Citizens gave testimony about their encounters with porn and those
who consume porn to the Minneapolis Government Operations Committee on
December 12, 1983. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.103-106).
Testimony of E. M.
I want to tell you how pornography has affected my life, how I am fighting self-loathing, disgust and shame, how I am fighting at the beginning, and how I am fighting tearing out my skin.
The first thing I want to talk about happened when I was three years old. When I was three, I was sexually abused by a fourteen-year-old neighbor boy. I would tell you it seems really bizarre to me to use the word “boy”, because the only memory I have of this person is as a three-year-old. And as a three-year-old, he seemed like a really big man.
I was told by him and some other neighborhood kids, which also included his sisters, that we would be playing a secret game. They told me it was safe and that they had played it before and that I had nothing to be afraid of. What this game consisted of what each child going into a tool shed with this guy. When my turn came, I didn’t want to go in because I was scared. It was dark in there and it was dirty. There were cobwebs and there was this giant pitchfork.
One of the kids pushed me inside and shut the door. Then this boy grabbed me and he pulled down my shorts and sexually abused me. In short, he finger-fucked me and he made me masturbate him. I was really terrified. I thought I was in hell, and I was also in a lot of pain. I started crying really hard and he finally let me go, but I was told that if I told anyone, I wouldn’t be believed, that it was all my fault and that I would be punished. He also told me that he would hurt me again if I told anyone.
His sister told me that this game he had learned from his dirty books. I knew that he had these dirty books because I had seen him with them.
The second incident I want to talk about occurred eight years ago, and I want you to know that for the past several weeks I have been living in hell because for the first time I am remembering this. And for me, this memory is my first experience with it.
About eight years ago, I went to a friend of mine’s house for dinner. She was living with what I call her pimp friend, most people would call him her boyfriend. Some male friends of hers–of theirs–came by, and she went out to the store to get something that they had forgotten for dinner. While she was gone, someone poured me some wine, and after she came back I drank it. She came back, I started feeling really dizzy and disconnected, and I wanted to go home. They kept telling me to stay, that I could sleep there. Everyone was laughing at me. I found out later that I had been drugged.
What I remember is this. I am on the couch and everyone is looking at me, laughing. They are talking about–they started talking about taking pictures of me. I am not sure they took pictures. I passed out. I do remember flashing lights and what I do know is that they made and they sold pornography.
What I remember next is being on the stage of this club where my friend strips. I want you to know that I use this term “friend” not with a whole lot of sincerity. I knew it was this club where she stripped because I had been there before. I had tried previously to understand and to accept what it was she was doing, and so I had gone there with her and her parents.
I remember being on the stage, and there were two men that were holding me up and they were taking off my clothes. A third man was sexually fondling me. I saw a lot of faces in the audience that were laughing and men were waving money. One of them shoved it in my stomach and essentially punched me. I kept wondering how it was possible that they couldn’t see that I didn’t want to be there, that I wasn’t there willingly. I am not sure what else happened. I have real bad feelings about what may have happened. Somehow, I don’t know how, I got to a pay phone and I called this friend of mine who came and took me home.
You are probably wondering, have I told anyone about this. As to the incident with my friend, no, I didn’t report it to the police. How do you report something you don’t remember? Even when you remember, if you are a woman, you are not believed. Even if you have bruises, you are bleeding, or whatever…
And I didn’t tell anyone about the sexual abuse when I was three because I was terrified and I was real ashamed. And also because I didn’t have any words to describe it. I didn’t tell anyone about that for 24 years…