Rape

The physical wounds of s rape fade in days or weeks. What lingers is the emotional damage, which can last a lifetime. It can breed phobias and panic attacks, nightmares, broken sleep. It can cause permanent behavioral changes. Things you used to like you don’t do any more. Where you used to trust now you doubt. Where you used to risk now you play it safe.

The damage arises from the combination of helplessness and rage. You have a terrifying situation you cannot escape no matter how hard you try.

For these reasons I would assert it is not ENTIRELY unreasonable to describe what was done to Brett Kavanaugh as a rape of sorts. It is certainly mildly hyperbolic, but what are certainly present are severe emotional distress, and some degree of helplessness.

He is fighting, and that is good. If you do everything you CAN do, true PTSD is much less likely. If he had quit early on he would have had bitterness in him most of his life. It would have a risk in any event.

We all need to think about what we are doing. I myself am not infrequently an asshole. I know it. I admit it, and I’m pretty sure I know why.

But I would be incapable of consciously choosing to do to Kavsnaugh what is being done to him. It would gnaw at my gut.

At the considerable risk of being misunderstood, might I assert that great evil requires great principle?