it’s because of me. They’ve shown I’m not worthy of being loved, protected, or even believed.” At 13 years old, I internalized that I cannot trust myself, I am not valuable or worthy of protection, and in order to ever be valuable or worthy of love and protection, I had to be the absolute perfect human, flawless, because if I was anything less than that, the enablers would be right about me. My perfectionism was a way to fight against what the enablers demonstrated about me, to fight abandonment, to feel worthy. If anyone listening can relate, I’m deeply sorry, but I understand and you’ll be okay. I have so much love for you <3 

Alright so I know that last section was prettyyyyyy heavy. Wanted to get the heavy stuff out of the way first so I could end it on a positive note! So although there were several enablers in my situation, there were also many, many people who did intervene, who believed me, supported me, and fought against the injustice I went through to not only protect me, but any potential future individuals who could’ve been abused by the same person who abused me. To start, I want to talk about the head master instructor and owner of my main taekwondo studio. He was one of the first people my mom decided to call when she was informed of my abuse. He wholeheartedly believed my mom and knew I was telling the truth. He and his wife supported my mom and even went to the police station with her after being informed. Thomas was an instructor that taught at his studio, and he immediately made Thomas go on a leave of absence and let him go. He communicated with all the other instructors what had happened, why Thomas was no longer working there, and that they needed to be understanding of my situation, making it clear that abuse was not tolerated. When he was informed about false rumors, he shut them down. And once Gateway Moo Do Kwon decided to allow Thomas to remain in the organization, he left it. Completely took his whole studio out of the organization to demonstrate his discontentment and align with his zero tolerance of abuse. He even supported me solely training under another instructor after the abuse because his studio was triggering for me since I had been abused there. Several other masters left the organization as well, also clearly communicating that abuse was not going to be tolerated. None of them wanted me to feel unsafe or any more of their students to fall victim to Thomas’ abuse. Their action brought me so much comfort. Made me realize that there indeed are good people that love and care for me, believe me, and do NOT tolerate abuse. They stood up for me and potential future or past victims. Once informed, they completely terminated the potential for him to abuse under their institution/organization. They acted on the knowledge of harm and abuse, prohibited it from continuing, bravely went against Thomas and their organization to put my well-being and the members of their studios BEFORE the organization and Thomas. They contributed to making their studios safer, offered endless support to me, and did everything in their power to protect me and future victims. Many other adults in the taekwondo community I was a part of also believed me, stood up for me when false rumors were circling around, and extended their love and care to me. My parents were the most influential adults who intervened, stopped the abuse, and have never stopped showering me with their support, understanding, and unconditional love. All of these individuals with their brave, caring actions truly brought me hope, and I will forever be grateful for everything they did for me as well as potential future victims. 

WHAT TO DO:

So let’s talk about what you can do to prepare yourself for times in the future when you could be faced with knowledge of abuse or witness it as a bystander. As you have gathered, intervening is critical to protect survivors, whether it leads to their harm ending or lessens the mental harm the survivor experiences. If you are notified of an individual being abused or harmed, you must put their well-being BEFORE the institution you’re part of, before your own biases or reservations, before your personal perceptions of the person being accused. It is absolutely imperative you take abusive disclosures, as well as perceived harmful situations seriously. You could intervene or report it and it ends up not being the harmful situation you believed, but you have to see it through because your intuition COULD be right. Someone could be in harm’s way, and you can’t look past it or sweep it under the rug. Personally, I don’t know how someone could live with themselves if they knew about abuse and didn’t at least try to help. Survivors need people to do the right thing. Someone who has witnessed or been informed of abuse has the utmost duty to act on it. With that being said, intervening can look many ways. First and foremost, your own personal safety comes first, so if intervening will cause you actual harm (not just social disliking), then you need to put yourself first. But there are ways around that where you can mitigate personal harm but still help the person in need. There are 3 intervening styles. Direct, indirect, and distraction. The style that is chosen is dependent on the nature of the situation as well as the bystander’s comfortability. Direct intervening is when a bystander or someone notified of harm takes action themselves to end that harm by directly interacting with the individuals part of that harmful situation. For example, when Channel Miller was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner at Stanford University in 2015, two students were riding their bikes and witnessed Brock assaulting Channel behind a dumpster. Immediately, the bystanders intervened, chased Brock as he noticed them and began to run, and one held him down while the other stayed by Channel until the police came. Those two students directly intervened and stopped the assault. I recently read her memoir called Know My Name and highly, highly recommend it. I’ll link it in the episode description if you’re interested in reading it! The next type of intervening is indirect. This is when a bystander seeks out others to intervene on behalf on them, commonly by calling 911. This type of intervening is common for people who witness harm, don’t feel comfortable interacting with the situation directly, may feel unsafe about it, or just don’t know how to properly handle it. This is a completely valid way of intervening where one can greatly help without having to get personally involved. The last type of intervening is by distracting. This is when a bystander will create a distraction to diffuse or de-escalate a harmful situation. For example, say you witness a friend being verbally abused by their significant other. A way to intervene with a distraction could be approaching your friend and saying something like, “I really need to show you something,” while quickly pulling them away from the abusive partner and diffusing the situation. With this type of intervening, it’s important to follow up with the person who was receiving harm to ensure they are indeed safe now or support them in reaching out for help either directly or indirectly, meaning you help them, or you find someone, law enforcement, Title 9, etc, to help them. Something to keep in mind is to intervene early so the harmful situation doesn’t have the opportunity to progress into a critical issue and so the harm can obviously end as soon as possible. Additionally, try your best to remain calm. It’s going to be emotional, but the person who was being harmed needs you to be level-headed so you can gather as much information as possible to accurately take action and provide support. If you have knowledge of abuse, you must intervene. If you are part of an institution, you have a duty to maintain a safe environment and put vulnerable individuals before your institution and the perpetrator. You must follow policies and protocols in place when informed of harm. If you are directly informed of abusive or harmful behavior, you must do the right thing and report it externally, even if your institution wants to hide it or threatens to punish you if you take action. I’m sorry but you potentially being punished for acting on knowledge of abuse, is NOTHING compared to the exponential lifelong impacts survivors will live with if you don’t take action. Plus why would you want to work for an institution that covers up abuse anyways? Find somewhere else and then report that institution. We all must come together to redefine what is socially acceptable through our actions. Like I’ve mentioned in past episodes, the sexual abuse hotline is always linked in every episode description of this podcast if you ever need it. 

Alrighty, I’m going to finish off this episode with some realizations I’ve gathered from reflecting on my experience with this topic. If you’re a fellow survivor, I want you to know others’ actions or inactions do NOT define your worth. They do NOT defy your truth. They are NOT a reflection of you, rather a reflection of them. Others’ behavior cannot be taken personally, because they would’ve made the same decision if it were someone else. Another realization I’ve come across is complicit bystanders and enablers have reasons why they either do not act or deliberately make poor decisions. More than likely, they were heavily manipulated by the perpetrator, had social pressure on them not to do the right thing, are uneducated on sexual abuse, in denial that such abuse occurs, and probably have a lot of healing and evolving to do themselves. This just further solidifies why their behaviors can’t be taken personally. It’s not about you, it’s about them. People choose their perceived path of least resistance and unfortunately, this can be siding with perpetrators or institutions at the expense of survivors. I’m not saying this is any excuse to their behavior, because it certainly is not. I’m just offering the perspective because it has helped me feel less burdened by the pain they caused me. People aren’t always going to make the right decision. I hope through education and bringing up these conversations, people who have potentially made a poor decision after witnessing or being notified of abuse in the past, can learn the significant detrimental impact they have caused, reflect on that, and at least attempt to make things right. Just because someone made an awful decision in the past, doesn’t mean they can’t do something, anything better in the future. I also hope it empowers people who may witness or be notified of abuse in the future to do the right thing. There are good people out there who do the right thing. I want other survivors to know, as I’m still internalizing this as well, that not everyone is going to betray or abandon you. Some will, and while it’s not right, it’s a fact of life. Not everyone will like you. Not everyone has integrity. Not everyone can look at a situation objectively and choose the right thing to do. Let them go. They are not meant to be in your life. Try your best to focus on the people who did make the right decision, who believed, cared for, and supported you. Be careful who you let into your life, but don’t shut everyone out because of the fear they will treat you the way people in the past have. Have caution, but let others earn your trust, let them in, and take them for what they present to you moment by moment. If at any point, you notice an unacceptable red flag, immediately let them go. There are almost 8 billion people on this earth. You don’t need them. 

So, that’s all I have for you for this episode. I hope you learned something. I hope other survivors could relate a bit. Let me know what you thought of this episode by leaving a rate or review on your favorite podcast platform or by reaching out on Instagram at trauma chats podcast. Thank you for spending your valuable time listening to this episode, I’m truly so grateful for you!