newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

Hurricane Irene has blown itself out somewhere over the ocean and Dominique Strauss-Kahn has returned to France, accompanied by his entourage.

We know full well the detritus of Irene, but what has Strauss-Kahn left in his wake?

It will first be confusion about the U.S. justice system.

No legal scholar, I admit that I wanted to see the case go to trial.

A recent letter published in the New York Times from Leonard L. Cavise, a law professor and director of the Center for Public Interest Law at DePaul College of Law, succintly summed up my disappointment in the outcome. Cavise believes that the facts prosecutors cited as critical to asking for a dismissal—the accuser “lied on an asylum application” and had “a taped conversation with a fellow immigrant in an Arizona”—were immaterial to the case.

“The prosecution took what looked to a be a perfectly good sex assault case out of the system,” he wrote, “and sent Mr. Strauss-Kahn back home where I hope he understands that he got a very good deal indeed from the American criminal justice system."

I cannot believe that the accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, a chambermaid at the posh Sofitel hotel, could possibly have concocted the assault or the subsequent story. Call me naïve, but I just don’t believe that the woman from Guinea—whose Muslim religion forbids any sexual activity outside of marriage and who struggled and conceivably lied to get out of her native country and into the U.S. to have a better life for herself and her daughter—would have sudden, consensual sex with a male occupant of one of the high-priced rooms in order to get her hands on his money.

But I could believe the reverse: A male occupant of the fancy room, born to money and power and with a less-than-perfect reputation when it comes to groping females, was capable of grabbing the maid when she entered his room and forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

Sadly, there are just too many wealthy, self-important men who on trips away from their homes and wives think that women who cross their paths in bars, at parties, or in hotel rooms—especially women not of “their class”—are there for their sexual pleasure. Assault and rape, if the woman is not agreeable and tries to stop the encounter, is the next step. These men think of these women more as objects, not as individuals. They assume they will never see these women again and they will go away quietly and not speak out.

The criminal case is closed, but the aftereffects linger. It sends a garbled message about sexual assault, particularly to minority women and girls. The pictures of Strauss-Kahn surrounded by his smiling wife and a battery of lawyers reek of white privilege. The first pictures of a disheveled Strauss-Kahn being pulled off the jet by police quickly faded into a series of photos that showed him surrounded by his wife and lawyers. They sent a message, underscored by the most of the media: “We are powerful, be very afraid of us.” I think these photographs would intimidate poor women of color, who may think that they could never marshal or pay for such an entourage.

If I were a woman of color following the case, I would conclude that I should never bring sexual assault charges against a white, wealthy man in a position of power unless I had the cuts and bruises to prove it. I would assume from press reports and the waffling by the District Attorney’s office that the burden of proof in sexual assault cases is always on the woman. I would also assume that I would have had to have led a completely blameless life, since prosecutors and defense lawyers would put all my actions under a microscope, looking for any and all flaws to use against me.

Diallo was almost the “perfect victim”—poor, of color, a Muslim struggling to make a decent living in the big city—and the roof fell in on her after she told her side of the story.

Rich, white male sexual power reminds me of a practice that dishonored black females in the South during slavery. Then, many white male plantation owners thought nothing about wandering down to the slave quarters and having sex with any of the black female slaves they happened to choose. (Author Alice Walker includes this “custom” in her book The Color Purple.) In those days, no female slave would have dared to bring accusations of sexual assault and rape against a plantation master, or his sons or other relatives for that matter. The slave would have suffered the indignity, or gone on to carry an unwanted pregnancy in silence. Like in Diallo’s case, no one would have believed her story.

The Strauss-Kahn case also illustrates a divide about what constitutes sexual assault. Here’s an example: In response to something I had said about Strauss-Kahn, a male member of my own family said, “Oh, Susan, you realize it was only oral sex.”

Is there a general feeling that forced oral sex is less of an assault on a woman than vaginal rape? For instance, there was criticism that there were no bruises on Diallo’s body — although her lawyer at first claimed some vaginal bruising, but the charge quickly faded — and no proof that Diallo had fought back during the attack. How could anyone expect a female victim to fight back when an attacker’s penis is in her mouth?