Having Your Kesha Moment
On the moment that gave me Kesha-sized freedom.
Earlier this year, a friend told me she was sure my Kesha freedom moment was coming (thanks Sonya).
I really wanted to believe her. I was stuck in a whirlwind of consequences for talking about sexual assault and I didn’t know how to get out. I felt it all the way down to my spirit: I had once felt that I would always be in proximity to divine blessings, and now was pretty certain I would never see them again.
My Kesha moment finally came a week ago. Coincidentally (or not) around the same time as Kesha’s freedom tour hit Bonnaroo.
A rationalist piece of writing defined a lot of what I felt during the worst of the past few years: isolation, social punishment, and powerlessness. I often thought of the irony in winding up in that position.
A friend of mine had been the woman to get a story published about the sexual misdeeds of the ‘Prince of Pot’, and I had co-led transformational change around the issue of sexual violence at a festival I run. My experience with the issue extended beyond philosophical debates on Twitter.
I felt something like…. a guarantee of institutional freedom. Even in situations where I wasn’t running things, I thought I knew how things would shake out. The ease with which it was taken from me is still scary to think about.
I muddled through the next few years, including a suicide attempt, and struggled to envision ever experiencing extraordinary again.
A week ago, that changed. I saw a strange domain as a referrer in my Substack analytics. I went there and found some information I already knew, and some I didn’t. Through that information, I discovered that the man who had appointed himself my inquisitor, and suggested that victims who come forward should be treated like violent rapists, himself attended a consensual non-consensual (CNC) / rape-play orgy.
That was my Kesha moment. A lot of the weight I had been carrying around after being sexually assaulted finally lifted off my shoulders. I felt like myself again for the first time in 3 years.
Something had shifted in me. At the end of the moment of Twitter discourse on what I had written, I was no longer seeking re-litigation. I felt release.
My first taste of this new freedom was feeling that the people who hurt me no longer defined me.
So, Kesha moment. Found out the dude who recommended that victims with PTSD be treated like violent rapists engages in rape-play. Felt big punch-the-air energy.
I hadn’t listened to Kesha’s Freedom track yet, but I did, and it hooked me. I was feeling so many of the lyrics.
I engaged in my usual weekend recreational activities of playing awful Sega CD FMV games and writing. I did some journalism, and stretched that Kesha moment over the entire week.
I’ve thought about the definition of freedom, and I think a common thread between mine and Kesha’s is knowing the people who hurt you no longer can.
This is my paragraph to be petty; Another man appointed himself my inquisitor, and it brought me endless joy to see him fail to comprehend the importance of Susan Fowler’s story in my series on rape culture in silicon valley. The predictable pile-on which had generated terror 3 years ago was now just amusing.
When I first came forward about sexual assault, those attempts at punishment and ostracization were effective, and devastating. Now, they landed with impotence, even from people I was once intimidated by. Noticing that difference was the first time I felt freedom in a long while.
I finally had that bit of time travel I had wanted for so long. I was very unkind to myself during those periods of social punishment; I apologized to myself, and felt integrated and whole again.
I fully felt my newfound freedom after coming home from my Friday group DBT session at Vancouver General Hospital. There are stunning courtyard views, and a little coffee shop tucked into the concourse. I had my usual order of a flat white.
I later walked towards West Broadway and home. I saw, and smelled the cherry blossoms, one of Vancouver’s many summer delights.
I thought about how long this journey had been, and how I had never thought I’d feel whole again. Yet here I was, actually whole again.
My progression in therapy from post-suicide to group DBT is really where I started getting a sense of control back, and my Kesha moment was deeply rooted in that feeling.
Control is a cornerstone of modern wisdom about handling sexual assault. It’s given to victims as much, and as often as possible. I never felt that in my interactions with the event where I was sexually assaulted.
There were years of ignorance, then some vague acknowledgements. A recent e-mail I was debating opening, until I saw private DM’s posted by Vibecamp’s head of safety. It followed a pattern of arbitrary conditions being set, without my consent, that made objectionable things okay.
It was okay that what I said at Vibecamp 2 decompression became gossip because my name wasn’t mentioned. It was okay to post the DM’s (most of which I never actually received) because none of my responses were posted in them.
It felt like some perverse parting punctuation of violation. I posted a short prelude to this post about that part of my life being over. Then it really was.
All the truth that was ever going to be spoken by me to Rationalist/adjacent power had been, and it was time to finally step out of this rupture.
A lot of women in my position, maybe most, never get their punch-the-air moment. They have one of two lousy choices: stay silent, or talk about their experience of sexual violence. In both cases, they often end up needing therapy because of the consequences.
I’ve come to think every woman who experiences sexual violence has to create their own freedom and closure. I certainly did.
It wasn’t ever easy, but it was like crawling through broken glass for a long time. Ignoring sexual assault is one of the ways the patriarchy demonstrates its power, and sometimes it goes even further to make an example out of the women who refuse to stay silent.
I didn’t have a lot of support in the beginning, and was really effectively gaslit. I hadn’t met Fran yet, and my head did some punitive arithmetic in saying that a singular therapist had to be wrong, and what felt like most of a community had to be right.
A lot of people and groups in this story disgust me, but the ones who stigmatize victims of violent crime and tell them to just ‘move on’ are the worst. The people who turn trauma into a dirty word that also functions as a scarlet letter; recovering from sexual trauma is a process.
You can’t just decide that the process is over and ‘move on’. When there’s trauma in your body, that has to resolve. Otherwise ‘moving on’ means you leave the best part of yourself in a jar somewhere, knowing who took it from you and why.
It’s tempting to stay in a rupture. Unpleasant, but comfortable. It’s like showing up for a job that you tolerate: you clock in and know who to be angry at. You sometimes try to re-litigate events hoping that maybe, this time, there will be a different verdict. That you’ll find freedom.
It doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes, that freedom finds you. Then, the important thing you decide is what to do after. Leaving a rupture feels pleasant, but very uncomfortable. It’s terrifying.
The road ahead of you is a dark highway at night. You no longer have other people to blame. You may have your agency back, but there are no guarantees it’s going to take you anywhere.
Real freedom requires a lot of work from you. Maybe too much. Coercive control structures look a lot less bad when all the decisions, and consequences, are your responsibility. It’s easier to rationalize a trade-off of freedom for the perception of security.
To fully pay respect to my Kesha moment and step out of this rupture, there are some bits and pieces to be sewn up.
First, so many other people made this moment possible for me. Especially others in the Rationalist / Effective Altruism diaspora who gave me the kind of sanctuary I desperately needed.
When another woman who has been violated tells you you’re not crazy, it’s not your fault, these bad things happened to me too it’s a godsend. Doubly so when they have the same community context as you do; it makes it so that gaslighting no longer affects you. The moment someone said girl, it is crazy the extent that you’re being blamed here is really when the path to my Kesha moment started.
One of the most transgressive things a victim of sexual violence can do is tell their story. I’ve seen the violent reaction it often provokes.
That said, you don’t owe anyone martyrdom in the same way you don’t owe anyone silence. Sometimes that story isn’t going to lead to your Kesha moment, and the consequences might prevent you from ever having one. It sucks, but that’s the way it is.
I discovered the phrase ‘denying your reality’ through my conversations with Fran, and it describes the game you’ll be drawn into after telling your story. It’s also transgressive to dismiss people who try and force you to play it; you will never convince anyone else as to the content of your memories.
How will you know when your Kesha moment comes? As above, it’ll be when the people who hurt you can’t do so anymore. It’ll be that freedom that re-organizes the puzzle of your soul that has been scattered and mismatched by others into a beautiful picture.
For me, it felt like finally solving a disjointed puzzle I had felt down to my soul for several years.
A Kesha moment is also about no longer needing things that other people are unable or unwilling to provide. About releasing yourself from any sense of residual responsibility. Your story has been told, and people can make their own judgements without it involving effort from you.
I feel a new kind of responsibility now. To fully use this precious freedom I’ve been granted, and not accept anything but fully realizing my dreams.
The answer to what now, for me, is going back to chasing the dreams that I hope are still there. To do so while operating at 100%, now that I’m able to. Always having gratitude for the people and things that gave me my Kesha moment.
Current mood: Chill 😎
Current music: Kesha - Freedom
I only drink when I’m happy and I’m drunk right now
All of you motherfuckers watch out ‘cause your bitch back in town
Baby, I’m free, I am on fire, a fucking dime
God, I feel good, it’s about time