I was eight when I experienced my first grouping. At that time, I didn’t realize what was happening.
One of my relatives had come visiting. My mum was cooking and I was at the veranda with my so-called relative.
He began with simple questions like what class are you in? How old are you? What’s your favourite food? He pulled me close and sat me on his lap. He was talking, but I can’t remember what exactly. Then I felt his hands on my chest. It was a gentle brush.
My little mind didn’t grasp what was happening until he took my hand and dropped it on his bulging pants. Out of reflex, I pulled my hand out and ran inside.
My mum, unaware of what was happening, sent me downstairs to bring the vegetables she kept under the sun. My uncle chose to leave at the same time so he could follow me.
I was coming upstairs when he blocked my way at the bottom of the staircase, pulled out his cock and asked me to come and touch it.
My heart sank into my stomach. That’s when it hit me. I was about to be raped.
I stood there at the gate, a tray of vegetables balanced on my head, tears running down my face. My mum’s voice echoed from upstairs, shouting my name, asking what was taking so long.
But I couldn’t move. Because my abuser was standing in my way. Eventually, I made it back up. But I didn’t tell her.
I was afraid — not just of him, but of what she might do to him. And what he might do to me in return. So I told my stepsister — the eldest among us.
She looked at me. Paused. And said, “Don’t tell Mum.”
That was it. We never spoke about it again.
As I think about Epstein’s victims, I can’t help but ask myself:
Are we enabling sexual abuse when we don’t speak up?
But then I remember — some did speak. Some screamed. Some told their truth in courtrooms, interviews, and documentaries. And some of them ended up dead.
So no — silence isn’t always complicity. Sometimes it’s survival.
Still, the system feeds on silence. It thrives when victims stay hidden, shamed, or buried.
What Jeffrey Epstein did was never just about one sick, wealthy man and his disgusting kinks. It wasn’t just the twisted fantasies of a pedophile or the crimes of the ultra-rich.
What Epstein did was institutional. It was cultural. It was familiar. His actions were built on a foundation that already existed — a world where child rape can be overlooked, disguised, and even recruited for.
This wasn’t shocking — it was expected. Because in many places, in many forms, it’s happening all the time. It’s happening when little girls are groped in their own homes and told to “keep quiet.”
When women are raped on dates, at parties, in marriages — and nobody calls it rape. When a woman says “He forced me” and the world replies “What were you wearing?”
We live in a culture that does not take sexual violence seriously — unless it’s sensational, unless it’s wrapped in scandal, or unless the perpetrator finally dies.
Molestation, groping, humiliation — even “friendly” rape — are so common they barely raise eyebrows. They’re not treated as crimes. They’re treated as misunderstandings.
They’re shrugged off. They’re dismissed. It’s not just that women aren’t believed. It’s that we’ve normalized the idea that what happens to us isn’t that serious. That our pain is natural. Expected.
That our bodies are public domain — to be touched, used, broken, and forgotten.
The Epstein case revealed something sickening. Many of those girls didn’t even realize they were victims. They thought what he was doing was just… how things worked.
That it was okay to be touched. That it was normal to be asked to recruit their friends. Because nobody ever taught them differently. Because this world didn’t protect them.
And if that doesn’t make you burn with rage — it should.
The rape of women by powerful men is not new. It is not shocking. It is ancient, ritualized, and often celebrated in the quiet corners of power.
Take a look at Scotland, during the British Empire. It was common practice for British lords to rape young women — especially virgins on the eve of their weddings. It wasn’t just violence — it was a performance of control.
Catholic doctrine emphasized abstinence before marriage, and that made these girls prime targets. Their purity, their bodies, their dignity — all taken as sport. Because rape has always been about power. Not desire. Power!
So when we look at Epstein, Sean Combs (P. Diddy), R. Kelly — we’re not seeing anomalies. We’re seeing the natural products of a world that breeds male entitlement and systemic misogyny.
Misogyny — such a clean, clinical word for something so filthy and cruel — is everywhere: In our laws. In our music. In fashion ads that glorify underage bodies. In children’s behavior on Instagram — the preteen bikini selfies and twerking challenges.
We see it in the history books that celebrate colonizers and rapists as “great men.” In courtrooms that treat rich predators like victims and traumatized girls like criminals.
So no, it’s not surprising that sex crimes against minors are ignored when the perpetrator is wealthy, connected, or white. It’s not shocking that at multiple levels of government, men like Trump and Florida’s former Attorney General Pam Bondi are working to shield uncharged third parties in Epstein’s circle.
What is shocking — or should be — is the blatant audacity: To tell us in February that there is a list of Epstein’s associates. Then later say there is no list.
Like we imagined it. Like survivors imagined their own trauma. It’s beyond insulting. It’s state-sanctioned gaslighting.
What this tells us is simple; “protecting predators is more important than protecting children.” This is what happens when men are allowed to rape, traffic, and violate for centuries — without consequence.
The systems don’t just fail us. They are designed to.
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t prey on girls by accident. He targeted them precisely because they were vulnerable — poor, isolated, already failed by every system meant to protect them.
Many of his victims were from impoverished households. Some were in foster care. Others had witnessed abuse, addiction, or been abandoned by their caretakers.
They were children, fighting to survive in a world that already told them they didn’t matter.
And Epstein knew exactly how to exploit that.
Some were as young as 14. Fourteen. And yet, even in major media outlets — some of the most “respected” names in journalism — Epstein’s victims were often referred to as “teenage women.”
As if a 14-year-old child could somehow enter into a “transaction” with a billionaire predator. As if money made it mutual. As if trauma looked like consent.
Even after the media began correcting itself — abandoning the oxymoron of “underage women” — the framing still softened the truth.
Words like “sexual encounters” or “relationships” replaced what they were: rape, trafficking, abuse.
But the issue goes far beyond headlines. It lives in courtrooms, transcripts, and legal judgments.
Professor Susan Ehrlich, a linguist at York University, has researched how sexual violence is framed in trials. Her work shows that even judges frequently describe sexual assault in language that mirrors consensual sex — even when the perpetrator is found guilty.
Let that sink in. A legal system where rape is described like lovemaking. Where victims are made to sound complicit in their own abuse. Where the predator is humanized, and the survivor is blurred out.
Because words matter.
The way we talk about abuse shapes whether we see it — or dismiss it. It shapes whether victims are believed, or buried.
Epstein didn’t just exploit girls. He exploited a culture that has always struggled — or refused — to call rape what it is.
And that culture is still alive today. In every system that pretends to be neutral but bends to protect the powerful.
It’s impossible to talk about Jeffrey Epstein without talking about Donald Trump.
In 1994, a woman filed a lawsuit alleging that Trump raped her when she was 13 years old — at one of Epstein’s parties. She later dropped the suit, citing threats and fear for her safety.
And yet, in a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump casually praised Epstein.
“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” he said. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do… and many of them are on the younger side.” On the younger side.
That was a wink. A knowing smirk between men who saw girls as toys. And that kind of “boys will be boys” acceptance is exactly how systemic coverups happen.
It’s how rape becomes background noise. This isn’t just about one man, or one party. This is about an entire culture that refuses to see sexual violence as violence — until it becomes too public to ignore.
It’s why we must not tolerate any dismissal of these allegations. Not from politicians. Not from the press. Not from men in our families, churches, industries, or favorite celebrity playlists.
We have to stop looking away. We have to stop tolerating the idea — quietly or openly — that women’s bodies exist for male desire, that girls are “properties,” that sexist men are just being “men.”
Because the truth is uncomfortable.
Men who rape girls are not monsters. They’re not rare. They’re not “other.” They are familiars. They are neighbors, teachers, artists, CEOs, presidents.
The words “pedophile” and “rapist” let us distance ourselves — like these crimes are anomalies. Like they’re freak mutations in an otherwise decent world.
But they’re not.
They are part of the fabric of this society. They are as American as it gets. And until we face that head-on, nothing will change.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Artyom Kabajev On Unsplash
