I know this is not the subject, but for the sake of accuracy, I would just like to point out that 19 Kids & Counting is not cancelled, and the family have called those who released information about the rapes “the real bad guys.”
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Tough read. Needs to be known. Thanks for writing this, Maureen.
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Excellent piece. Thank you.
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Brave and important writing. Thanks Maureen.
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What is disturbing is that if they are both reporting things as they genuinely remember - human memory is crap at the best of times - then Joan Jett is basically being called out for telling the truth, and the only acceptable public response from her would be if she lied.
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There are a number of issues with the presumption of innocence with rape. While I would want to see the principle upheld in court, often ‘presumption of Kim Fowley’s innocence’ can be almost the same as ‘presumption that Jackie Fox is lying/exaggerating/unreliable’. Added to this, most rapes are by people known to the victim, so claiming that someone is mistaken is not the same as where a witness could be mistaken about the identity of a thief. Even in those cases where there’s no way of proving anything, I would want to take the accusation very seriously.
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“The only thing the article triggered in me was a curiosity as to why Jett had not yet come forward in support of Fox.”
We humans are such faulty creatures. While others present might remember it well, Joan Jett may not, she may even have convinced herself that it happened differently, or that it never happened. That might be her own coping mechanism for what she witnessed.
True, the honorable thing now would be for Jett to come forward and defend her old bandmate, but if she can’t do that then that doesn’t mean she should be pilloried for it. Don’t turn Joan Jett into a surrogate for the wrath Kim Fowley escaped.
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He was what now?
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This is an excellent piece. Thank you for writing. As this is further discussed, I’ve been a little alarmed by seeing Kathy Valentine’s name pop up in various articles, though. I don’t think her role in the so-called “Go Go’s Sex Tape” does her any favors as a commentator in this. She’s the main provocateur in what would be described as a rape these days if the victim were a female - instead, it is a drugged up male roadie. While that incident might not be as damaging as what happened to Jackie Fuchs, I’d say Valentine isn’t exactly the best supporter to tout.
Here’s a description - http://everything2.com/title/The+Go-Go%27s+party+video
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Hi newbie! Say, do you happen to know what “MRA” stands for? Something tells me that just maaaaaybe you do…
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It wasn’t an attack on people who use trigger warnings, it explained that different people have different triggers and victim-blaming is what triggers the author.
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Human memory is crap, but not that crap. And dozens of people seem to back up Fox’s version of events, in addition Jett is not only denying the event occured as Fox’s told it, but also insisting that there was in general nothing wrong with Fowley’s behaviour. This seems to be in contradiction with the entire Music Universe, who seem to have mistrusted and / or severely disliked Fowley . Jett seems quite alone in sticking up for Fowley–which is not proof, but weighs rather strongly against her take on things.
For all we know, she might have been a victim of Fowley’s and she might have PTSD and thus is unable to deal with the truth or reality or life, but throwing the stone at another victim is not a very nice way of managing your PTSD.
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I know a handful of people who witnessed pretty traumatic events that have either absolutely ZERO recollection of the event, or wildly different recollections, and they were stone cold sober at the time that they witnessed it. I didn’t get from Jett’s statements that she was sticking up for Fowley or denying that it happened, she seems more to be denying that she was there to witness it, and stood by doing nothing as it happened.
Though I do have to agree with the author’s take on the “there were relationships that were bizarre” part of her statement.
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After searching around to see what MRA stands for, I can tell you that you are totally off base. In my writing position at a newspaper, I have written about and advocated for victims of rape loudly, and called for change in male attitude, particularly on campus. My partner was raped twice as a teenager. She and I were talking about the Kathy Valentine thing. She was disgusted and disappointed by it. I decided to comment on the Valentine angle on the Boing Boing article because Valentine was brought up again here and quoted. What happened to Jackie Fuchs is horrific, and part of an institutional misogyny in the music world at the time, and in our society in general. Bringing up Valentine into this discussion is about exactly what I said it was about and trying to cast me the way you did is total crap.
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From what I see, she’s not denying it happened, just that she witnessed it.
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What exactly happens when someone is “triggered”?
I hear young people use that word all over the place, I read about “trigger warnings” online, but I’ve never experienced going to an speaking event or been some place where someone has specifically used the phrase “trigger warning” or that they are “triggered”.
I have friends who have PTSD from war, so I’m assuming “being triggered” is something similar to what they experience. Am I right to say that “this is traumatic to me” is the same thing as saying “I’m triggered”?
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I’m saddened to hear about your partner’s all too common experience, and I hope having a partner who trusts you and can talk about it with you helps you in your work as an ally. It’s surprising, though, that you write about these issues professionally and advocate for victims of rape loudly, even going so far as to call for change in male attitudes, and yet you don’t know what and who MRAs are, and how common their attitudes, arguments, denials and dismissals are among the men you’re trying to change. I guess it’s good that at least you now know.
As an ally, wouldn’t it be better, instead of getting personally defensive, to ask what it was about your comment that provoked a response like mine? You wrote:
She’s the main provocateur in what would be described as a rape these days if the victim were a female - instead, it is a drugged up male roadie.
Okay, your main intent was to discredit Kathy Valentine. But can you see how bringing up rape of men into a discussion of rape of women, and further, complaining that the former are often not described as rape, are common MRA tactics for derailing discussions of rape of women? Can you see how you undercut your intended advocacy?
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I know what men’s rights activists are - and believe me I think they are full of shit - but just seeing it as MRA blew right past me. To be honest, they don’t pop up much in my personal experience, so it just didn’t register.
I didn’t ask because I could see what provoked it, and so just explained myself (sorry if I came off as defensive).
And, yes, I can see that what I said I said without thinking of that context, and again apologize for not considering it. The reason I said it the way I did is that in doing some quick research on the film, I found plenty of mainstream reports of it that features Go Go’s members shrugging it off, uncomfortable about it but with statements justifying it as the hard partying lifestyle back then, and then readers shrugging it off as an example of how wild the Go Go’s were. My partner and I immediately gender swapped the comments and the attitude and were appalled by the incident, the presentation of it in various media, the reaction to it, and the implication that there might be other comparable events. My intention was less to discredit Valentine’s credibility - she can defend her friend if she wants, that’s honorable despite anything else - but rather to point out the atmosphere of the rock world 30 years ago and the kinds of things that were dismissed as being part of a wild lifestyle - so much so that women could indulge in it on occasion, as well. I’m not trying to claim a double standard - plenty of men behaved worse (and still do I’m sure), but much like the situation especially with Joan Jett - who I have sympathy for too in all this - women were part of that world and could be drawn into it in varying ways, infecting everyone involved in all kinds of horrible ways, as has been one of the big points of the Jackie Fuchs story.
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That is exactly the bit I also find difficult to accept.
Everything else she could have wiped from her memory, tucked it away into a tiny corner, but as an adult woman of 50+, insisting today that a relationship btw a 14 / 15 year old and a 30+ man is bizzare, rather than just wrong is not good news.
Even if she had just said: back then we thought of those relationships just as bizzarre, in the olden days, I could get that, but she is saying she thinks of them now, here, today, as bizzarre, unless she has been misquoted, that is just bad.
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Bingo!
Think about that sentence.
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