All sex abuse survivors deserve a day in court

Although my abuse happened almost 40 years ago, I spoke of it to no one. I tried to rationalize it in silence. It was not until I connected with other survivors and realized the extent of the abuse and that I was not alone that I came forward.

I have since learned that it is very common for victims to keep sexual abuse silent for many years. Often there is no conscious memory of the abuse and it can manifest in other ways, such as irrational anger, addictions or unexplained physical ailments. Each person processes it differently, but by the time a survivor might come forward, restrictive statutes of limitations prevent them from holding their abusers accountable.

With the CVA, lawmakers also recognized the lengths that institutions — including the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts — will go to prevent survivors of sexual abuse from seeking justice in our courts. They recognized that for decades survivors had been swept under the rug, turned away from law enforcement, or shamed into silence.

By refusing to give that same right to survivors who happened to be over the age of 18 at the time of their abuse, it is as though some lawmakers are saying that when you turn 18, you will suddenly have the maturity, sophistication and wherewithal to identify abuse and defend yourself against serial predators. When we’re talking about a kind of crime that profoundly affects a victim for a lifetime, is there really a difference between 17 and 18 years old, or 16 and 20, or even 40?

There is no age at which we are safe from exploitation and abuse. It’s a completely arbitrary distinction.

Credible estimates say that nearly one out of every six men has been sexually abused — whether as an adult or child. All victims feel a sense of shame, but for men, that shame is bound up in masculinity. Many men who have experienced sexual assault think that we should have somehow been physically strong enough to fight off the abuser, or that we are somehow “less of a man” for having been victimized.

Because of those extra doses of shame and subsequent confusion, all of Mainwaring’s victims have carried around his secret. We’ve become part of a strange fraternity that we never wanted to be a part of.

Our abuser used his authority and our trust in him to betray us for his own deviant gratification. But without the Adult Survivors Act, most of his survivors will continue to have no legal recourse. Justice is long, long overdue.

Druger is an eye surgeon.