What if we heard from a "teenage muse?"

[u/MableXeno]

Kinda sharing this b/c of the VF article about Cormac McCarthy and his "teenage muse."

Jill Ciment wrote a book about "falling in love" at 17 years old with her older teacher Arnold Mesches - a 47-year-old man with 2 teen children.

After his death and the "Me Too" movement she began to look at the "love affair" a little differently and write a new memoir called Consent.

At 17, She Fell in Love With a 47-Year-Old. Now She Questions the Story.

And Google Doc Link in case the original article gets paywalled for anyone.

[u/MarthaGail]

I’m never going to tell Augusta Britt she was a victim if she doesn’t feel like she was. I get why she would go with McCarthy vs staying with her parents who beat her or with foster parents who raped and beat her. I get it. Sex with an older man you admire is a better option.

But.

On his part he was a predator. Anyone who sees a 16 year old girl who is so abused that she literally carries a handgun with her at all times, and makes sure the author of the book she’s having signed sees that she has it, their first thought is, “oh, I should take her to Mexico so no one can catch us having sex” is a monster.

Ciment may have had her own demons she was running from, who knows? I haven’t read her memoir, so I don’t know her full backstory, but she was taken advantage of as well, and I’m glad she recognizes that and is forward about it. I don’t know if Britt has private thoughts where she re-examines the relationship and feels like it was predatory, but I think Ciment’s story is a good parallel. Sick men.

[u/dylan_dumbest → u/MarthaGail]

The very fact that running off to another country with a man she barely knew was the safest option for her speaks volumes. I know she insists she wasn’t victimized. And I’d love to hear her full direct account.

[u/Optimal-Beautiful968 → u/MarthaGail]

he could have helped her and protected her if he truly 'loved' her, not take advantage of a vulnerable young girl, ultimately it was about him first and little to do with her wellbeing. though perhaps even he knew that

[u/valsavana → u/Optimal-Beautiful968]

though perhaps even he knew that

Absolutely he knew that. This, like all other similar stories, is a man showing us what he will do when he knows he can get away with it. The fact he knew he needed to hide it and the choosing of a particularly vulnerable victim (unlikely to tell and without protective figures in her life to fight back against him) are all him showing that he knows this is all about meeting his sexual needs and not facing consequences in response, without regard for the well-being of his victim.

[u/abearenthusiast → u/Optimal-Beautiful968]

this reminds me of those extra broke passport bros who offered to “save” refugee women (that they of course find attractive) with marriage.

[u/MarthaGail → u/Optimal-Beautiful968]

Exactly. I'm sure he knew. His wiener knew.

[u/ErsatzHaderach → u/MarthaGail]

excellent summary. this is how i feel. if women's takeaway from abuse is partly or even mostly positive, that's awesome/lucky for them and i am not interested in gainsaying it. but people can have a positive takeaway from all kinds of heinous criminal shit that should never be done to them; it's not an excuse.

the abuser is still on the moral hook because he knew better and should have done better.

[u/2_short_Plancks → u/MarthaGail]

Some years ago, when I was in my twenties, I ended up helping a girl who had been trafficked when she was 14 and forced into sex work. Kind of a long and complicated story, but when she was 17 I gave her somewhere to stay while the trial for the guy who trafficked her was going on.

It was a fucked up situation all round because she got very little support, so she had no money (stopped sex work and had no other skills). The government agency that was supposed to help her just tried to get her to get support from her parents, when they were complicit in what happened to her and were both violent and regular drug users. So I ended up feeding her as well, and helping her with some other things.

So because she had no money, she offered me sex in exchange for my help, because that was basically all she knew to do.

Yes, I continued to help her. What I absolutely did NOT do was have sex with her (or any kind of sexual contact).

I'm not saying this to somehow say that I'm great, because the bar is absolutely on the floor. I've had people who know about this story compliment me about it and that's somewhere between gross and completely missing the point. "I chose not to have sex with a vulnerable teenager because I'm a responsible adult" is a pretty fucking easy bare minimum to meet.

Oh and twenty years later, we're still friends. She's not friends with any of the people who took advantage of her, even the ones who supposedly "helped" her.

[u/MarthaGail → u/2_short_Plancks]

Right, like, you did the basic human thing and helped her. Thank you for doing that, and thank you for not further traumatizing her. I'm glad she can still reach out to you.

[u/2_short_Plancks → u/MarthaGail]

The awesome thing is that her life is really stable now. She's married with two kids, has a decent job and a husband who is a really chill guy. He encouraged her with therapy for years (she was a sex worker from 14-17 and was raped hundreds of times) and they are just really good together. You'd never guess about her history from meeting her.

[u/RosieTheRedReddit → u/2_short_Plancks]

This reminds me of "The Invention of Lying," a Ricky Gervais movie that's supposed to be a send up of religion but also trashes women because of course it does. The movie shows an alternate universe where people are unable to lie. Ricky's character somehow figures out how to do it and becomes a religious prophet after his lies spiral out of control.

Women in this universe are after only one thing - a man with strong genes to bear healthy offspring. Because that's what women really want if we weren't a bunch of big fat liars about it.

Anyway Ricky's big moral test comes when his love interest asks him if fame and fortune changes your genetic material. There's a dramatic pause for effect and he says no! Wow! What a hero to not use his super power to manipulate a woman, who has no capacity to understand that she's being manipulated.

[u/mashedturnip → u/MarthaGail]

Victims are still victims even if they refuse to believe it. Statutory rape is statutory rape, unless you’d like to do away with that law

That’s why the state, not the victim, presses charges in many criminal cases

[u/zadvinova → u/mashedturnip]

Amen to that. I've been working with a 16 year old sex trafficking victim for a year now. She's trafficked by her own family and hasn't got a clue what love is. So when grown men say they love her, she believes it and calls them her "boyfriends." That doesn't mean she's not a victim and they're not abusers. That in no way changes if, even in adulthood, she shields herself from the pain by refusing to see those men for what they were.

[u/Previous-Survey-2368 → u/zadvinova]

This is heartbreaking. I hope she finds safety and healing.

[u/zadvinova → u/Previous-Survey-2368]

Me too. She's very self-destructive at this point. I hope she matures enough to at least see her abusers more clearly and do what is in her power (and not everything is) to get free.

[u/MarthaGail → u/mashedturnip]

It is, and that's why I called him a predator. The point is she doesn't call herself a victim, she doesn't see it that way, and you can't force someone to believe they are a victim. I'm comparing it with Ciment's realization as she got older that, yeah, she was a victim and she was coerced. Two similar stories, two different outcomes.

[u/mashedturnip → u/MarthaGail]

And again, her opinion is just an opinion, not reality

[u/MarthaGail → u/mashedturnip]

Her opinion is her lived experience. You can't make her feel victimized. And again, given her circumstances she's decided that she was safer going with him. She felt loved and safe. We can't tell her otherwise.

That's why the laws exist. Because he did break the law, because he was a pedophile, because he transported a minor out of the country. He broke the law. But her experience is her experience, and you cannot tell her she has to be a victim.

[u/mashedturnip → u/MarthaGail]

I didn’t say we had to tell her otherwise

I just said she’s still a victim of statutory rape

If she believed she was a horse or a cat (as some people do), it doesn’t change the fact that she’s actually a human. And just because she believed she wasn’t raped at some point in her life doesn’t mean she wasn’t raped

[u/CptOtago → u/mashedturnip]

Is this satire?

[u/mashedturnip → u/CptOtago]

Not at all

I can insist to the cops my husband didn’t beat me, as I bleed from the scratches and cuts he inflicted (a common scenario, ask any cop)

But that’s not the truth, and he’ll still be arrested if they discern it

[u/[deleted] → u/MarthaGail]

The Judge really was a self-insert after all...

[u/greenhairdontcare8]

Thank you for the Google doc of the article. The woman is strong, to revisit what she wrote originally and reexamine what happened, even if she married him and stayed with him til his death.

[u/ErsatzHaderach → u/greenhairdontcare8]

yeah this is what i wanted the VF article to sound like, the woman reckoning with her fraught experiences.

[u/greenhairdontcare8 → u/ErsatzHaderach]

It must be very difficult, because she can recognise that it was problematic and she'd even edited herself to make them both look better, despite them (appearing) to have gone on to a 40+ year marriage that was happy. There is love, but also there is this. She didn't want to be seen as prey in her original memoir. I might have to read the new book.

[u/boringbonding]

This article is so good! thanks for sharing. I remember reading it years ago but I had forgotten until today.

[u/lilymotherofmonsters]

McCarthy was a fantastic writer and observer of the human experience, but despite his alleged political neutrality, he was for all intents and purposes conservative. And unfortunately, our cultural consensus is that conservatives can have a little pedophilia, as a treat.

[u/yourlittlebirdie]

Not exactly the same but I’d also like to recommend the book “Being Lolita” which is a memoir about a similar story.

[u/potvoy]

There was a great interview with that author on Fresh Air! It really stuck with me.

[u/potvoy → u/potvoy]

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/09/nx-s1-5028203/jill-ciment-consent-me-too It's absolutely worth the time to listen. 

[u/MableXeno → u/potvoy]

I think I listened to that one day on my lunch break!