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What you are asking here is basically does emotional trauma affect us physically. The answer is whoo boy it sure does.The best known and most respected book that describes this is called “your body keeps the score.” I have pasted all kinds of stuff below.Randi KregerStopwalkingoneggshells.comProduct description“Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.” —Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress StudiesA pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestsellerTrauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence.Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.Review“The trauma caused by childhood neglect, sexual or domestic abuse and war wreaks havoc in our bodies, says Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score. . . . Van der Kolk draws on 30 years of experience to argue powerfully that trauma is one of the West's most urgent public health issues. . . . Packed with science and human stories, the book is an intense read. . . . [T]he struggle and resilience of his patients is very moving.”—Shaoni Bhattacharya, New Scientist“War zones may be nearer than you think, as the 25% of US citizens raised with alcoholic relatives might attest. Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk argues, moreover, that severe trauma is ‘encoded in the viscera’ and demands tailored approaches that enable people to experience deep relief from rage and helplessness. In a narrative packed with decades of findings and case studies, he traces the evolution of treatments from the ‘chemical coshes’ of the 1970s to neurofeedback, mindfulness and other nuanced techniques.”— Nature“An astonishing amount of information on almost every aspect of trauma experience, research, interventions, and theories is brought together in this book, which . . . has a distinctly holistic feel to it. The title suggests that what will be explored is how the body retains the imprints of trauma. However, it delivers much more than this, delving into how the brain is impacted by overwhelming traumatic events, and is studded with sections on neuroscience which draw on the author’s own numerous studies as well as that of his peers. In addition, it investigates the effects of adverse childhood attachment patterns, child abuse, and chronic and long-term abuse. . . . [T]his book is a veritable goldmine of information.”—European Journal of Psychotraumatology“Dr. van der Kolk . . . has written a fascinating and empowering book about trauma and its effects. He uses modern neuroscience to demonstrate that trauma physically affects the brain and the body, causing anxiety, rage, and the inability to concentrate. Victims have problems remembering, trusting, and forming relationships. They have lost control. Although news reports and discussions tend to focus on war veterans, abused children, domestic violence victims, and victims of violent crime suffer as well. Using a combination of traditional therapy techniques and alternative treatments such as EMDR, yoga, neurofeedback, and theater, patients can regain control of their bodies and rewire their brains so that they can rebuild their lives. The author uses case histories to demonstrate the process. He includes a resource list, bibliography, and extensive notes. This accessible book offers hope and inspiration to those who suffer from trauma and those who care for them. It is an outstanding addition to all library collections.—Medical Library Association, Consumer Connections“[A] wonderful new book that everyone involved with trauma ought to read and have available. . . . [B]eautifully, compellingly and sweepingly written in its grand vision of integrating medical, psychological and mixed or alternative approaches, based on a careful reading of the client and a holistic mind-body view. . . . There are very few practitioners who could not learn from this book and become more effective, as well as inspired, by reading and studying it.”—Henry Strick van Linschoten, European Society For Trauma And Dissociation Newsletter“Psychological trauma can befall anyone, not just soldiers, refugees, or victims of rape. . . . This important and helpful book makes sense of suffering and offers opportunity for healing.”— Booklist“[C]omprehensive in scope. This valuable work . . . offers hope for the millions of sufferers and their families seeking meaningful treatment and relief from the ongoing pain of trauma.”— Library Journal (Starred Review)“Dr. van der Kolk's masterpiece combines the boundless curiosity of the scientist, the erudition of the scholar, and the passion of the truth teller.”—Judith Herman, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author of Trauma and Recovery“This is an absolutely fascinating and clearly written book by one of the nation’s most experienced physicians in the field of emotional trauma. The Body Keeps the Score helps us understand how life experiences play out in the function and the malfunction of our bodies, years later.”—Vincent J. Felitti, M.D., chief of preventative medicine, emeritus, Kaiser Permanente San Diego; co-principal investigator, ACE study“In this inspirational work which seamlessly weaves keen clinical observation, neuroscience, historical analysis, the arts, and personal narrative, Dr. van der Kolk has created an authoritative guide to the effects of trauma, and pathways to recovery. The book is full of wisdom, humanity, compassion and scientific insight, gleaned from a lifetime of clinical service, research and scholarship in the field of traumatic stress. A must read for mental health and other health care professionals, trauma survivors, their loved ones, and those who seek clinical, social, or political solutions to the cycle of trauma and violence in our society.”—Rachel Yehuda, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and neuroscience; director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY“Breathtaking in its scope and breadth, The Body Keeps the Score is a seminal work by one of the preeminent pioneers in trauma research and treatment. This essential book unites the evolving neuroscience of trauma research with an emergent wave of body-oriented therapies and traditional mind/body practices that go beyond symptom relief and connect us with our vital energy and here-and-now presence.”—Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., author of In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness“In The Body Keeps the Score we share the author's courageous journey into the parallel dissociative worlds of trauma victims and the medical and psychological disciplines that are meant to provide relief. In this compelling book we learn that as our minds desperately try to leave trauma behind, our bodies keep us trapped in the past with wordless emotions and feelings. These inner disconnections cascade into ruptures in social relationships with disastrous effects on marriages, families, and friendships. Van der Kolk offers hope by describing treatments and strategies that have successfully helped his patients reconnect their thoughts with their bodies. We leave this shared journey understanding that only through fostering self-awareness and gaining an inner sense of safety will we, as a species, fully experience the richness of life.—Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation“This exceptional book will be a classic of modern psychiatric thought. The impact of overwhelming experience can only be truly understood when many disparate domains of knowledge, such as neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, and interpersonal neurobiology are integrated, as this work uniquely does. There is no other volume in the field of traumatic stress that has distilled these domains of science with such rich historical and clinical perspectives, and arrived at such innovative treatment approaches. The clarity of vision and breadth of wisdom of this unique but highly accessible work is remarkable. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.”—Alexander McFarlane AO, MB BS (Hons) MD FRANZCP, director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies, The University of Adelaide, South Australia.“This book is a tour de force. Its deeply empathic, insightful, and compassionate perspective promises to further humanize the treatment of trauma victims, dramatically expand their repertoire of self-regulatory healing practices and therapeutic options, and also stimulate greater creative thinking and research on trauma and its effective treatment. The body does keep the score, and van der Kolk’s ability to demonstrate this through compelling descriptions of the work of others, his own pioneering trajectory and experience as the field evolved and him along with it, and above all, his discovery of ways to work skillfully with people by bringing mindfulness to the body (as well as to their thoughts and emotions) through yoga, movement, and theater are a wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air and possibility in the therapy world.”—Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus, UMass Medical School; author of Full Catastrophe Living.“This is an amazing accomplishment from the neuroscientist most responsible for the contemporary revolution in mental health toward the recognition that so many mental problems are the product of trauma. With the compelling writing of a good novelist, van der Kolk revisits his fascinating journey of discovery that has challenged established wisdom in psychiatry. Interspersed with that narrative are clear and understandable: descriptions of the neurobiology of trauma; explanations of the ineffectiveness of traditional approaches to treating trauma; and introductions to the approaches that take patients beneath their cognitive minds to heal the parts of them that remained frozen in the past. All this is illustrated vividly with dramatic case histories and substantiated with convincing research. This is a watershed book that will be remembered as tipping the scales within psychiatry and the culture at large toward the recognition of the toll traumatic events and our attempts to deny their impact take on us all.”—Richard Schwartz, originator, Internal Family Systems Therapy“ The Body Keeps the Score is clear, fascinating, hard to put down, and filled with powerful case histories. Van der Kolk, the eminent impresario of trauma treatment, who has spent a career bringing together diverse trauma scientists and clinicians and their ideas, while making his own pivotal contributions, describes what is arguably the most important series of breakthroughs in mental health in the last thirty years. We’ve known that psychological trauma fragments the mind. Here we see not only how psychological trauma also breaks connections within the brain, but also between mind and body, and learn about the exciting new approaches that allow people with the severest forms of trauma to put all the parts back together again.”—Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself“Every once in a while, a book comes along that fundamentally changes the way we look at the world. Bessel van der Kolk has written such a book. The arc of van der Kolk’s story is vast and comprehensive, but he is such a skillful storyteller that he keeps us riveted to the page. I could not put this book down. It is, simply put, a great work.”—Stephen Cope, founder and director, Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living; author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self“Bessel van der Kolk is unequaled in his ability to synthesize the stunning developments in the field of psychological trauma over the past few decades. Thanks in part to his work, psychological trauma—ranging from chronic child abuse and neglect, to war trauma and natural disasters—is now generally recognized as a major cause of individual, social and cultural breakdown. In this masterfully lucid and engaging tour de force, van der Kolk takes us —both specialists and the general public— on his personal journey and shows what he has learned from his research, from his colleagues and students, and, most importantly, from his patients. The Body Keeps the Score is, simply put, brilliant.”—Onno van der Hart, Ph.D., Utrecht University, The Netherlands; senior author, The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization“The Body Keeps the Score articulates new and better therapies for toxic stress based on a deep understanding of the effects of trauma on brain development and attachment systems. This volume provides a moving summary of what is currently known about the effects of trauma on individuals and societies, and introduces the healing potential of both age old and novel approaches to help traumatized children and adults to fully engage in the present.”—Jessica Stern, policy consultant on terrorism; author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror“A book about understanding the impact of trauma by one of the true pioneers in the field. It is a rare book that integrates cutting edge neuroscience with wisdom and understanding about the experience and meaning of trauma, for people who have suffered from it. Like its author, this book is wise and compassionate, occasionally quite provocative, and always interesting.”—Glenn N. Saxe, M.D., Arnold Simon Professor and chairman, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; director, NYU Child Study Center, New York University School of Medicine“A fascinating exploration of a wide range of therapeutic treatments shows readers how to take charge of the healing process, gain a sense of safety, and find their way out of the morass of suffering.”—Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., originator of EMDR therapy, senior research fellow, Emeritus Mental Research Institute, author of Getting Past Your Past“As an attachment researcher I know that infants are psychobiological beings. They are as much the body as they are of the brain. Without language or symbols infants use every one of their biological systems to make meaning of their self in relation to the world of things and people. Van der Kolk shows that those very same systems continue to operate at every age, and that traumatic experiences, especially chronic toxic experience during early development, produce psychic devastation. With this understanding he provides insight and guidance for survivors, researchers and clinicians alike. Bessel van der Kolk may focus on the body and trauma, but what a mind he must have to have written this book.”—Ed Tronick, distinguished professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston, author of Neurobehavior and Social Emotional Development of Infants and Young Children“ The Body Keeps the Score eloquently articulates how overwhelming experiences affect the development of brain, mind, and body awareness, all of which are closely intertwined. The resulting derailments have a profound impact on the capacity for love and work. This rich integration of clinical case examples with ground breaking scientific studies provides us with a new understanding of trauma, which inevitably leads to the exploration of novel therapeutic approaches that "rewire" the brain, and help traumatized people to (re)-engage in the present. This book will provide traumatized individuals with a guide to healing and permanently change how psychologists and psychiatrists think about trauma and recovery.”—Ruth A. Lanius, M.D., Ph.D., Harris-Woodman chair in Psyche and Soma, professor of psychiatry, and director PTSD research at the University of Western Ontario; author of The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease“When it comes to understanding the impact of trauma and being able to continue to grow despite overwhelming life experiences, Bessel van der Kolk leads the way in his comprehensive knowledge, clinical courage, and creative strategies to help us heal. The Body Keeps the Score is a cutting-edge offering for the general reader to comprehend the complex effects of trauma, and a guide to a wide array of scientifically informed approaches to not only reduce suffering, but to move beyond mere survival—and to thrive.”—Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., clinical professor, UCLA School of Medicine, author of Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain; Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation; and The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are“In this magnificent book, Bessel van der Kolk takes the reader on a captivating journey that is chock full of riveting stories of patients and their struggles interpreted through history, research, and neuroscience made accessible in the words of a gifted storyteller. We are privy to the author’s own courageous efforts to understand and treat trauma over the past 40 years, the results of which have broken new ground and challenged the status quo of psychiatry and psychotherapy. The Body Keeps the Score leaves us with both a profound appreciation for and a felt sense of, the debilitating effects of trauma, along with hope for the future through fascinating descriptions of novel approaches to treatment. This outstanding volume is absolutely essential reading not only for therapists but for all who seek to understand, prevent, or treat the immense suffering caused by trauma.”—Pat Ogden Ph.D., Founder/Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute; author ofSensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment“This is masterpiece of powerful understanding and brave heartedness, one of the most intelligent and helpful works on trauma I have ever read. Dr. van der Kolk offers a brilliant synthesis of clinical cases, neuroscience, powerful tools and caring humanity, offering a whole new level of healing for the traumas carried by so many.”—Jack Kornfied, author of A Path with Heart“ The Body Keeps the Score is masterful in bringing together science and humanism to clearly explain how trauma affects the whole person. Bessel van der Kolk brings deep understanding to the pain and chaos of the trauma experience. The treatment approaches he recommends heal the body and the mind, restoring hope and the possibility of joy. One reads this book with profound gratitude for its wisdom.”—Alicia Lieberman, Ph.D., Professor of Medical Psychology UCSF, Director of the Child Trauma Research Project, San Francisco General Hospital; author of The Emotional Life of the ToddlerAbout the AuthorBessel van der Kolk, M.D., is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and director of the National Complex Trauma Treatment Network. When he is not teaching around the world, Dr. van der Kolk works and lives Boston.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.PROLOGUEFACING TRAUMAOne does not have be a combat soldier, or visit a refugee camp in Syria or the Congo to encounter trauma. Trauma happens to us, our friends, our families, and our neighbors. Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown that one in five Americans was sexually molested as a child; one in four was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body; and one in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grew up with alcoholic relatives, and one out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hit.1As human beings we belong to an extremely resilient species. Since time immemorial we have rebounded from our relentless wars, countless disasters (both natural and man-made), and the violence and betrayal in our own lives. But traumatic experiences do leave traces, whether on a large scale (on our histories and cultures) or close to home, on our families, with dark secrets being imperceptibly passed down through generations. They also leave traces on our minds and emotions, on our capacity for joy and intimacy, and even on our biology and immune systems.Trauma affects not only those who are directly exposed to it, but also those around them. Soldiers returning home from combat may frighten their families with their rages and emotional absence. The wives of men who suffer from PTSD tend to become depressed, and the children of depressed mothers are at risk of growing up insecure and anxious. Having been exposed to family violence as a child often makes it difficult to establish stable, trusting relationships as an adult.Trauma, by definition, is unbearable and intolerable. Most rape victims, combat soldiers, and children who have been molested become so upset when they think about what they experienced that they try to push it out of their minds, trying to act as if nothing happened, and move on. It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability.While we all want to move beyond trauma, the part of our brain that is devoted to ensuring our survival (deep below our rational brain) is not very good at denial. Long after a traumatic experience is over, it may be reactivated at the slightest hint of danger and mobilize disturbed brain circuits and secrete massive amounts of stress hormones. This precipitates unpleasant emotions intense physical sensations, and impulsive and aggressive actions. These posttraumatic reactions feel incomprehensible and overwhelming. Feeling out of control, survivors of trauma often begin to fear that they are damaged to the core and beyond redemption.• • •The first time I remember being drawn to study medicine was at a summer camp when I was about fourteen years old. My cousin Michael kept me up all night explaining the intricacies of how kidneys work, how they secrete the body’s waste materials and then reabsorb the chemicals that keep the system in balance. I was riveted by his account of the miraculous way the body functions. Later, during every stage of my medical training, whether I was studying surgery, cardiology, or pediatrics, it was obvious to me that the key to healing was understanding how the human organism works. When I began my psychiatry rotation, however, I was struck by the contrast between the incredible complexity of the mind and the ways that we human beings are connected and attached to one another, and how little psychiatrists knew about the origins of the problems they were treating. Would it be possible one day to know as much about brains, minds, and love as we do about the other systems that make up our organism?We are obviously still years from attaining that sort of detailed understanding, but the birth of three new branches of science has led to an explosion of knowledge about the effects of psychological trauma, abuse, and neglect. Those new disciplines are neuroscience, the study of how the brain supports mental processes; developmental psychopathology, the study of the impact of adverse experiences on the development of mind and brain; and interpersonal neurobiology, the study of how our behavior influences the emotions, biology, and mind-sets of those around us.Research from these new disciplines has revealed that trauma produces actual physiological changes, including a recalibration of the brain’s alarm system, an increase in stress hormone activity, and alterations in the system that filters relevant information from irrelevant. We now know that trauma compromises the brain area that communicates the physical, embodied feeling of being alive. These changes explain why traumatized individuals become hypervigilant to threat at the expense of spontaneously engaging in their day-to-day lives. They also help us understand why traumatized people so often keep repeating the same problems and have such trouble learning from experience. We now know that their behaviors are not the result of moral failings or signs of lack of willpower or bad character—they are caused by actual changes in the brain.This vast increase in our knowledge about the basic processes that underlie trauma has also opened up new possibilities to palliate or even reverse the damage. We can now develop methods and experiences that utilize the brain’s own natural neuroplasticity to help survivors feel fully alive in the present and move on with their lives. There are fundamentally three avenues: 1) top down, by talking, (re-) connecting with others, and allowing ourselves to know and understand what is going on with us, while processing the memories of the trauma; 2) by taking medicines that shut down inappropriate alarm reactions, or by utilizing other technologies that change the way the brain organizes information, and 3) bottom up: by allowing the body to have experiences that deeply and viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse that result from trauma. Which one of these is best for any particular survivor is an empirical question. Most people I have worked with require a combination.This has been my life’s work. In this effort I have been supported by my colleagues and students at the Trauma Center, which I founded thirty years ago. Together we have treated thousands of traumatized children and adults: victims of child abuse, natural disasters, wars, accidents, and human trafficking; people who have suffered assaults by intimates and strangers. We have a long tradition of discussing all our patients in great depth at weekly treatment team meetings and carefully tracking how well different forms of treatment work for particular individuals.Our principal mission has always been to take care of the children and adults who have come to us for treatment, but from the very beginning we also have dedicated ourselves to conducting research to explore the effects of traumatic stress on different populations and to determine what treatments work for whom. We have been supported by research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control, and a number of private foundations to study the efficacy of many different forms of treatment, from medications to talking, yoga, EMDR, theater, and neurofeedback.The challenge is: How can people gain control over the residues of past trauma and return to being masters of their own ship? Talking, understanding, and human connections help, and drugs can dampen hyperactive alarm systems. But we will also see that the imprints from the past can be transformed by having physical experiences that directly contradict the helplessness, rage, and collapse that are part of trauma, and thereby regaining self-mastery. I have no preferred treatment modality, as no single approach fits everybody, but I practice all the forms of treatment that I discuss in this book. Each one of them can produce profound changes, depending on the nature of the particular problem and the makeup of the individual person.I wrote this book to serve as both a guide and an invitation—an invitation to dedicate ourselves to facing the reality of trauma, to explore how best to treat it, and to commit ourselves, as a society, to using every means we have to prevent it.PART ONETHE REDISCOVERY OF TRAUMACHAPTER 1LESSONS FROM VIETNAM VETERANSI became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. . . . That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past. . . . Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.—Khaled Hosseini, The Kite RunnerSome people’s lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That’s what trauma does. It interrupts the plot. . . . It just happens, and then life goes on. No one prepares you for it.—Jessica Stern, Denial: A Memoir of TerrorThe Tuesday after the Fourth of July weekend, 1978, was my first day as a staff psychiatrist at the Boston Veterans Administration Clinic. As I was hanging a reproduction of my favorite Breughel painting, “The Blind Leading the Blind,” on the wall of my new office, I heard a commotion in the reception area down the hall. A moment later a large, disheveled man in a stained three-piece suit, carrying a copy of Soldier of Fortunemagazine under his arm, burst through my door. He was so agitated and so clearly hungover that I wondered how I could possibly help this hulking man. I asked him to take a seat, and tell me what I could do for him.His name was Tom. Ten years earlier he had been in the Marines, doing his service in Vietnam. He had spent the holiday weekend holed up in his downtown-Boston law office, drinking and looking at old photographs, rather than with his family. He knew from previous years’ experience that the noise, the fireworks, the heat, and the picnic in his sister’s backyard against the backdrop of dense early-summer foliage, all of which reminded him of Vietnam, would drive him crazy. When he got upset he was afraid to be around his family because he behaved like a monster with his wife and two young boys. The noise of his kids made him so agitated that he would storm out of the house to keep himself from hurting them. Only drinking himself into oblivion or riding his Harley-Davidson at dangerously high speeds helped him to calm down.Nighttime offered no relief—his sleep was constantly interrupted by nightmares about an ambush in a rice paddy back in ’Nam, in which all the members of his platoon were killed or wounded. He also had terrifying flashbacks in which he saw dead Vietnamese children. The nightmares were so horrible that he dreaded falling asleep and he often stayed up for most of the night, drinking. In the morning his wife would find him passed out on the living room couch, and she and the boys had to tiptoe around him while she made them breakfast before taking them to school.Filling me in on his background, Tom said that he had graduated from high school in 1965, the valedictorian of his class. In line with his family tradition of military service he enlisted in the Marine Corps immediately after graduation. His father had served in World War II in General Patton’s army, and Tom never questioned his father’s expectations. Athletic, intelligent, and an obvious leader, Tom felt powerful and effective after finishing basic training, a member of a team that was prepared for just about anything. In Vietnam he quickly became a platoon leader, in charge of eight other Marines. Surviving slogging through the mud while being strafed by machine-gun fire can leave people feeling pretty good about themselves—and their comrades.At the end of his tour of duty Tom was honorably discharged, and all he wanted was to put Vietnam behind him. Outwardly that’s exactly what he did. He attended college on the GI Bill, graduated from law school, married his high school sweetheart, and had two sons. Tom was upset by how difficult it was to feel any real affection for his wife, even though her letters had kept him alive in the madness of the jungle. Tom went through the motions of living a normal life, hoping that by faking it he would learn to become his old self again. He now had a thriving law practice and a picture-perfect family, but he sensed he wasn’t normal; he felt dead inside.Although Tom was the first veteran I had ever encountered on a professional basis, many aspects of his story were familiar to me. I grew up in postwar Holland, playing in bombed-out buildings, the son of a man who had been such an outspoken opponent of the Nazis that he had been sent to an internment camp. My father never talked about his war experiences, but he was given to outbursts of explosive rage that stunned me as a little boy. How could the man I heard quietly going down the stairs every morning to pray and read the Bible while the rest of the family slept have such a terrifying temper? How could someone whose life was devoted to the pursuit of social justice be so filled with anger? I witnessed the same puzzling behavior in my uncle, who had been captured by the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and sent as a slave laborer to Burma, where he worked on the famous bridge over the river Kwai. He also rarely mentioned the war, and he, too, often erupted into uncontrollable rages.As I listened to Tom, I wondered if my uncle and my father had had nightmares and flashbacks—if they, too, had felt disconnected from their loved ones and unable to find any real pleasure in their lives. Somewhere in the back of my mind there must also have been my memories of my frightened—and often frightening—mother, whose own childhood trauma was sometimes alluded to and, I now believe, was frequently reenacted. She had the unnerving habit of fainting when I asked her what her life was like as a little girl and then blaming me for making her so upset.Reassured by my obvious interest, Tom settled down to tell me just how scared and confused he was. He was afraid that he was becoming just like his father, who was always angry and rarely talked with his children—except to compare them unfavorably with his comrades who had lost their lives around Christmas 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge.As the session was drawing to a close, I did what doctors typically do: I focused on the one part of Tom’s story that I thought I understood—his nightmares. As a medical student I had worked in a sleep laboratory, observing people’s sleep/dream cycles, and had assisted in writing some articles about nightmares. I had also participated in some early research on the beneficial effects of the psychoactive drugs that were just coming into use in the 1970s. So, while I lacked a true grasp of the scope of Tom’s problems, the nightmares were something I could relate to, and as an enthusiastic believer in better living through chemistry, I prescribed a drug that we had found to be effective in reducing the incidence and severity of nightmares. I scheduled Tom for a follow-up visit two weeks later.When he returned for his appointment, I eagerly asked Tom how the medicines had worked. He told me he hadn’t taken any of the pills. Trying to conceal my irritation, I asked him why. “I realized that if I take the pills and the nightmares go away,” he replied, “I will have abandoned my friends, and their deaths will have been in vain. I need to be a living memorial to my friends who died in Vietnam.”I was stunned: Tom’s loyalty to the dead was keeping him from living his own life, just as his father’s devotion to his friends had kept him from living. Both father’s and son’s experiences on the battlefield had rendered the rest of their lives irrelevant. How had that happened, and what could we do about it? That morning I realized I would probably spend the rest of my professional life trying to unravel the mysteries of trauma. How do horrific experiences cause people to become hopelessly stuck in the past? What happens in people’s minds and brains that keeps them frozen, trapped in a place they desperately wish to escape? Why did this man’s war not come to an end in February 1969, when his parents embraced him at Boston’s Logan International Airport after his long flight back from Da Nang?Tom’s need to live out his life as a memorial to his comrades taught me that he was suffering from a condition much more complex than simply having bad memories or damaged brain chemistry—or altered fear circuits in the brain. Before the ambush in the rice paddy, Tom had been a devoted and loyal friend, someone who enjoyed life, with many interests and pleasures. In one terrifying moment, trauma had transformed everything.

This is what people who want to undermine the patriarchy actually write. You can make up your own mind as to whether this represents hate.“I’ve chosen to open up about my experience because I want change. It is very hard and uncomfortable to talk about. I have learned that everyone copes differently. There’s no map that shows you the path to healing. Some days I feel happy and protected for sharing my story. Other days I have bad anxiety and either feel traumatized from Larry Nassar’s abuse or I fear something else will happen in the future. When I have these scary thoughts, I try my best to find things to help me manage my fears. I go for a walk outside. I read a book. I meditate and practice my breathing exercises. I take a hot bath. I draw. I hang out with family and friends. And I remind myself I am in control and that I will be O.K.I also want people to understand that abuse is never O.K. One person is too many and one time is too often. We must protect the survivors and people who are suffering in silence. We must support those who come forward, whether it is today, tomorrow, in three months, one year from now, 10 years from now. Whenever it is, everyone must show support. Victim shaming must stop. There are those who ask tough questions. Why didn’t you speak up? Why are you just speaking now? Are you nervous this will define you? To them I ask that they consider how complicated it is to deal with abuse. Abusers are often master manipulators and make their survivors feel confused and guilty for thinking badly of their abusers. And the abusers also often make everyone around them stand up for them, leaving the survivor afraid that no one will believe them. That needs to stop. Those who look the other way must stop and help protect those being hurt. Abusers must never be protected.The power needs to shift to the survivors.” - Aly Raisman, Olympic champion, 2x Olympic Team Captain, multiple Olympic medalist, record-setting elite Olympic gymnast, activist, modelThis Is Survival | By Aly Raisman“It was a fine way forward, even if not nearly as good a fit for me as the first career I had chosen. I missed the immediacy and the impact of my old job.My #MeToo moment lay dormant for decades. It was awoken on October 28, 2017. The occasion was a leadership conference in New York City, where I joined Arianna Huffington for a “fireside chat” on sexual harassment in Silicon Valley. I remember the buzz as we walked onto the stage, the two hundred–odd executives in the room on the edge of their chairs, eager to hear what Arianna had to say. The scandal at Uber was unfolding, and Arianna, who was on the Uber board, had been center stage in a recent move to oust CEO Travis Kalanick. He had been accused of turning a blind eye to sexual harassment and creating a toxic environment for women.In her famously husky voice, Arianna spoke eloquently about the need to bring down “brilliant jerks” who behave badly. In her view, Silicon Valley worshipped a breed of young male entrepreneurs with hard-core engineering skills who made billions for themselves and their companies. They had become untouchable and could get away with anything. But unless these megastars were called to account for sexual abuse, women would continue to languish and leave the tech sector.Memories snapped into place in my mind and Sebastian’s face came into focus—crude and terrifying. I turned on a dime, scrapping my prepared remarks. Instead of showcasing new data on sexual misconduct in Silicon Valley—and the failure of women to rise up the ranks—I told Arianna and that roomful of executives about Sebastian Tyler, the “brilliant jerk” who’d harassed and assaulted me all those years ago, running me out of a dream job and a chosen field. I finished with the following thought: “Looking back through the tunnel of time, what hits me is the enormous age gap. I was just twenty-three, for heaven’s sake. He was fifty-two. I didn’t stand a chance.”The audience went wild. Some of the female executives hollered and stomped their feet. My face broke into a huge Cheshire cat smile. Along with millions of other women who shared their #MeToo stories that week, I felt exultant, buoyant, and free. It was a wonderful thing to break the silence and slough off decades of shame and self-blame.My cathartic moment in October of 2017 inspired this book. Beginning that winter I kicked off a new project at CTI (a New York–based research organization that I founded sixteen years ago). The goal was to create a rich stream of qualitative and quantitative research that would give depth and heft to #MeToo and increase the possibility that the movement would drive enduring change.Little did I know about what I was getting into. For the past two years, I’ve been on a particularly wild roller coaster, replete with dips and turns and blind corners. Accusations of sexual misconduct, and the fallout of these claims, continued to rumble and roil through our culture—indeed, barely a week passes without new claims and new damage. But despite the proliferation of cases, some days it seems that we’ve made little progress in figuring out how to deal—consistently and fairly—with either the predators or the prey.In addition to Harvey Weinstein (the go-to villain of the #MeToo movement) these are just some of the troubling stories that have stood out for me over the last twenty-four months: Google giving a $90 million severance package to Andy Rubin (creator of the Android system) while concealing details of the credible charges of sexual assault that triggered his departure; Terry Crews (a former NFL linebacker and successful actor) winning his sexual assault case against talent agent Adam Venit, only to be attacked by the rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson for failing to fight back “even if that had landed him in jail”; and the recent confirmation (in July 2019) by the Senate of General John Hyten as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff despite credible accusations of sexual assault by Army Colonel Kathryn Spletstoser, a widely respected member of his senior staff.These stories make abundantly clear that #MeToo is still an unfolding story—the roots of the movement and the narrative of how and why it has spread and swelled over the past two and a half years are still being unearthed and investigated. But already there are some clear-cut gains and wins.The movement has lifted a heavy burden of pain and shame for millions of women; it has spearheaded a huge shift in public opinion, and victims now have a fighting chance of being believed; it has stripped power from a large number of badly behaved men; and it has reinvigorated efforts on the pay equity front and reinforced moves toward inclusive leadership cultures.Even as we continue to reckon with these complexities, it’s critical to seek out new and more rigorous data so as to enable a much more complete understanding of the incidence of sexual and other harassment at work. To some degree, the revelations of the last few years have been particularly shocking and hard to deal with because leaders (businesspeople and politicians alike) had no idea that the problem of sexual misconduct was so widespread and deeply rooted. Many naively assumed that the actions of disgraced moguls like Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, or Jeffrey Epstein were outliers. Now we realize that this assumption is false—abuse can be both extreme and commonplace, and employees have been absorbing this abuse not only from white male bosses but also from others. As my treasure trove of new data shows: a peer can also be a predator. An increasingly number of sexual misconduct cases center on a woman as the predator, and certain sectors and industries are particularly prone to sexual misconduct. For example, the incidence of harassment is literally twice as high in the media as in legal services. The devil really is in the details.One thing this new evidence makes quite clear is that the #MeToo movement has not had a big enough tent: it has not reached beyond the standard story (older white guys hitting on younger white women) to acknowledge, comfort, and support other groups who are also targets of abuse. Think for example of Mahmoud Latif, a gay Muslim man who in December 2018 accused a female supervisor at Morgan Stanley of sexually assaulting him. As we shall see in the pages that follow, men and women of color and LGBTQ employees experience particularly high rates of sexual harassment and assault. Junior, white, straight women are not the only victims, and senior, white, straight men are not the only aggressors.Another big focus of this book is scoping out the true costs of sexual misconduct. We have come some distance assessing the direct costs—lawsuits and settlements, hits to the brand and to company valuations. But what about the indirect costs? Every revolution has its collateral damage, and this one is no different. In chapter 6, I examine the impact on female progression in particular. As we will see, senior male executives are increasingly skittish about either mentoring or sponsoring junior women, no matter how high-performing they are. Senior men are fearful of gossip and lawsuits. This reaction is having serious knock-on effects, stalling and stunting women’s career prospects, and also depriving companies of diversity in the C-suite and “gender smarts” around decision-making tables.”Sylvia Ann Hewlett, activist, corporate founder, corporate consultant, economist and authorHow the #MeToo Movement Inspired Me to Create Even More Change in the Workplace"Every parent thinks their child will tell them if someone touched them inappropriately," Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic athlete and CEO of Champion Women, recently told me. "But by the time that happens, the child is well-groomed, and it is too late. Research shows that children do not tell their parents." And, since most survivors of child sexual abuse do not disclose the abuse, abusers often continue to enjoy the trust of their victim’s family, and continue to abuse.As documentaries such as "Leaving Neverland" and "Abducted in Plain Sight" showed, abusers do not just groom individual victims, they also groom entire families and even communities. Parents do not intentionally expose their children to harm, but often feel honored that a respected adult has taken a special interest in their child. Once predators have secured their trust, parents believe that they are providing a positive experience for their child with a person they consider safe. This part of the process of grooming enables abuse and hinders disclosure.In the context of the Olympic movement and children’s dreams of gold, the special attention of experts in the sport is often welcomed by parents and children alike, interpreted as a sign that a child has exceptional athletic potential. When perpetrators have the trust of parents and the community — as serial sexual predator Larry Nassar did — they have unquestioned and unencumbered access to their victims, often when those children are far from home or help.RelatedOPINIONGymnastics culture is rotten to the core. Larry Nassar is just the beginning.This is why experts agree that limiting one-on-one interactions between child athletes and adults affiliated with the sports is key to limiting — or hopefully eliminating — abuse.And yet, on June 23, the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent organization tasked with preventing abuse in sports, will require the national governing bodies that manage individual Olympic sports to adopt their incredibly flawed Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies.The major flaw in the rules is that, with parental permission, coaches can travel alone with children. Even worse, this policy allows coaches to interact with children outside of program activities, including at their homes, restaurants and other locations, if parents provide permission.RelatedOPINIONWhy we treat Larry Nassar's victims differently than Jerry Sandusky'sNo policy should allow for the possibility of uninterrupted time alone, especially in the context of travel; everything we have learned in the past few years shows that sexual predators quite often obtain parental permission. Requiring parental permission for these activities might prevent kidnapping, but it does not prevent abuse. The fact is that many abusers do not have to kidnap their victims in order to have one-on-one access, simply because their victims’ parents have trusted them.According to Darkness to Light, 90 percent of children who are sexually abused know their abusers; 30 percent of abusers are related to their victims, while 60 percent are nonrelatives who have gained the trust of the children’s families.And a list of red flags for potential abusers from Stop It Now!includes: “Insists on or manages to spend uninterrupted time alone with a child.” For this reason, many school districts have explicit policies prohibiting staff from spending time alone with students outside of school activities, which includes providing transportation to students in nonemergency situations.California swim coach Dia Randa told me, “Never, ever should one-on-one travel be allowed with a minor. This is the context for some of the most insidious abuse in the sport of swimming.”Debra Denithorne Grodensky, a survivor of abuse in swimming, explained to me, “That policy could not be more detrimental to athletes and parents. My parents were groomed just as much by my swim coach as I was.”Though the new rules do require abuse-prevention training for adults and minors — again with parental permission — it fails to limit the role of the adult or address the power imbalance between the adult and minor, a cornerstone of abuse prevention policies. Instead, the SafeSport document claims that, “Policies concerning one-on-one interactions protect children while allowing for these beneficial relationships.”RelatedOPINIONNew report suggests culture that enabled Larry Nassar and my abuser still existsBut strong policies are not simply comprised of lists of prohibitions and exceptions; they frame the terms of professionalism, set ethical standards and include overarching principles that help stakeholders understand healthy boundaries and appropriate relationships between adults and minors in a specific context. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, for example, defines boundaries as “limits which protect the space between the professional’s power and the client’s vulnerability.”And Spokane Schools prohibits“singling out a particular student or students for personal attention and friendship beyond the professional staff-student relationship.”Not only do the new rules fail to prohibit this type of grooming behavior, they do not give parents, coaches or other stakeholders any information about an appropriate adult-athlete relationship in the context of sports. In the absence of clear guidance from SafeSport, governing bodies like USA Swimming have developed their own materials that actually promote poor boundaries by framing the coach as a mentor in whom children can confide about “anything weighing on your mind.” Yet, a Queensland College of Teachers’ document on professional boundaries, lists “offering advice on personal matters” as a breach of professional boundaries. And, the Ropes and Gray report into Larry Nassar identified this exact kind of personal attention as a way Nassar groomed his patients, “Nassar groomed his patients by acting as a caring ‘friend’ in the often harsh world of competitive gymnastics.”RelatedOPINIONMichael Jackson's fans don't want to think he hurt kids. But hardly anyone does.But perhaps the most insidious problem with SafeSport’s Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies is that, by virtue of their existence and promotion, parents and guardians will reasonably assume that these policies are effective and comprehensive. Dr. Julia Rudolph, an expert in sexual abuse prevention and researcher at Griffith University, told me, “I think that parents do need information about perpetrator modus operandi, for example, what incentives they use and the relationship they develop with the child and the parents. They need to know the script of sexual offending and then protective behaviors need to be tailored exactly to those things.”Reducing boundaries and abuse prevention to a list of prohibited behaviors does not equip parents and other adults to recognize warning signs nor convey the appropriate role of the adult in the child’s life. This policy would not have prevented the abuse described in "Finding Neverland" or in the Ropes and Gray report on Nassar. Parents and children deserve strong, effective policies against abuse from a highly decentralized and unregulated system of youth programs — and especially from an organization that calls itself SafeSport.by Danielle Bostick, educator, activist, public speaker, writer, Latin scholar, advocate, mental health counselorOpinion | The Olympic child abuse prevention plan is too flawed to protect child athletesThe decorated career of Olympic figure skater Ashley Wagner has been marked by an unabashed willingness to speak her mind on a variety of topics with a confidence and boldness that stands out among her peers.So it was that she came to the difficult and important decision of sharing her story of how John Coughlin sexually assaulted her at 17 in a first-person account and video in USA TODAY, a decision that has been met with an outpouring of support across social media.“I’m known to speak my mind,” she said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. “I’m a strong woman. I’m an opinionated woman. I think it’s important for people to see that things like this can happen to anybody. I’m tough as nails but something this horrifying still happened to me. It’s not enough for me to be a strong woman to make things like this not happen.”Wagner is 28 now, no longer competing but still a top skating show performer while commentating on her sport on TV and speaking at skating seminars.WHAT WE KNOW:The latest from Ashley Wagner's sexual assault revelationBut nearly six years ago, at 22, Wagner joined her fellow Olympic figure skating hopefuls on stage at a media summit months before the 2014 Sochi Games when a question was asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s controversial anti-gay propaganda law.As one top U.S. skater after another declined to answer the question, the microphone finally came to Wagner. She did not remain silent."For me, I have gay family members, and I have a lot of friends in the LGBT community,” she said. “I have such a firm stance on this that we should all have equal rights."A bit later, she continued the conversation with USA TODAY Sports: “I think growing up in skating, I was surrounded by the LGBT community, so I grew up very aware because I was around it so often, and some of the kindest people I know are gay figure skaters. At the end of the day I'm an athlete, and that's what I'm focused on. But I felt that too many people are quiet and they're not comfortable sharing their opinion, and it's just my opinion."Get the Chasing Gold newsletter in your inbox.Everything you will need to follow Team USA's quest for gold in Tokyo.Delivery: VariesYour EmailThat was hardly the end of it. While at the 2014 U.S. Olympic trials in Boston a month before Sochi, Wagner told USA TODAY Sports that she "absolutely" planned to continue talking about her opposition to the controversial law while competing for the United States in Russia."This is the opportunity for this Olympics to be groundbreaking," Wagner said.Putin’s law criminalized "homosexual propaganda," making public displays that promoted gay rights, including hand-holding, punishable by up to two weeks in prison. In reply, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the Games would be "free of discrimination" for athletes and visitors to Sochi. Still, confusion reigned about what athletes could and could not do as they approached the most important competition of their lives.Wagner was undeterred when discussing the issue in Boston. Asked if she would talk about the law at her news conferences in Sochi, Wagner said she would. "It's something that I feel strongly about and I'm never one to not say what I'm thinking. I just speak my mind. It's something I can't stay quiet about. If it's my opinion, I'm going to say it."She said then that she was even more emboldened about speaking out after hearing the news that then-President Obama was sending three openly-gay athletes in the official U.S. delegation to the opening and closing ceremonies: tennis legend Billie Jean King, Olympic figure skating gold medalist Brian Boitano and two-time Olympic hockey medalist Caitlin Cahow."I am so incredibly proud to be representing a country now who is really taking a stance," she said. "I was a little bit worried for awhile because it felt like we were dodging the question and no one was really standing up for something that I feel, that so many feel so strongly about. So to have a great delegation going into the Olympics, I just feel that there is more support against the anti-gay law now openly and that's something that I am very happy to hear."Lakers pay tribute to Kobe BryantVanessa Bryant on Instagram: 'There is no #24 without #2'LeBron James on Kobe Bryant: 'We're all hurting, we're all heartbroken'Our experts' Super Bowl LIV predictionsAd Meter 2020: Sign up to help vote on the best Super Bowl ads!At those Olympics, Wagner won a bronze medal in the team competition for the United States and finished seventh in the women’s event. She did indeed continue to speak out against Putin’s law on Russian soil whenever she was asked about it. While protesters did show up and march against the law, the number of competing athletes who denounced the law in the midst of their Olympic events could be counted on one hand. Wagner was, of course, one of them.She also has never shied away from critiquing her sport’s arcane judging system, something that few skaters ever dare do publicly. Angry with her seventh-place finish in the women’s competition when others who made glaring mistakes were placed higher than she was, and perplexed as many were that Russia’s Adelina Sotnikova won the gold medal, Wagner didn’t hold back in the mixed zone afterward.“People do not want to watch a sport where they see someone skate lights out and they can’t depend on that person to be the one who pulls through,” she said. “People need to be held accountable. … It is confusing and we need to make it clear for you. … There are many changes that need to come to this sport if we want a fan base, because you can’t depend on this sport to always be there when you need it. The sport in general needs to become more dependable.”by Christine Brennan, sports columnist, figure skating writer, commentator, best-selling author, advocateHow does being assaulted change you as you progress through life?I had to go finish filming a movie for the rapist after I was attacked. And for seventeen years of my career, everything that came out of my mouth was something a man wrote for me to say. Why am I leaving my body to play a two-dimensional version of myself? For a man’s pleasure. For the man shooting me, for the man editing me, for the man directing me, for the man producing me, for the man selling me. It’s really a sick industry. I think people need to see where they’re getting their content from. Notice the messages. Notice that every time you see a laundry detergent commercial, it’s a woman. Notice that every time you see people of many races in a commercial the black guy is the sidekick. They reinforce these messages. Just like how Fox News has done a great job in media portraying people of color as the dangerous ones. But I think we can all agree—they look like Harvey Weinstein. There. I said his name.These Small 2020 SUVs Will Take Your Breath AwaySPONSORED BY YAHOO SEARCHSEE MORE »How did people respond to you once the articles came out?I had amazing support the two days following the release of the Times piece. Dead silence, of course, from people in Hollywood. Jessica Chastain eventually retweeted something a couple days later. But it was deafening. And I never expected any bravery from this place. They’ve never been brave.The support of people around the world, and also for me the data—the amount of people sharing their stories with me—is so intense, especially as all of this is incredibly triggering for me as well. People forget that there’s a human behind this. Someone who is very hurt and wronged. But that’s okay. It fuels my fire. They really f—ed with the wrong person.What needs to change in the culture going forward?There needs to be a hashtag: #IDidIt. I did it more than once. I did it many times. If you can’t tell that you’re a sexual harasser; if you can’t tell that you abuse women; if you can’t tell that you abuse your power; you just choose not to. Because they’re never gotten in trouble and there’s never been culpability. I get a lot of guys that are like, “I’m one of the good guys.” To which I simply say, “Be better.” Because the state of the world isn’t so hot. The way to keep pushing this forward is to actually reframe things and understand that our language—sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, domestic violence—it all comes from men. How dare you tell me what’s rape and what isn’t? How dare you put limits on when I can report? How dare you put in your minimizing terminology to make something so massive so small? It’s time to say that. We always say “people,” but it’s not—it’s men. Own your s—. And then women need to look at how they aid and abet and how they play along with a power structure that doesn’t benefit them whatsoever.What is your advice to young women?My advice to all women: Know your power. Know your worth. Don’t let them trick you. They’re going to start around age nine. People, especially need women, need to understand they’re not equal to—they’re more than. Once they know that, they can fly. The power structure wasn’t set forth to benefit you. If you’re white and in the 1% you get what—77 cents to the dollar? If you’re a black lesbian you’re at 46 cents. Why not fight back? What else are we doing?interview with Rose McGowan by Eliana Dockterman. McGowan is an actress, Hollywood star, producer, bestselling author, activist, and model. Eliana Dockterman is a reporter, editor and the culture writer at Time magazine.Rose McGowan: 'They Really F--ed With the Wrong Person'Five-time Olympic gold medalist, Simone Biles, is speaking out after a new report on the investigation of convicted child molester, Larry Nassar, was released.The 22-year-old U.S. gymnast took to Twitter to react to the newly-released Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on Thursday that revealed she was not involved in the USA Gymnastics internal investigation on Nassar in 2015, despite being one of the gymnasts the organization reportedly knew had concerns on the former sports doctor.The report states former president and CEO of USA Gymnastics Steve Penny allegedly knew about her concerns and intentionally did not include her in the investigation or mention her name to the FBI. He denies this claim.Other members of the U.S. team were reportedly questioned about Nassar, but Biles did not find out about the investigation until after the 2016 Rio Olympics.(MORE: Simone Biles says USA Gymnastics 'failed us so many times' ahead of 2019 championships)After the release of the report, Biles tweeted: "Can’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away...especially when new facts are still coming out."The tweet continued: "What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG???"Simone Biles✔@Simone_BilesCan’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away...especially when new facts are still coming out. What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG??? https://twitter.com/louiseradnofsky/status/1197591320015048704 …Louise Radnofsky✔@louiseradnofskyAs USA Gymnastics wrestled with allegations against Larry Nassar, it knew Simone Biles was among the athletes who felt uncomfortable about him. Nobody followed up. https://t.co/aZkPfIU5Kt My story via @WSJSports— Louise Radnofsky (@louiseradnofsky) November 21, 201921.8KCan’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away...especially when new facts are still coming out. What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG??? https://t.co/UrDXIrTng9— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) November 22, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacyCan’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away...especially when new facts are still coming out. What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG??? https://t.co/UrDXIrTng9— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) November 22, 2019She followed up that tweet with another message: "numb is becoming a normal feeling."Simone Biles✔@Simone_Bilesnumb is becoming a normal feeling4,511numb is becoming a normal feeling— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) November 22, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacynumb is becoming a normal feeling— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) November 22, 2019The gymnast's parents, Ron and Nellie Biles, provided a statement to the WSJ about the report."We continue to struggle with how and why this happened, and every time we hear something new like this, it feels like the harshest of betrayals and it is just too painful for our family to talk about openly," the statement reads. "To this day, we still do not know why Simone’s abuse was concealed by Steve Penny, USAG and USOPC."Editor's Picks1Simone Biles lands 2 history-making moves and gets history-making 6th national titleAugust 12, 20192More than 140 survivors of sexual abuse honored with Arthur Ashe Courage Award at ESPYsJuly 18, 20183Simone Biles says USA Gymnastics 'failed us so many times' ahead of 2019 championshipsAugust 8, 2019Biles, one of the hundreds of gymnasts, who publicly accused Nassar of sexual misconduct, has previously spoken about her discontent with USA Gymnastics and the handling of the Nassar investigation.(MORE: Simone Biles lands 2 history-making moves and gets history-making 6th national title)She first publicly revealed that she was sexually abused by Nassar in a statement on Twitter in January 2018."I too am one of the many survivors that was sexually abused by Larry Nassar," her statement read. "I've felt a bit broken and the more I try to shut off the voice in my head the louder it screams. I am not afraid to tell my story anymore."Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images, FILESimone Biles of The U.S. competes in Women's Balance beam Final during day 10 of the 49th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle on Oct. 13, 2019 in Stuttgart, Germany.Biles also said to reporters before a U.S. Gymnastics National Championships appearance in Aug. 2019, that USA Gymnastics failed her and her fellow gymnasts "so many times" before."We had won gold -- we've done everything that they asked us for, even when we didn't want to, and they couldn't do one damn job," she said. "You had one job. You literally had one job, and you couldn't protect us."Olympic Channel✔@olympicchannelEmotional @Simone_Biles expresses frustration toward USA gymnastics at the 2019 U.S. Championships.56.4KEmotional @Simone_Biles expresses frustration toward USA gymnastics at the 2019 U.S. Championships. pic.twitter.com/eM9ameQw6e— Olympic Channel (@olympicchannel) August 7, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacyEmotional @Simone_Biles expresses frustration toward USA gymnastics at the 2019 U.S. Championships. pic.twitter.com/eM9ameQw6e— Olympic Channel (@olympicchannel) August 7, 2019"It's just really sad 'cause now every time I go to the doctor or training I get worked on, it's like, 'I don't want to get worked on,' but my body hurts," she continued. "I'm 22 and at the end of the day that's my fifth rotation and I have to go do therapy. But it's just hard...We try to work through it, but it will take some time. I'm strong, I'll get through it, but it's hard."Nassar was sentenced in January 2018 to up to 175 years in prison.by Hayley Fitzpatrick, digital reporter, Columbia scholar. Simone Biles is an Olympic champion, multiple World champion, multiple National champion, multiple Olympic medalist, and one of the greatest gymnasts in the history of sport; student, advocateOn Monday, 66-year old Joan Tarshis accused Bill Cosby of raping her. Tarshis says the attack took place in 1969, when she was 19 and working as comedy writer:... [H]e told me that he wanted to work on a monologue together, and I had an idea for something about an earthquake that had just happened. It was my first earthquake. I had some funny lines, and he said, Sure, let's work on that. And then? We went up to his cottage after they were done shooting. That's when it happened. He offered me a drink. It was a red eye, a bloody mary topped off with beer. He always made the drinks; he didn't have a bartender.And then next thing I know, I was being undressed on his couch. I was so out of it. But I remember saying to him—I thought I would outsmart him—I said, I have an infection down there, and if you have sex with me, you're going to get it, and then your wife will know. He immediately switched to another orifice, which was worse ...Yes. He was holding me down. He's much bigger than I am. He's very big. I couldn't resist. He was forceful. He definitely used force. There was nothing I could do except wait for it to be over. I was in shock.Tarshis is the fifth woman to publicly accuse Bill Cosby of raping her. There is now a sixth: model Janice Dickinson. In a civil suit brought by Andrea Constand, some 13 women were set to testify that Cosby had raped them too. They ultimately did not testify because Constand settled with Cosby. Tarshis says she was not among those 13, and so the total number of accusers appears to now stand at 15 including Dickinson.Make your inbox more interestingEach weekday evening, get an overview of the day’s biggest news, along with fascinating ideas, images, and voices.Email Address (required)Sign UpThanks for signing up!Perhaps it is not fair for a journalist to consider, or even publicize, anonymous allegations of criminal activity. Even then we are left with six accusations of sexual assault: Tamara Green says that Cosby drugged and groped her in 1970. Beth Ferrier says that Cosby drugged and raped her in 1984. Janice Dickinson says Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982. Barbara Bowman says that Cosby drugged and raped her "multiple times" when she was 17 in 1985. And Andrea Constand says that Cosby drugged and raped her in 2004. Taken together, the public accusations span some 30 years and are remarkably similar in their detail.MORE STORIESHow the Law Protects Celebrities Accused of AbuseMaternity Leave—Not Higher Pay—Is the WNBA’s Real WinMAGGIE MERTENSThe Assistant Is a Subtle Horror Film for the #MeToo EraDAVID SIMSMost of these allegations came after Constand sued Cosby in civil court. Her lawyers tracked down several accusers, some of whom wanted to use their names, and some of whom didn't. Perhaps all of these women are lying. Certainly, false criminal allegations happen. It is not unheard of for celebrities to be targeted for false allegations. The Cosby case is different, though, in its sheer volume and lack of ulterior motive—no civil suit, no criminal charges.A defense of Cosby requires that one believe that several women have decided to publicly accuse one of the most powerful men in recent Hollywood history of a crime they have no hope of seeing prosecuted, and for which they are seeking no damages. The alternative is to see one of the most celebrated public fathers of our time, and one of the great public scourges of black morality, revealed as a serial rapist.I spent parts of 2006 and 2007 following Bill Cosby around the country. He was then in the midst of giving a series of "call-outs" in which he upbraided the decline of morality in the black community. Our current organic black conservative moment largely springs from these efforts. It's worth distinguishing an "organic black conservative" from a black or white Republican moment. Black Republicans, with some exceptions, don't simply exist as people who believe in free markets and oppose abortion, but to assure white Republicans that racism no longer exists. Organic black conservatives (like Cosby, for instance) are traditionalists, but they hold no such illusions about America's past. They believe this country to be racist, perhaps irredeemably so, but assert nonetheless that individual effort can defeat trenchant racism. The organic black conservative vision is riding high at the moment. Thus even the NAACP cannot denounce the outriders of Ferguson without the requisite indictment of "black on black crime."The author of this moment is Bill Cosby. In 2004, he gave his "Poundcake Speech," declaring black youth morally unworthy of their very heritage. Cosby followed the speech with a series of call-outs. I observed several of these call-outs. Again, unlike typical black Republicans, Cosby spoke directly to black people. He did not go on Fox News to complain about the threat of the New Black Panther Party. He did not pen columns insisting the black family was better off under slavery. He was not speaking as a man sent to assure a group that racism did not exist, but as a man who sincerely believed that black people, through the ethic of "twice as good," could overcome. That is the core of respectability politics. Its appeal is broad in both black and white America, and everywhere Cosby went he was greeted with rapturous applause.I published a reported essay in 2008, in this magazine, on these call-outs. In that essay, there is a brief and limp mention of the accusations against Cosby. Despite my opinions on Cosby suffusing the piece, there was no opinion offered on the rape accusations. This is not because I did not have an opinion. I felt at the time that I was taking on Cosby's moralizing and wanted to stand on those things that I could definitively prove. Lacking physical evidence, adjudicating rape accusations is a murky business for journalists. But believing Bill Cosby does not require you to take one person's word over another—it requires you take one person's word over 15 others.At the time I wrote the piece, it was 13 peoples’ word—and I believed them. Put differently, I believed that Bill Cosby was a rapist.Rape constitutes the loss of your body, which is all you are, to someone else. I have never been raped. But I have, several times as a child, been punched/stomped/kicked/bumrushed while walking home from school, and thus lost my body. The worst part for me was not the experience, but the humiliation of being unable to protect my body, which is all I am, from predators. Even now as I sketch this out for you publicly, I am humiliated all again. And this happened when I was a child. If recounting a physical assault causes me humiliation, how might recounting a sexual assault feel? And what would cause me to willingly stand up and relive that humiliation before a national audience? And why would I fake my way through such a thing? Cosby's accusers—who have no hope of criminal charges, nor civil damages—are courting the scrutiny of Cosby-lovers and rape-deniers. To what end?The heart of the matter is this: A defender of Bill Cosby must, effectively, conjure a vast conspiracy, created to bring down one man, seemingly just out of spite. And people will do this work of conjuration, because it is hard to accept that people we love in one arena can commit great evil in another. It is hard to believe that Bill Cosby is a serial rapist because the belief doesn't just indict Cosby, it indicts us. It damns us for drawing intimate conclusions about people based on pudding-pop commercials and popular TV shows. It destroys our ability to lean on icons for our morality. And it forces us back into a world where seemingly good men do unspeakably evil things, and this is just the chaos of human history.And one cannot escape this chaos by hiding behind the lack of a court conviction. O.J. Simpson was not convicted in court for murdering his ex-wife. The men accused of killing Emmett Till were found innocent. ("If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long," mused one of them.) Police and government forces conspired to kill a Black Panther, Fred Hampton. They were never criminally prosecuted in any court.Courts belong to the society, not the other way around. This is why many Americans scoff at the idea that O.J. was never convicted of killing his wife. And this is why many other Americans scoff at the idea that the government didn't kill Fred Hampton. Ducking behind an official finding is kind of cowardice that allows us the luxury of never facing hard questions. Cowardice can be insidious. Sometimes it is a physical fear. Other times it's just taking the easy out.I would not dismiss all journalists who've declined to mention these allegations as cowards. It's worth considering what it feels like to, say, have been among those convicting Richard Jewell in the press. And should I have decided to state what I believed about Cosby, I would have had to write a much different piece. It would not have been enough to say, "I believe he is a rapist." A significant portion of my reporting, perhaps the lion’s share of my reporting, would have had to be aimed to investigating the claims.The Bill Cosby piece was my first shot writing for a big national magazine. I had been writing for 12 financially insecure years. By 2007, when I finished my first draft, I had lost three jobs in seven years. I had just been laid-off by Time magazine. My kid was getting older. I was subsisting off unemployment checks and someone else's salary. A voice in my head was, indeed, pushing me to do something more expansive and broader in its implication, something that did not just question Cosby's moralizing, but weighed it against the acts which I believed he committed. But Cosby was such a big target that I thought it was only a matter of time before someone published a hard-hitting, investigative piece. And besides, I had in my hand the longest, best, and most personally challenging piece I'd ever written.It was not enough.I have often thought about how those women would have felt had they read my piece. The subject was morality—and yet one of the biggest accusations of immorality was left for a few sentences, was rendered invisible.I don't have many writing regrets. But this is one of them. I regret not saying what I thought of the accusations, and then pursuing those thoughts. I regret it because the lack of pursuit puts me in league with people who either looked away, or did not look hard enough. I take it as a personal admonition to always go there, to never flinch, to never look away.https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-cosby-show/382891/TA-NEHISI COATES is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. He is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power.As the case for accused rapist Owen Labrie began in New Hampshire on Aug. 18, it put a spotlight on St. Paul’s School. At the heart of the matter is the “senior salute,” described by the media as a competition among upperclassmen at the storied, elite boarding school to take the virginity of new female students. This has been described as a decades-old tradition dating back to the William Randolph Hearst days, but it’s actually a new development for life at St. Paul’s.The “senior salute” was not part of the culture when I attended St. Paul’s from 1997 to 2000, nor was it around for students who graduated just five years ago. The conditions that enabled this deplorable lie to take hold are not unique to one boarding school, but are part of a centuries-old custom that the well-educated and privileged adhere to. They don’t discuss sexual crimes, therefore, consequences of such behavior are misunderstood or ignored. How else can we explain how male students felt so justified, perhaps even entitled, to tally the number of virginities they can claim?Last year, a friend of mine toured the University of Pennsylvania when a fraternity came out of their house naked, and circled the group, chanting, “We want your daughters.” This is the mindset that allowed the young men of St. Paul’s to develop the “senior salute.” When my friend called the school to report the incident, she says she was essentially hung up on by the administration.This response is similar to the treatment a rape victim received at Harvard, who penned her experience in an anonymous letter in the school’s newspaper, called “Dear Harvard, You Win.” She says she was taken to counselors, and the whole thing was kept silent – until she went public. Quiet, private, and dismissive is how many prestigious schools choose to initially respond to sexual crimes, to keep up this aura that there is no elite side to rape. (Harvard says it has taken steps to update its policies and response in such cases.)Almost every school in the Ivy League is now under scrutiny for tolerating sexual assault on campus. Recently, 28 students at Columbia University filed a federal complaint for the school’s mishandling of rape claims and the mistreatment of victims. (Columbia has said it will cooperate with any investigation.) Many students at Brown University were outraged when the school allowed an accused rapist to return as a student, after committing a crime that usually comes with a sentence of five to seven years in prison. (The student chose not to return in the end, and the school created a task force to update its sexual assault policy.)No school wants to give parents any indication that their children are potentially at risk. But institutional silence is exactly what increases risk and enables events like those mentioned above to happen in the first place.It’s estimated that one in three girls before the age of 18 will become a victim of sexual assault, and that perhaps 80% of these incidents will never be reported.Sexual misconduct is not limited to students. More than a handful of faculty members at St. Paul’s and other boarding schools have been allowed to quietly resign after being accused of inappropriate contact with students. Reporting sexual crimes to the police is still a novelty, and is too often still considered a last resort.When I was enrolled at St. Paul’s, I was also involved in a federal landmark case as a victim of sexual assault, which tested the 1996 Communications Decency Act. I met the perpetrator over the internet, and through my advocacy and book on the subject, I essentially became a poster child for online safety.I unequivocally attribute most of my success to St. Paul’s School, a sacred ground that pushes students to pursue their passions to achieve at the highest level. If I’m being honest, however, those days were often dark and lonely because the culture of the school and of my hometown in suburban Connecticut forced me to be quiet. Often, I was actually even told to be quiet. I would later learn that the girl sitting behind me in my calculus class was being raped by one of her teachers. We both flourished out of desperation, but I only wonder how different things would have been without the burden of isolation around us.It’s estimated that one in three girls before the age of 18 will become a victim of sexual assault, and that perhaps 80% of these incidents will never be reported. I’ve spent too many airplane rides having conversations that include, “I’ve never told anyone this, but since you’ve been so public about your case.” Sexual assault is not limited to certain echelons of education or economic backgrounds. I am not sure why we have to pretend that it does.I’ve asked the current head of St. Paul’s School, Michael Hirschfeld, my former English teacher, to hire an independent investigator to look into the scope of the problem on campus, which I am told the school has done. Now that a student is standing trial for rape and another just plead no contest for simple assault, it’s clear that the school doesn’t understand the extent of the matter. And to be sure, I am not sure any of the elite schools do. The problem at St. Paul’s has become too atrocious that it has no choice but to be transparent and address it.I have confidence that the headmaster will step up to the challenge to make sure that victims are treated with dignity and these crimes are punished appropriately. And in some ways this case represents a huge victory for future victims of sexual assaults, in that the case is being handled within the judicial system and not quietly within St. Paul’s. But I am also confident that other schools will allow more victims to be raped before they step up to the task.Over the years, I’ve learned that one shouldn’t be ashamed for being a victim of sexual assault no matter what your background. But the Catholic Church and others have shown that eventually there tends to be great shame for the institutions that operate in a willful cloud of denial.Katherine Tarbox is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and distinguished alumna of the St. Paul’s School. She is the bestselling author of “A Girl’s Life Online,” and has written for the New York Times and Time.Katherine “Katie” Tarbox serves as a senior editor for REALTOR Magazine and is the author of the international bestselling book A Girl’s Life Online. She’s an active marathon runner and climbed on two of the seven summits, Kilimanjaro and Everest.The St. Paul’s rape case shows schools are still in denial about sexual assaultI do want to thank you, first, Judge Aquilina, for giving all of us the chance to reclaim our voices. Our voices were taken from us for so long, and I'm grateful beyond what I can express that you have given us the chance to restore them.There are two major purposes in our criminal justice system, your Honor: the pursuit of justice and the protection of the innocent. Neither of these purposes can be met if anything less than the maximum available sentence under the plea agreement is imposed upon Larry for his crimes. Not because the federal sentence he will already serve is lacking, but because the sentence rendered today will send a message across this country, a message to every victim and a message to every perpetrator.I realize you have many factors to consider when you fashion your sentence, but I submit to you that the pre-eminent question in this case as you reach a decision about how best to satisfy the dual aims of this court is the same question that I asked Judge Neff to consider: How much is a little girl worth? How much is a young woman worth?Larry is a hardened and determined sexual predator. I know this first-hand. At age 15, when I suffered from chronic back pain, Larry sexually assaulted me repeatedly under the guise of medical treatment for nearly a year. He did this with my own mother in the room, carefully and perfectly obstructing her view so she would not know what he was doing. His ability to gain my trust and the trust of my parents, his grooming and carefully calculated brazen sexual assault was the result of deliberate, premeditated, intentional and methodological patterns of abuse -- patterns that were rehearsed long before I walked through Larry's exam room door and which continue to be perpetrated I believe on a daily basis for 16 more years, until I filed the police report.Larry's the most dangerous type of abuser. One who is capable of manipulating his victims through coldly calculated grooming methodologies, presenting the most wholesome, caring external persona as a deliberate means to insure a steady stream of children to assault. And while Larry is unlikely to live past his federal sentence, he is not the only predator out there and this sentence will send a message about how seriously abuse will be taken.So, I ask, how much is a little girl worth? How much priority should be placed on communicating that the fullest weight of the law will be used to protect another innocent child from the soul shattering devastation that sexual assault brings? I submit to you that these children are worth everything. Worth every protection the law can offer. Worth the maximum sentence.The second aim of this court and our criminal justice system is to pursue justice for the victims that have already been harmed. And this aim too can only be realized by imposing the maximum sentence under the plea agreement and in reaching this decision too, we also must answer the question, how much was a little girl worth? How much were these young women worth? This time however, the little girls in question are not potential victims. They are real women and children, real women and little girls who have names and faces and souls. Real women and children whose abuse and suffering was enjoyed for sexual fulfillment by the defendant.I believe sometimes, your honor, that when we're embroiled in a legal dispute the words of our legal system designed to categorize and classify and instruct can inadvertently sterilize the harsh realities of what has taken place. They can serve as a shield against the horror of what we are really discussing. And this must not ever happen. Because if the truth about what Larry has done must be realized to its fullest depth if justice is to ever be served.And so for a moment, your honor, I, like every woman who's come before you, want to take a moment to drop that shield. Larry meticulously groomed me for the purpose of exploiting me for his sexual gain. He penetrated me, he groped me, he fondled me. And then he whispered questions about how it felt.He engaged in degrading and humiliating sex acts without my consent or permission. And Larry enjoyed it. Larry sought out and took pleasure in little girls and women being sexually injured and violated because he liked it. And as I and so many other women and little girls were being violated, Larry found sexual satisfaction in our suffering. As we were being sexually violated even as very young children, as young as 6 years old, Larry was sexually aroused by our humiliation and our pain. He asked us how it felt because he wanted to know. What was done to myself and these other women and little girls and the fact that our sexual violation was enjoyed by Larry matters. It demands justice and the sentence you impose today will send a message about how much these precious women and children are worth. You have seen our pictures, your honor -- moments in time captured when they were young and vulnerable and violated.I think of the young girl that I was and the little girls and young women all of these survivors were every day. I feel like I see them in the faces of my two precious daughters. When I watch my daughters' eyes light up as they dance to The Nutcracker, I remember the little girl that I and all of these women used to be. The sparkle their eyes must have had as mine did before their innocence was taken. I watched my daughters love and trust unreservedly and I remember the long road that it has been to let myself love and be loved without fear. I think of the scars that still remain for all of us.One of the worst parts of this entire process was knowing as I began to realize what had happened to me how many other little girls had been left destroyed, too. I was barely 15 when Larry began to abuse me and as I lay on the table each time and try to reconcile what was happening with the man Larry was held out to be, there were three things I was very sure of. First, it was clear to me this was something Larry did regularly. Second, because this was something Larry did regularly, it was impossible that at least some women and girls had not described what was going on to officials at MSU and USAG. I was confident of this. And third, I was confident that because people at MSU and USAG had to be aware of what Larry was doing and had not stopped him, there could surely be no question about the legitimacy of his treatment. This must be medical treatment. The problem must be me.And because I had friends who were physical therapists who practiced legitimate internal pelvic floor techniques, I also knew at 15 that to practice this you must have specialized training and certification. Surely anyone who had heard that Larry was penetrating little girls would have demanded to know where he got his training, and if there was any question he would've never been allowed near me.And so, I lay still and on the first two points, I was right. It was something he did often. And others had described Larry's treatment before. In fact, though I didn't know it at the time, four girls and women had described in detail to three different athletic departments at MSU what he was doing and his penetration and their belief that they had been sexually assaulted. It was reported to Kathie Klages, MSU's head gymnastics coach, to a track coach and to multiple athletic trainers and supervisors years before I walked into Larry's door.But I was wrong in my third belief. I was wrong that surely, if someone had been made aware of what Larry was doing they would report it and ensure it was legitimate before ever allowing him near another child. I did not know when I was 15 that in 1997, three years before I walked into Larry's exam room that MSU's head gymnastics coach, Kathie Klages, had waved a report form in front of Larissa Boyce after being told by two separate gymnasts of what Larry was doing and told Larissa there would be consequences for her if she reported.I did not know that Tiffany Thomas Lopez had reported the penetration and sexual assault to athletic trainer, Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, and to other athletic trainers and supervisors two years before I walked into Larry's door.I did not know that Christie Achenbach had reported the penetration and sexual assault to her track coach and her athletic trainers and had also been silenced a full year before I walked into Larry's door. I did not know that Jennifer Bedford had also reported to Destiny Teachnor-Hauk and asked if she could file a report that Larry's treatment made her feel uncomfortable and that she had also been silenced.I believed the adults at MSU surrounding Larry would do the right thing if they were aware of what Larry was doing, and I was terribly wrong. And discovering that I could not only trust my abuser but I could not trust the people surrounding him has been devastating. It is part of the consequences of sexual assault, and it needs to be taken seriously.I did not know that at the same time Larry was penetrating me, USAG was systematically burying reports of sexual assault against member coaches in a file cabinet instead of reporting them, creating a culture where predators like Larry and so many others in the organization up to the highest-level coaches were able to sexually abuse children, including our Olympians, without any fear of being caught.I did not know that, contrary to my belief, the elite gymnasts whose pictures were plastered on Larry's wall were far from protected. That USAG, rather than supervising Larry, was allowing him to treat these girls in their own beds without even having a medical license in Texas.I did not know any of these things, and so as Larry was abusing me each time, I assured myself it must be fine because I thought I could trust the adults around me. My misplaced trust in my physician and my misplaced trust in the adults around me were wielded like a weapon, and it cost me dearly. And it follows me everywhere.I would like to take a moment now to address both organizations whose failures led to my sexual assault because it is part of the consequences that I now carry. ... MSU, we have been telling our stories for more than 18 months, and you have yet to answer a single question I have asked. Every time I repeat these facts about the number of women who reported to employees at MSU and were silenced, you respond the exact same way. You issue a press statement saying there is no cover-up because no one who heard the reports of assaults believed that Larry was committing abuse.You play word games saying you didn't know because no one believed. I know that. And the reason everyone who heard about Larry's abuse did not believe it is because they did not listen. They did not listen in 1997 or 1998 or 1999 or 2000 or 2004 or 2014. No one knew, according to your definition of know, because no one handle(d) the reports of abuse properly.Victims were silenced, intimidated, repeatedly told it was medical treatment and even forced to go back for continued sexual assault. You have stated in a motion to dismiss our civil suit that, ironically, is being heard right now in court as I am speaking. That the reports that were given in 1997, '89, ;99 and 2000 to track coaches, head gymnastic coaches and athletic trainers and supervisors don't, quote, count as notice because these teenagers didn't report it to the right official. The 14-year-old didn't go to the right person.You have stated that no reports of sexual assault count as notice unless it is reported to a person who is capable of firing the alleged perpetrator. This entirely contradicts the letter that president Simon sent all 11,000 MSU employees in 2012 reminding them that MSU policy requires them to report any suspected child abuse and any allegations of sexual assault against someone at MSU. So, MSU, which is it? Do your employees have a duty to protect children or not?It has been 18 months, and I am still asking the same questions hoping that the little girls that come after me will have adults that they can trust. And I've been getting the same answer for a year, and so I am asking point-blank again, when Kathie Klages humiliated Larissa Boyce and the second gymnast, greatly compounding the trauma of their sexual assault, and waved the report form in front of her telling her there would be consequences if she reported.Is this the right way or the wrong way to handle sexual assault allegations on MSU campus? When Tiffany Thomas Lopez reported her abuse to athletic trainers and supervisors and the trainers used the emotional pain tiffany was in after her father's death to convince her it would be too exhausting and painful to bother filing a report, was it the right way or the wrong way to handle a report of sexual assault on MSU campus?When Christie Achenbach reported the sexual assault to her track coach and athletic trainers and was also silenced, was it the right way or the wrong way to handle the report of sexual assault on MSU's campus?When Kyle Stevens parents reported Larry's sexual abuse of their daughter to a MSU psychiatrist and he brought Larry in to talk into her parents instead of reporting as he was mandated to do by law, was it the right way or the wrong way to handle a report of sexual assault on MSU's campus?When Amanda Thomashow reported to the Title IX office and Larry could hand pick the four colleagues to be interviewed to determine whether his treatment was legitimate, was that the right way or the wrong way to investigate a claim of sexual assault on MSU's campus?And after all this, when I came forward in 2016, I brought an entire file of evidence with me. I made a police report and a Title IX report, and I brought with me to those reports my medical records showing that Larry had never tried pelvic floor techniques. I brought medical records from a nurse practitioner documenting my graphic disclosure of abuse way back in 2004. I had my journals showing the mental anguish I had been in since the assault. A catalog of national and international medical articles showing what real pelvic floor treatment looks like. I brought a letter from a neighboring district attorney vouching for my character and truthfulness and urging detectives to take my case seriously.I brought a cover letter going point by point through Michigan law and case law explaining how every element of first-degree criminal sexual assault was met and could be proven.I brought a witness I had disclosed it to in 2004. I brought evidence of two more women unconnected to me who were also claiming sexual assault. And I have the names of three pelvic floor experts willing to speak on my behalf. And the MSPD. handled it beautifully, but MSU officials were a different story, because the response of Dean William Strampel was to send an email to Larry that day and tell him, quote, good luck, I am on your side. And when my video testimony to the Indy Star came out, graphically describing the abuse that Larry perpetrated disclosing horrific details to the world that no one was ever supposed to know that I had never told anyone, even my own husband, until that point, Dean Strampel forwarded that video testimony to the MSU provost, and he locked it.He called it the cherry on the cake of his day. President Simon and board of trustees, is this the right way to handle disclosures of abuse on MSU's campus? When Brooke Lemmen, one of the doctors Larry was allowed to hand pick to clear himself in 2014, was interviewed for my investigation, she said I hadn't really been penetrated -- I only thought I had because quote, when I am a 15-year-old girl I think everything between my legs is my vagina. I only thought Larry had put his fingers in me for up to 40 minutes at a time for a full year. I was just confused. Sounds eerily familiar to what Amanda Thomashow was told in 2014 that she, quote, didn't understand the nuanced differences between sexual assault and a medical exam.It sounds eerily familiar to what every single woman was told all the way back to 1997. We were all wrong. We were all just confused. Board of trustees, is this the right way to handle disclosures of sexual assault on MSU's campus? And if that were not bad enough, when I finally joined the civil suit five months later, after waiting for almost half a year for MSU to do the right thing, the vice president of the board of trustees, Joel Ferguson, went on television and gave a press interview in which he claimed those of us who have filed lawsuits were ambulance chasers who were looking for a payday.In fact, I know that at least one other high ranking MSU official has specifically called me out by name and said I'm in it for the money. This has never been contradicted, retracted or refuted. MSU, you need to realize that you are greatly compounding the damage done to these abuse victims by the way you are responding. This, what it took to get here, what we had to go through for our voices to be heard because of the responses of the adults in authority, has greatly compounded the damage we suffer. And it matters.We have waited 18 months to be told no, this is not how we handle this on MSU's campus. But instead everyone has doubled down on the claim that nothing was done wrong and the only conclusion that can be reached is that no one truly sees anything wrong with any of this. And that is terrifying. And it leaves me terrified for the little girls of the future, who we are here to protect. And because of this willful ignorance, victim silencing and mishandling of sexual assault reports against Larry in '97, '98 and '99, I walked through Larry's door in 2000 and never walked out the same.Not long after I stopped seeing Larry I transitioned from athlete to coach. And every day that I nurture those baby gymnasts, I wondered if any of them would find their way into his exam room.When one of my little girls was finally referred to him, I took a chance and I spoke up and I was kindly cautioned for my own sake to remain silent. My little baby gymnast was sent to Larry before I even knew a decision had been made to do so. Her family moved away almost immediately thereafter and I wept for that little girl and I prayed to god that she was under the age range that Larry preferred. She was 7. But when I filed my police report, Kyle Stevens came forward and she was 6 --a year younger than my little girl. And I cried in my kitchen, and I don't know yet if that little girl walked out the same that she walked in.I transitioned from coaching to working in public policy, and I fought fear every time I had to commute or work close quarters with my male colleagues. I dreaded working on current event or legislation on sexual assault because I knew the memories that would come with it., I still watched gymnastics, but I looked away whenever the cameras panned to the sidelines in case Larry would be there.I wondered almost daily if there was ever a chance my voice would be heard. I began law school was I was 19. And I wrapped up in blankets every time I studied torts or crimes related to sexual assault and I hoped my face wouldn't betray me in classroom discussions.I researched internal pelvic floor procedures and I tried to find out what had happened to me. and I watched for any sign that I would ever be believed.I met my future husband and I told him what I never wanted to tell anyone and I wondered if he would walk away and he didn't. But I couldn't even hold his hand or look up at him because closeness wasn't safe and trust wasn't safe. We got married, and my 25th birthday came and went and I sat up for nights before, believing my ability to file a police report would end on that birthday. I didn't know the statute of limitations had been lifted.I woke up the morning I turned 25, and instead of feeling joy at a milestone I only felt hopelessness and grief because I thought my chance to stop this man was over. I thought daily about all the little women and girls walking in his office and I wondered if it would ever, ever end.I became a mother three times over, and the fear that hung over each birth knowing I would be vulnerable in a medical setting cast a horrific shadow over what should have been an occasion of pure joy.And I watched for a chance to be believed and I waited. I held my first born and then my two daughters and each time I did,Larry, I remember the day you brought Carolyn into your office so that I could hold her. You knew how much I loved children and you used your own daughter to manipulate.Me and every time I held my babies, I prayed to god you would leave your abuse in the exam room and not take it home to the little girl born with black hair just like her daddy. And then the Indy Star story came out about the rampant cover-up at USAG and I knew this was the chance and I wrote them immediately.But because of what Larry did, the cost of making it end has been incredibly high. And the effects of Larry's abuse has been redoubled in the effort that I took to stop him.Choosing to live those moments over and over, daily, releasing every shred of privacy that I had, living with the reality that not only didn't I get to choose what you did, but now I didn't get to choose who knew about it.Even my status as a sexual assault victim has impacted or did impact my ability to advocate for sexual assault victims because once it became known that I too had experienced sexual assault, people close to me used it as an excuse to brush off my concerns when I advocated for others who had been abused, saying I was just obsessed because of what I had gone through, that I was imposing my own experience upon other institutions who had massive failures and much worse.My advocacy for sexual assault victims, something I cherished, cost me my church and our closest friends three weeks before I filed my police report. I was left alone and isolated. And far worse, it was impacted because when I came out, my sexual assault was wielded like a weapon against me.Often by those who should have been the first to support and help, and I couldn't even do what I loved best, which was to reach out to others. I was subjected to lies and attacks on my character including very publicly by attorney Shannon Smith when I testified under oath.I was being attacked for wanting fame and attention, for making up a story to try to get money. Your honor, since these attacks were made on my character very publicly on public record, I would like to take an opportunity briefly now to correct them. ... Out of the two women in question that day, Ms. Smith and I, who were attempting to communicate through either questions or answers, I would like to note that only one of us was taking pictures of the courtroom on her cell phone. Only one of us posed for the press and said, quote, I feel like I should say cheese. And out of the two of us, only one of us was making money off her court appearance that day. I don't feel the need to say anything else. I think I've communicated completely.... The cost, emotional and physical, to see this through has been greater than many would ever know. And Larry, I don't need to tell you what the cost of your abuse has been to me because you got to read my journals, every word of them. Because those had to go into evidence to make this happen.I want you to understand why I made this choice knowing full well what it was going to cost to get here and with very little hope of ever succeeding. I did it because it was right. No matter the cost, it was right. And the farthest I can run from what you have become is to daily choose what is right instead of what I want.You have become a man ruled by selfish and perverted desires, a man defined by his daily choices repeatedly to feed that selfishness and perversion. You chose to pursue your wickedness no matter what it cost others and the opposite of what you have done is for me to choose to love sacrificially, no matter what it costs me.In our early hearings. you brought your Bible into the courtroom and you have spoken of praying for forgiveness. And so it is on that basis that I appeal to you. If you have read the Bible you carry, you know the definition of sacrificial love portrayed is of God himself loving so sacrificially that he gave up everything to pay a penalty for the sin he did not commit. By his grace, I, too, choose to love this way.You spoke of praying for forgiveness. But Larry, if you have read the Bible you carry, you know forgiveness does not come from doing good things, as if good deeds can erase what you have done. It comes from repentance which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror without mitigation, without excuse, without acting as if good deeds can erase what you have seen this courtroom today.If the Bible you carry says it is better for a stone to be thrown around your neck and you throw into a lake than for you to make even one child stumble. And you have damaged hundreds.The Bible you speak carries a final judgment where all of God's wrath and eternal terror is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you.I pray you experience the soul crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me -- though I extend that to you as well.Throughout this process, I have clung to a quote by C.S. Lewis, where he says, my argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But how did I get this idea of just, unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he first has some idea of straight. What was I comparing the universe to when I called it unjust?Larry, I can call what you did evil and wicked because it was. And I know it was evil and wicked because the straight line exists. The straight line is not measured based on your perception or anyone else's perception, and this means I can speak the truth about my abuse without minimization or mitigation. And I can call it evil because I know what goodness is. And this is why I pity you. Because when a person loses the ability to define good and evil, when they cannot define evil, they can no longer define and enjoy what is truly good.When a person can harm another human being, especially a child, without true guilt, they have lost the ability to truly love. Larry, you have shut yourself off from every truly beautiful and good thing in this world that could have and should have brought you joy and fulfillment, and I pity you for it. You could have had everything you pretended to be. Every woman who stood up here truly loved you as an innocent child, real genuine love for you, and it did not satisfy.I have experienced the soul satisfying joy of a marriage built on sacrificial love and safety and tenderness and care. I have experienced true intimacy in its deepest joys, and it is beautiful and sacred and glorious. And that is a joy you have cut yourself off from ever experiencing, and I pity you for it.I have been there for young gymnasts and helped them transform from awkward little girls to graceful, beautiful, confident athletes and taken joy in their success because I wanted what was best for them. And this is a joy you have cut yourself off from forever because your desire to help was nothing more than a facade for your desire to harm.I have lived the deep satisfaction of wrapping my small children up in my arms and making them feel safe and secure because I was safe, and this is a rich joy beyond what I can express, and you have cut yourself off from it, because you were not safe. And I pity you for that.In losing the ability to call evil what it is without mitigation, without minimization, you have lost the ability to define and enjoy love and goodness. You have fashioned for yourself a prison that is far, far worse than any I could ever put you in, and I pity you for that.And this is also why in many ways, your honor, the worst part of this process was each name, each number who came forward to the police with each Jane Doe, I saw my little girls and the little girls that were. The little girls who walked into Larry's office that I could not save because no one wanted to listen. And while that is not my guilt, it is pain I still carry and pain I share with them.I cried for them, and with every tear that fell I wondered who is going to find these little girls, who is going to tell them how much they are worth, how valuable they are, how deserving of justice and protection?Who is going to tell these little girls that what was done to them matters? That they are seen and valued, that they are not alone and they are not unprotected? And I could not do that ,but we are here now and today that message can be sent with the sentence you hand down you can communicate to all these little girls and to every predator to every little girl or young woman who is watching how much a little girl is worth.I am asking that we leave this courtroom we leave knowing that when Larry was sexually aroused and gratified by our violation, when he enjoyed our suffering and took pleasure in our abuse, that it was evil and wrong.I ask that you hand down a sentence that tells us that what was done to us matters, that we are known, we are worth everything, worth the greatest protection the law can offer, the greatest measure of justice available.And to everyone who is watching, I ask that same question, how much is a little girl worth? Larry said in court that he hoped education and learning would happen from this tragedy, and I share that hope, and this is what we need to learn.Look around the courtroom, remember what you have witnessed these past seven days. This is what it looks like when someone chooses to put their selfish desires above the safety and love for those around them and let it be a warning to us all and moving forward as a society, This is what it looks like when the adults in authority do not respond properly to disclosures of sexual assault.This is what it looks like when institutions create a culture where a predator can flourish unafraid and unabated and this is what it looks like when people in authority refuse to listen, put friendships in front of the truth, fail to create or enforce proper policy and fail to hold enablers accountable.This is what it looks like. It looks like a courtroom full of survivors who carry deep wounds. Women and girls who have banded together to fight for themselves because no one else would do it. Women and girls who carry scars that will never fully heal but who have made the choice to place the guilt and shame on the only person to whom it belongs, the abuser. But may the horror expressed in this courtroom over the last seven days be motivation for anyone and everyone no matter the context to take responsibility if they have failed in protecting a child, to understand the incredible failures that led to this week and to do it better the next time.Judge Aquilina, I plead with you as you deliberate the sentence to give Larry, send a message that these victims are worth everything. In order to meet both the goals of this court. I plead with you to impose the maximum sentence under the plea agreement because everything is what these survivors are worth. Thank you.by Rachel Denhollander, social activist, advocate, lawyer, public speaker, human rights activistRachael Joy Denhollander is an American lawyer and former gymnast. She was the first woman to publicly accuse Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor, of sexual assault. Denhollander is a TIME 100 honoree and a 2018 Glamour Woman of the Year.Will these Olympic ladies ever stop being so inspiring? I doubt it. Jordyn Wieber's Senate testimony discussed the huge problem of sexual abuse among Olympic circles, and how it's been unacknowledged for too long. So, this Olympian is calling for changes, and I'm totally on board.On April 18, Wieber spoke to the U.S. Senate about the significance of the Larry Nassar case. Nassar is the former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of abusing over 200 young athletes, who was convicted on sexual assault and child pornography charges in January. Wieber not only shared her story of abuse, but highlighted a huge issue within the Olympic community, and that's the lack of action being taken to support victims and end this cycle of abuse. In her testimony, Wieber criticized the USA Olympics and fellow organizations for not taking immediate action when athletes came forward about the abuse."Nobody was protecting us from being taken advantage of. Nobody was even concerned whether or not we were being sexually abused," Wieber said. "The people and organizations who are responsible need to accept responsibility for the pain they caused me and my sister survivors."Wieber has coined this reoccurrence as a "culture of silence," and said that organizers and Olympic officials allegedly had knowledge of occurring abuse, but didn't take action against it.Wieber also filed a lawsuit on April 17 against USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee, and Michigan State University for not coming to victims' defenses in the past.NBC News on YouTubeAccording to Wieber, the abuse from Nassar started at age 14 and she endured ten instances of abuse over a six-year period. Wieber released a statement saying she was "betrayed" by the USA Olympics Committee and Michigan State.She said,My parents trusted USA Gymnastics and Larry Nassar to take care of me and we were betrayed by both. And now, the lack of accountability from USAG and Michigan State, have caused me and many other girls to remain shameful, confused, and disappointed.Wieber's testimony against Nassar followed Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Jamie Dantzscher, who were among the first to bring their stories forward and also sued organizations including the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), USA Gymnastics, and Michigan State. Since their testimony, more than 200 girls have come forward claiming they were abused at the hands of Nassar as well.Some changes are already underway to secure the safety for Olympic athletes. On Jan. 22, the USA Gymnastics Board of Directors resigned in light of Nassar's sexual abuse case. Kerry Perry, president of USA Gymnastics, released a public statement speaking to the board's resignation and how it should help change "move forward" within the organization.Perry said,We support their decisions to resign at this time. We believe this step will allow us to more effectively move forward in implementing change within our organization. The organization will continue working every day to ensure that our culture, policies and actions reflect our commitment to those we serve.New board members are certainly a step in the right direction, but that's only one fix to address a huge internal problem within this community. On Jan. 30, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to require U.S. amateur athlete organizations to investigate abuse and suspected incidents as soon as possible. The act, titled "Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization," is a direct result from the case against Nassar and was spearheaded by Sen. Susan Collins.All these changes are definitely steps in the right direction, but perhaps the biggest impact from the Larry Nassar case is letting victims know that their stories are important and their voices are being heard. Hearing the victim statements from the likes of Raisman, Wieber, and Dantzscher were tough to bear, but watching how these brave and strong women encouraged others to step forward and fight this system of abuse is something that's truly historical.Anthony Lanzilote/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesHere's to strong women. May we know them, may we raise them, may we be them.by Shelby Black, freelance journalist with multiple magazines and publicationsJordyn Wieber is a World Champion, Olympic champion, elite Olympic gymnast, advocate, human rights activist, coach and public speakerOlympian Jordyn Wieber Called Out A Culture Of Abuse In Her Senate TestimonyWASHINGTON – Olympic gold medal gymnast Jordyn Wieber, a Lansing-area native, described for a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of sports doctor Larry Nassar beginning at age 14, saying she believed if she raised concerns at the time it might have hurt her future goals."I knew that if I questioned his treatment, I risked my chance at making the Olympic team or being chosen to compete internationally," said Wieber, who has testified in court against the imprisoned former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor and who this week filed a lawsuit against him in a California court.Wieber's comments were part of a statement she delivered to a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating abuse against Olympic athletes and whether there needs to be additional safeguards to prevent it from happening again. At least two other congressional committees are said to be investigating as well.The subcommittee also heard from another gymnast, 2000 Olympic bronze medalist Jamie Dantzscher, who was the first to raise concerns about Nassar, despite what she said was intense pressure not to do so. Also testifying were former figure skater Craig Maurizi and speed skater Bridie Farrell, who spoke of abuse at the hands of former colleagues or coaches.The abuses suffered by athletes from Nassar were revealed in a series of stories first reported by the Indianapolis Star in 2016. Since then, more than 200 girls or young women have said Nassar abused them and he is serving a 60-year sentence on federal child pornography charges and faces an additional 40 years behind bars in Michigan for his sexual assault convictions once that federal sentence is complete.Read more:Jordyn Wieber sues Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics over Larry Nassar's sexual abuseEngler adviser: $250K payout claims 'fake news'In her testimony, Wieber, 22, who won gold in London in 2012, criticized USA Gymnastics for not responding to concerns of abuse and trainers with creating a brutal culture for athletes at Karolyi Ranch in Texas. She also chastised Michigan State University officials who, she said, have turned victims away and are "still refusing to admit what the problem is and that they’re accountable for it."They don't think they're responsible for Larry Nassar doing what he did," she said, adding that she also believed that MSU Interim President John Engler almost seemed to be trying to "fight the survivors."The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said the committee is trying to determine the best way to protect athletes in the future and added that he appreciated the "incredible bravery of our witnesses and their willingness to be here to discuss these sensitive topics." He said another hearing — expected to be held May 22 — may include witnesses from MSU, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee."You were let down by individuals you trusted but who chose to ignore you, to look the other way, or to deliberately cover up the abuses you suffered because their priority, simply put, was not your safety or well-being," Moran said.Congress has already passed legislation intended to crack down on athlete abuse, creating an organization to investigate abuse and requiring officials to report suspected incidents as soon as possible. But members said more remains to be done.U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the panel's ranking Democrat, called Wednesday's hearing "a critical step forward in our investigation into the serious systemic abuses across generations of young athletes." Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who is a MSU alumnus, said the school "has an obligation" to be supportive of Nassar's victims."It’s important that we address this so that it never happens again," said Peters. "Alumni come up to me and wonder, 'How could this happen? How could this happen at our university?' "In her testimony, Wieber, who is a native of DeWitt, said she began seeing Nassar at age 8 in Lansing and that other gymnasts, coaches and family members considered him "a miracle worker." She said he also appeared to her to be a "good guy," who tried to help her deal with the stresses of training and pressure from coaches.She said she was 14 and under tough training when she tore a hamstring in her right leg and that's when Nassar "started performing the procedure that we are all now familiar with." While she said she cringed at how uncomfortable it was, she said she had "no idea that he was sexually abusing me for his own benefit.""I knew it felt strange, but he was the national team doctor," she said.Wieber has complained that Nasser — who was accused of sexually assaulting young women and girls under the guise of treating them — acted as a friend, bringing her and others food and candy. "I didn’t know that these were all grooming techniques that he used to manipulate and brainwash me into trusting him," Wieber said.Wieber also said she talked with teammates Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney at the Karolyi Ranch about the treatment and "how uncomfortable it made us feel.""None of us could understand it," she said. She also said that Nassar was allowed to be alone with athletes unlike other adults."Nobody was protecting us from being taken advantage of. Nobody was even concerned whether or not we were being sexually abused," she said. "The people and organizations who are responsible need to accept responsibility for the pain they caused me and my sister survivors."Wieber talked about a "culture of silence" that was more interested in winning or reputation than in protecting athletes. All of the athletes testifying also raised questions about the many other team and Olympic officials who must have known something was wrong but did nothing to report it.Recalling how Nassar touched her over her leotards in the middle of a gym without anyone reacting on one occasion, Dantzcher said, "I know it’s still going on."Talking about what made her come forward, Dantzscher said, "I have numerous nieces and nephews. I could not look at them any longer and stay quiet. I knew as a former Olympian that if I spoke, people might be more likely to speak up. As it turned out, I was right."After previously speaking out against what she considered abusive training methods at the Karolyi Ranch, Dantzscher said that it was in the summer of 2016 when she "began to understand that Larry Nassar had sexually abused me and his procedures were not legitimate medical treatment.""I further came to learn that he had been quietly dismissed by USA Gymnastics based upon allegations that he had sexually abused minors on our Olympic and National Women’s Gymnastics Teams," she said. "His firing was kept quiet by USA Gymnastics and he was allowed to post messages on social media that said he had 'retired.' "Both Wieber and Dantzscher have previously testified against Nassar and said they hope that Congress is able to get more answers out of Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the USOC than they have been able to get."This is a case of powerful people protecting other powerful people," Dantzscher said, "It is up to you, as powerful members of the United States Senate, to hold them accountable."by Todd Spangler. Todd Spangler covers digital media and technology for Variety, which he joined in 2013. A business and technology journalist with more than 25 years of experience, he previously was technology editor at cable industry publication Multichannel News and news editor at IT journal Baseline.Gymnast Jordyn Wieber tells Senate panel Nassar began abusing her at age 14The abrupt resignation of Greg Burke as director of the Holy See Press Office is one more disturbing sign that the Vatican is not up to the task of responding to the Catholic Church’s crisis over clergy sexual abuse and its cover-up.Burke, a St. Louis native and an alumnus of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, brought an American way of doing business to a press office that not so long ago closed for the day at 1 o’clock p.m. He helped build what became an impressive presence for the church on social media, adapt the media operation to a twenty-four-hour news cycle, and create a positive image for a new pope. But the veteran newsman could not push the Vatican bureaucracy into responding quickly and forthrightly to developments in the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, and this clearly frustrated him through much of his tenure as the press office’s director.In a New Year’s Eve tweet announcing that he and his deputy, the Spanish journalist Paloma Garcia Ovejero, were resigning effective January 1, Burke exited with anexpression of affection for Pope Francis but not much else to say other than that the job had been “fascinating.” In a subsequent tweet, he apparently looked to dispel the notion that he was leaving because of personnel changes above his level in the Vatican communication dicastery, writing, “Just so you know, we had been praying about this decision for months, and we’re very much at peace with it. Grazie!”“Fascinating” is a gentlemanly usage to describe what it was like to be the public face for the Vatican bureaucracy’s agonizing, incomplete response to fast-breaking international news on the cover-up of clergy sexual abuse. As a former Rome correspondent for Timeand Fox News, Burke knows as well as any media professional that it’s important to respond right away to such a damaging situation. Clearly, his hands were often tied.Burke was an outsider in an insider’s job, fluent in Italian but not necessarily in the level of nuance employed in Vatican-speak. The Vatican’s culture of caution and cover-up did not suit him.Take, for example, the Vatican Press Office’s response to the August 14 release of the Pennsylvania grand-jury report on clergy sexual abuse last summer. For two days, it was “no comment.” A word from the pope was called for—in fact, the Pennsylvania attorney general had written to Francis about the investigation in advance of the report’s release.“Why is the pope still silent on damning sex abuse report?” CNN asked in an August 16 headline. Finally, late that evening, a statement was issued in Burke’s name. “Victims should know that the Pope is on their side,” he was quoted as saying: “Those who have suffered are his priority, and the Church wants to listen to them to root out this tragic horror that destroys the lives of the innocent.” Burke was often put in the position of having to play catch-up.In February, Burke issued a statement reporting that Pope Francis met several times a month with victims of clergy sexual abuse—a delayed effort at damage control following the pope’s insistence on defending Bishop Juan Barros of Chile a month earlier, in the face of accusations that Barros had covered up sexual crimes against minors. Francis had denounced the assertions against the bishop as “calumny”—and later, after an outcry over this offense against victims of abuse, the pope initiated an investigation that resulted in Barros’s resignation.Burke also got to stand by Cardinal George Pell’s side at a 2017 news conference after Australian authorities charged the senior churchman with sexual misconduct. Burke read from a statement that Pell “has openly and repeatedly condemned as immoral and intolerable the acts of abuse committed against minors” and, as a bishop, “introduced systems and procedures both for the protection of minors and to provide assistance to victims of abuse.”Pell was reportedly found guilty in December, but as far back as 2016, enough was known about him for the Daily Beast to headline a story, “An Australian royal commission on clerical crimes finds evidence that one of the Vatican’s most senior cardinals turned a blind eye to sex abuse. So why doesn’t the pope fire him?”So often, and for so long, the Vatican’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct and cover-up has been too little, too late. It’s apparent why Burke’s enthusiasm for the job dimmed.The sudden departures of Burke and Ovejero are being dissected through the usual anti-Francis ideological monocle used to view Vatican developments, especially since Burke’s role as a numerary member of Opus Dei gives him cred as a Catholic conservative. But I would look at it through a different lens: as an American, Burke was an outsider in an insider’s job, fluent in Italian but not necessarily in the level of nuance employed in Vatican-speak. The Vatican’s culture of caution and cover-up did not suit him.A year ago, EWTN asked Burke about his favorite moment in Pope Francis’s annual Christmas address to the Roman Curia, a talk that, in earlier years, had been a pointed attack on the dysfunctional Vatican culture. Burke said he’d gotten a laugh from the pope’s recall of an archbishop’s quip that “Making reforms in Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx with a toothbrush.”Greg Burke is not the only one tired of that.by Paul Moses. Paul Moses, a contributing writer at Commonweal, is the author of The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace (Doubleday, 2009) and An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York's Irish and Italians (NYU Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter @PaulBMoses.3. Testimony from SurvivorsThe context is the attestation by survivors of daily physical abuse suffered in the past in institutions because of race or skin colour, including name-calling, singling out for deprivation in relation to food and hygiene, severe daily beatings, degrading and demeaning duties designed to enforce feeling of worthlessness - such as being required to perform demeaning work such as unblocking toilets - premised on racial inferiority, targeting for sexual abuse on the basis of race, and a range of debasing and debilitating practices premised on effacing identity. Up to 45% of mixed race Irish will attest to the fact that they were targeted for sexual abuse because of the colour of their skin.Personal testimonies point to a wide range of racist stereotypes perpetrated on mixed- race Irish children while in care. The staggering range of derogatory name-calling by persons supposed to be caring for us amounts to serious emotional abuse and degrading treatment, in addition to severe physical neglect and life-changing physical abuse that is understood to have been characteristic of these institutions.We have catalogued many examples of this from survivors and witnesses, to the conclusion that institutional racism was systemic and endemic in the care system in Ireland, a massive and overwhelming failure on the part of the State acting as corporate parent to our community. The impact of this racism is seen in high rates of suicide among our community, or early death due to depression, substance misuse or severe and enduring mental health issues, with loss of opportunity and widespread poverty within our community.Particularly saddening is our belief that there was a policy not to offer mixed-race babies for adoption, based on a presumption that nobody would want to adopt a mixed- race baby. Some mixed race Irish were adopted at the specific request of adopters. One example is Conor Cruise O’Brien and his wife, who would adopt two mixed race Irish children. The following revealing passage appears in his biography: “[...] if they wanted a child of mixed race, so much the better. In Ireland, these children were especially difficult adoption placements”.15 To which we ask the State – why? Why were we, as babies and children, considered especially difficult to place? No answer has been given.Related practices include systemic ‘indenturing’ of mixed-race children instead to often unvetted elderly couples as a way of augmenting the elderly couple’s income in place of exploring adoption pathways, decisions made by State officials in pursuit of a policy, whether formal or informal, on the basis of race. Additionally, in relation to the potential for international adoptions, it was “guaranteed” by the Department of External14 See Conrad Bryan, ‘I'm a former child resident of a mother and baby home. We want truth and justice', The Journal.ie, 27 May 2017, available at: http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/im-a-former-child-resident- of-a-mother-and-baby-home-we-want-truth-and-justice-3396783-May2017/8The Association of Mixed Race IrishAffairs (now Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) that “coloured” children born in Ireland would not be offered to prospective foster families in the United States.16We have evidence to suggest that mixed-race Irish children were subjected to medical experiments through vaccine trials.17 That these trials occurred on residents of children’s homes in the 1960s-70s is a matter of public record,18 with more recent research pointing to the practice dating from the 1930s.19 In fact some of the results of these trials were published in academic journals.20 The trials involved hundreds of children and included babies, infants and toddlers, investigating inter alia what would happen if four vaccines - diphtheria, pertussis (or whooping cough), tetanus and polio - were combined in one overall four-in-one shot; the administration of an intra-nasal rubella vaccine; and whether German measles vaccine, administered intranasally, could spread to susceptible contacts.21 Many of the members of AMRI can report to multiple vaccinations for the same conditions – a complete over- vaccination policy. AMRI can attest to the fact the illegal ‘five in one’ vaccine was administered to at least three of our community; this illegal vaccination was administered to just 30 children in Ireland. As our medical records are sealed or redacted, it is unclear how many mixed-race Irish infants were included in this illegal vaccination trial.To date just one report has been issued on this practice, under the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in 2000, but its Vaccine Trials Division was eventually closed down following legal challenges.22 The report notes that the question of consent is15 Donald Harman Akenson, Conor, Volume 1: A Biography of Conor Cruise O’Brien, (McGill: Queen’s University Press, 1994), p. 323. 16 No. 33 NAI DFA/5/345/96/1, Extracts from a letter from Seán Ronan to Garth Healy (New York) (345/96) (Confidential) (Copy), Dublin, 14 August 1951, reprinted in Michael Kennedy et al (eds.), Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume X (1951-57), (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2016). It reads: “Moreover, there is no ‘colour’ problem here so that intending foster parents in the US know that Irish children are ‘guaranteed’ in that respect.”17 See generally Patricia McDonagh, The Irish Independent, ‘The forgotten children of Ireland’s hidden scandal’, 20 August 2010, available at: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-forgotten-children-of- irelands-hidden-scandal-26673545.html 18 Department of Health, ‘Report on Three Clinical Trials Involving Babies and Children in Institutional Settings, 1960/61, 1970 and 1973’ (2000), available at: http://www.lenus.ie/hse/bitstream/10147/249856/3/RepOn3ClinicalTrialsInvolvingBabiesAndChildre nInInstitutionalSettings1960611970and1973.pdf 19 ‘Jabs for the boys’, Broadsheet.ie, 1 December 2014, available at: http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/12/01/jabs-for-the-boys/#more-380722 This piece sets out the timeline including legal challenges. 20 Cited in Patricia McDonagh, s. One of these, the British Medical Journal (1962), noted how: “We are indebted to the medical officers in charge of the children’s homes...for permission to carry out this investigation on infants under their care.” 21 Ibid. 22 Department of Health, Infra. The 2000 report was supposed to be “the beginning and not the end” of the matter according to then Minister for Health Michael Martin. A ‘vaccine module’ was convened that obtained documents from the drugs company involved but the investigation was curtailed with a Supreme Court ruling that an academic involved in overseeing the trials did not have to give evidence. A further High Court challenge invalidated the Government’s order directing the probe. The concern in these rulings was the juxtaposition of a vaccine trials inquiry with a child abuse commission, with the High Court finding that other machinery could exist for an appropriate inquiry. In response the Government closed down the Vaccine Trials Division, ruling out further inquiries into existing or new9The Association of Mixed Race Irishunclear, with no practice of follow-up on vaccinated children. Since then, several more trials have been uncovered by historians and others.23 As a result of pressure from these revelations, vaccine trials form part of the remit of the current Commission meaning it represents the first opportunity to publicly investigate the issue since it was shut down in 2000. AMRI believes that mixed-race children in Mother and Baby Homes were targeted for vaccine trials. Importantly, the Commission has the power to compel drug companies that conducted vaccine trials on children resident in the homes to come before it,24 but whether it uses this power to effectively investigate the issue remains to be seen.The issue of sexual abuse also forms part of testimony among our members. Up to 45% of our members attest to sexual abuse while in the care system, including by members of religious orders. We believe we were targetted for such abuse. The ‘Ryan Report’ considered physical, emotional and sexual abuse to be ‘endemic’ in Irish Catholic church-run industrial schools and orphanages.25Post-mortem practices form part of the remit of the current Commission of Inquiry, including the transfer of remains to educational institutions for anatomical examinations. We believe that bodies of mixed-race babies who died in care may have been transferred to educational institutions such as the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians post-mortem, without proper procedure. There has been no public investigation to date of these practices.Overall, we consider ourselves to be a community ‘displaced’, a word used to describe us by an officer of the Department of Education that captures the alienation we believe has been imposed on us by the State. We have heard all the racist terms; we have been collectively called mongrels, mutts, half-breed, half-caste, coconut, darkie, savage, coloured, to name but a few of the dehumanising terms applied to us. Any misdemeanour on our part at school, in the workplace and socially was sure to be rectified by calling us a variety of names designed to keep us in our place. All of us have suffered severe neglect in Mother and Baby Homes, physical and sexual abuse, illegal vaccinations and resulting illnesses, as well as segregation and enforced concealment on the basis of our race, hidden away from prospective adopters and wider Irish society.allegations. A key element of the dismantlement process was the return of records supplied to their original sources, in particular the drugs companies involved. 23 Conall O’Fatharta, Irish Examiner, ‘Special investigation - Vaccine trials on children worse than first thought’, 1 December 2014, available at: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/special-investigation-- vaccine-trials-on-children-worse-than-first-thought-300247.html24 Pamela Duncan and Aine McMahon, The Irish Times, ‘Mother and baby homes commission can compel drug companies’, 9 January 2015, available at: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/mother- and-baby-homes-commission-can-compel-drug-companies-1.2060243 The trials were overseen and conducted by two professors from University College Dublin on behalf of the drugs company the Wellcome Foundation, now GlaxoSmithKline.25 ‘Ryan Report’, Infra, Executive Summary, available at: http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/ExecSummary.php10The Association of Mixed Race IrishToday, we continue to live in a prison created by others - maintained by our lived experiences. We feel sorrow for our mothers who loved our fathers, and did not wish to cause them further anguish even when some of our mothers denied our humanity. We understood that theirs was a hard lot indeed loving us in the teeth of social ostracism. Some of our mothers and yes, it was usually our mothers, vowed to teach us pride in our dual heritage even when they themselves believed in the futility of this belief. Some of our mothers denied us in every respect and placed us in industrial schools to be 'cared' for by a collective barbaric racism; the strong survived, however too many of us cracked never to recover, and in a desperate act of rebellion declared our broken spirits to theworld by suicide or a softer option: enduring a slow death within the ‘safety’ of the outpatient department of the local psychiatric hospital; there the ‘dysfunction’ of our colour is ‘understood’, labelled and treated; there we could recover our sense of place at the bottom of the pile of Irish society.We are still not recognised as a minority ethnic community in Irish society, so we remain a hidden aberation to the norm. There is no legislation in place to provide a remedy for the psychological hurts experienced by us, and our beloved children. Some of our community are in their 80s and yet, we simply do not exist as a recognised community in Ireland. In addition we have no historical record of human rights violations, not in Irish NGOs, or Irish Government circles, or schools, or academic literature. We hope this report contributes to changing that.4. Ireland’s Obligations under ICERDThis is the first time AMRI is participating in a reporting cycle by Ireland under ICERD. The treaty informed the group’s submission to the Commission of Investigation, in which key provisions and related practice and recommendations of UN CERD supported AMRI’s emphasis on Ireland’s international obligations to effectively investigate the historic issue of race in mother and baby homes. The draft of Ireland’s State report, what would become the combined 5th-9th Periodic Report, was released on 6 December 2017,26 for consultation with NGOs and civil society; it made no reference to the fact that race formed part of the remit of the Commission for the first time, or any reference at all to our issues despite their having been presented by Rosemary Adaser before the Oireachtas Joint Committee in 2014.26 Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration, ‘Ireland’s Combined 5th, 6th and 7th Periodic Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’, 6 December 2017.https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/IRL/INT_CERD_NGO_IRL_37383_E.pdfIn Not That Bad the writer and editor Roxane Gay collects essays, almost all by survivors of rape, sexual assault, or child abuse. (A note on language: I use the term “victim” in the context of the criminal justice system, and “survivor” – in accordance with advice from organizations such as the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network – for those who have gone through the recovery process, or when discussing the effects of sexual violence.) The diversity is striking – not only of perspectives, but approach, too. This is a book of testimonies, indignations, reproaches, meditations, written with poignancy and skill.“Not That Bad was the rare anthology that came right on time. Not a little late, not a little too soon. Right on time. One could argue that a thorough, rigorous collection of essays exploring our survival of, and brutal dependence on, rape culture is always timely. And one might be right. But reading these authors courageously curated by Gay, I got the sense that the authors, more than being inspired by the current movement to confront sexual violence, have wanted and needed to craft these essays for years. Now, for better and worse, the nation finally seems ready to wholly invest in the various shapes, consequences, and whys of the sexual violence epidemic in this country and its normalcy.“13. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxane Gay This collection of essays from every angle of modern American rape culture should be required reading in 2018. Full of accounts that will be depressingly familiar to the majority of the human population who reads it, Not That Bad is stomach-churning in its honest vulnerability. There are no easy answers here; each essay, curated by Roxane Gay with palpable care, clarifies the creeping ubiquity of the evil we’re only beginning to address as a society. But it’s nevertheless critical reading, especially for anyone prepared to engage with the roots of the #MeToo movement. Not That Bad succeeds in illustrating exactly what is meant by the term rape culture: horror everywhere, even in moments that ought to be beautiful, even in moments so mundane they ought to mean nothing at all. —Alexis Gunderson“I suppose what I am saying here is that Roxane Gay’s Not That Bad is an important book, but it’s also one I wish didn’t have to exist. Gay notes in her introduction that she originally envisioned Not That Bad as a series of journalistically reported essays and features, genuine dispatches. Instead, the book is mostly confessional, first-person storytelling. And the storytelling is very good – observationally sharp, the writing often as vivid as bruises.“Roxane Gay was back at it again in 2018 with her highly thought-provoking, intelligent and valuable follow up to Bad Feminist and Hunger, Not That Bad. The anthology of first-person essays tackles rape, assault, and harassment head-on.“What Gay really does is provide a place for people to voice their experiences free of shame and belittlement in carefully constructed, first-person accounts of harassment, assault, and rape. It’s also a must-see read.Not That Bad - Roxane GayRoxane Gay is a cultural critic, short fiction writer, novelist, bestselling author, professor and lecturer.For the last four years, Gay has worked as an assistant professor of English, teaching creative and professional writing at Eastern Illinois University, but for all her academic qualifications, she is much more focused on pop culture than on what might be considered high art. She thinks teaching media literacy to kids is essential; having always been a fan of pop culture, it's only in the last five years that she's developed "a better mental framework for thinking about it. I can enjoy [reality show] The Bachelor, but also tell you: here are the 5,000 reasons this show is very, very damaging."Gay's early childhood was happy and ordinary, and then, when she was 12, there was a bike ride in the woods with the boy she thought was her boyfriend. She writes about this in an essay called What We Hunger For, beginning with her passion for The Hunger Games, before moving on to describe the day that changed her life. There was an abandoned hunting cabin, the boy's friends had gathered, they were about a mile into the woods and what happened next "was as bad as you might expect", she writes. "I came home a completely different person." The violence was very hard to write about, she says, "because it's definitely something I kept inside for quite a long time". She didn't tell her family or friends. Her life since then has been divided into before and after, "which I hate, because I hate that it marks my life. It's just like there's before – and I was normal and happy – and there's after, and the after continues. The repercussions continue."‘The bigger you become, the less you’re seen.' Photograph: Jennifer Silverberg for the GuardianAdvertisementShe began to put on weight quickly, gaining 40lb, and her parents sent her to fat camp, where she lost the weight, and then regained it. Putting on weight was "an intense form of control", Gay says. The boys in the woods had taken her body, "and they broke it. I will never get that body back, and I hate that, because it was a good body. But they took it; they ruined it. And so, when I ate, I got to make my body into what I wanted it to be, which is a fortress."In her mid-teens, she went to an exclusive boarding school, Exeter in New Hampshire. "Socially, it was miserable. I had just come off this really traumatic experience, I was a fucked-up mess, and nobody knew how to help me." She wrote dramatic, repetitive stories, full of sexual violence, and a teacher called Rex McGuinn saw something promising in them – and something deeply troubling. They met one day and he said, "I'd like you to go to the counselling centre. I think they can help you, and I'll walk you over."This was a huge relief, she says; someone had finally noticed that she had a problem. "I like to joke about it, but I do think that helped me not to end up dead, one way or another. I don't have suicidal instincts, but I do think I was putting myself in dangerous situations, just because I had a lack of self-regard. I was going to Boston on the weekends, going to bad parts of town, and not telling anybody where I was, because I just thought, 'Whatever happens, happens.' It had already happened."McGuinn encouraged her as a writer, showing her ways "to make these stories not just this purging of whatever the fuck. He taught me craft, and he also taught me discipline. He told me to write every day. I was very impressionable, and so I write every day." This led to her publishing erotica in her early 20s, before moving on to literary fiction and non-fiction as she completed a master's degree and a PhD. Although she obviously wishes the rape had never happened, she knows it has shaped her as a writer. "I don't think I would have a fraction of the fierceness in my writing if I hadn't had to endure that, and the aftermath," she says.In her essays, Gay considers the ways in which sexual violence is treated as entertainment, central to countless TV detective dramas, fetishised and titillating. "Most of the time," she says, "the victims are stylised, beautiful women, or very rugged, handsome men… We love the dead girl, beautifully draped and tints of blue, but still, so pretty!" She also grapples with the specific ways rape is written about. In the essay The Careless Language Of Sexual Violence, she considers a New York Times article about the gang-rape of an 11-year-old girl by 18 men and boys in Cleveland, Texas. "Little word space was spent on the girl, the child," she writes. Instead, the focus was on how the men's lives would be changed, the impact on the town, whether the boys would be able to return to school, where the girl's mother was at the time of the attack. "As a writer who is also a woman, I increasingly feel that writing is a political act whether I intend it to be or not," she writes, because we live in a culture in which this article "is permissible and publishable. I am troubled by how we have allowed such intellectual distance between violence and the representation of violence. We talk about rape, but we don't carefully talk about rape."Gay was determined that there would be no titillation in her novel, which she wrote over four months in 2010. "I always knew that I was going to write the violence explicitly, without stylising it," she says. "I wanted to treat violence as information, and so how do I give that information to the reader without being gratuitous?" An Untamed State is the story of Mireille Duval Jameson, a Miami-based lawyer who travels to Haiti, with her husband Michael and their son Christophe, to visit her wealthy parents, before being kidnapped for 13 days and brutalised by a group of men. "There were some days where I would write scenes, particularly the first scene where Mireille is raped," Gay says, "and it was just like, 'Something is wrong with you to come up with some nonsense like this!' It was hard, but it felt necessary." She has been stunned by the response, which includes those warm reviews, its placing on "best of" lists and the praise of other authors, among them Sheila Heti and Ayelet Waldman.For Gay, writing is a way "to think through what it means to be in this world. I definitely write to reach other people, but I write for myself first. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. It's just that this is me trying to make sense of my place, and how did I get here, and why am I so lucky in some ways, and so unlucky in others? So it starts with me, and then I move beyond the self, as much as I can."There have been times in her life, she says, when she has wanted to be invisible. There was that lost year in Arizona, and then in her 20s when she was gaining more weight and consciously exploring what it would take to escape the male gaze completely. "It's interesting," she says, "because the bigger you become, the less you're seen. You still deal with the shit, but it's nowhere near as much. When I'm with my hot friends, the amount of catcalling they deal with, well, I deal with a tenth of that. But it's weird that I even have to deal with it at all. I kept thinking, during my crazier years, 'Where is the point where I will no longer be catcalled?' Because that's what I was looking for. And that's not healthy, and I've changed. But I definitely was looking for that point, and I haven't found it."In happy contrast, and as a result of a lot of work, her 30s have been great. "I didn't think it could be this good, and I'm looking forward to my 40s. I know I have a long way to go in terms of happiness, but there's just no comparison."Her writing is still developing, she's 30,000 words into her second novel and is working on another collection of essays. After years of wanting to disappear, Roxane Gay is where she deserves to be – in the spotlight, on her own terms.• Bad Feminist: Essays, by Roxane Gay, is published by Constable & Robinson at £12.99. To order a copy for £10.39, with free UK mainland p&p, go to theguardian.com/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.Roxane Gay: meet the bad feministKira Cochrane is a British journalist and novelist. She currently works as Head of Features at The Guardian, and worked previously as Head of Opinion. Cochrane is an advocate for women's rights, as well as an active participant in fourth wave feminist movements.STEINEM: I don’t remember being thought of as good-looking until I became a feminist. It’s more of a comment on people’s expectations than of what a feminist would look like. They assumed that if you could get a man, you wouldn’t want anything else—what else could you possibly want? So that feminists who were talking about such things as equal pay must be doing so because they were unable to get a husband to support them, and therefore they must be ugly—this was the sort of train of thought. It’s not extinct, but it’s changing. So because I looked different from the stereotype, then people would comment. Before that, it was almost entirely a liability as a writer. I remember being sent home … My literary agent had sent me for an assignment to Life magazine. I walked into the office, and the editor looked up from his desk and said, “We don’t want a pretty girl, we want a writer. Get out of here.” That was that. It made you a novelty, sort of like a talking dog—a pretty girl who thinks. But in a deeper sense, it was a liability because they didn’t take you seriously.FARB: So it’s made you the exception in certain situations—like the only girl on the team in certain assignments?STEINEM: I would have been that anyway.FARB: When you were a youngster I understand you were quite a hoofer. Do you still like to tap dance?STEINEM: I really like to tap dance. I think it’s great fun.FARB: Where do you do it now?STEINEM: Mostly in elevators, when there’s nobody in there but me and the muzak. Then the doors open and there I am, arms akimbo, caught embarrassingly in mid-step. But sometimes, when I work at home and I’m tired of sitting at the typewriter, I’ll get up and tap dance.FARB: Which presidential candidate do you think is the most receptive to women’s issues?STEINEM: Well, all of them, except for Ronald Reagan, are receptive, at least on paper. By all of them, I mean on both sides—Senator Bob Packwood, for instance, who had spoken up as a presidential possibility if Reagan chose not to run, is also much better on women’s issues. Most politicians outside the right-wing extremists, like Reagan, have become fairly responsive. Only one of the Democratic candidates, I would say, is not acceptable, and that is Reuben Askew.Carolyn Farb is philanthropist, fundraiser and art collector. She has raised more than 50 million dollars for numerous charitable causes. Farb is a resident of River Oaks, a rich neighborhood in Houston, TexasNew Again: Gloria Steinem - Interview MagazineGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine, and a co-founder of Ms. magazine. WikipediaBorn: March 25, 1934 (age 85 years), Toledo, OHSpouse: David Bale (m. 2000–2003)Movies and TV shows: A Bunny's Tale, The Glorias, MOREAwards: Presidential Medal of Freedom, CFDA Board of Directors' Tribute, Glamour Lifetime Achievement AwardSpeaking at the Women’s March in Los Angeles, Natalie Portman detailed the “environment of sexual terrorism” she endured in her youth that impacted the trajectory of her career.Portman, one of the actors behind the Time’s Up initiative combatting sexual harassment and abuse in Hollywood and other industries, said she experienced sexual harassment at the age of 13 when her first film, 1994’s Léon: The Professional, came out.Her first-ever piece of fan mail, she said, was a rape fantasy written by a man. Her local radio show created a countdown to her 18th birthday, “euphemistically,” she told the crowd of 500,000 people, “the date that I would be legal to sleep with.” And movie reviewers would mention her “budding breasts” in reviews.“I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually I would feel unsafe and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort,” she said.RELATED STORIESCan Survivor Survive its Sexual Harassment Scandal?After CEO's Ouster, McDonald's Workers Sue Company Over 'Systemic Problem' of Sexual HarassmentPortman said she rejected roles with a “kissing scene” and developed a reputation as “prudish, conservative, nerdy, serious, in an attempt to feel like my body was safe and my voice would be listened to.”“I felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit my expression and my work in order to send my own message to the world that I’m someone worth of safety and respect,” she added. “The response to my expression, from small comments about my body to more threatening deliberate statements, served to control my behavior through an environment of sexual terrorism.”Watch 2018 Women's Marches Around The WorldWhile many attending Women’s Marches across the nation Saturday are voicing their opposition to the President on issues including immigration and abortion, Donald Trump said it was “a perfect day” for women to celebrate the “historic milestones” of hSharePlay VideoPortman spoke at the Los Angeles Women’s March Saturday as hundreds of thousands of others around the country took the streets a year after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Other actors like Viola Davis, Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johansson and Constance Wu spoke in Los Angeles at the march amid a national reckoning concerning sexual harassment, assault and abuse in industries throughout the country.In Women's March Speech, Natalie Portman Details 'Environment of Sexual Terrorism'Jennifer Calfas covers U.S. news for The Wall Street Journal. She previously wrote for Money and Time magazines, where she covered workplace issues and breaking news. She grew up in California and graduated from the University of Michigan. Email her at jennifer.calfas@The Wall Street Journal - Breaking News, Business, Financial & Economic News, World News and Video.Natalie PortmanNatalie Portman (born Neta-Lee Hershlag, Hebrew: נטע-לי הרשלג‎; June 9, 1981) is an actress and filmmaker with dual Israeli and American citizenship. She is an Oscar-winning film actress, theater actress, activist and speaker.Mrs. Clinton — scarred by the blowback for saying she chose to pursue a career rather than staying home to bake cookies, chastised by her husband’s West Wing aides for declaring that “women’s rights are human rights” in Beijing in 1995 and warned by her 2016 campaign chairman to avoid talking about glass ceilings — came to adopt a more tentative embrace of how she talked about her gender.Throughout her career, many women would view Mrs. Clinton as an imperfect vessel for the feminist cause. She was a Yale-educated lawyer who at the height of the 1970s women’s movement moved to Arkansas to put her own ambitions on hold in furtherance of her husband’s career. A refrain I’d often hear from voters on the 2016 campaign trail was that they were happy to vote for a woman, just not “that woman.”But the roiling, messy, often painful progress made since Mr. Trump took office has recast Mrs. Clinton, who recently topped Gallup’s poll of most admired women. Her career brings to light the truth that there is no perfect vessel, that sooner or later, the harder we strive, the higher we climb, we all become that woman.It’s now nearly a year since several million women with pink pussy hats and homemade signs took to the streets in cities across the country to protest Mr. Trump. Mrs. Clinton didn’t attend the Women’s March on Washington, but the role she played in spurring the current wave of activism has become more clear.Amy Chozick is a New York-based writer at large for The New York Times, writing about the personalities and power struggles in business, politics and media. She is the author of “Chasing Hillary,” a Times best-selling memoir that is being developed into a TV series.Hilary Clinton is the former First Lady, human rights advocate, former Senator, former Secretary of State for eight years, and the first woman to be the Democratic nominee for President. Also: Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker. She served as First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001, as a United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and as the 67th United States secretary of state from 2009 until 2013.Addressing the 500,000 Women's March attendees gathered in downtown Los Angeles Saturday and even more onlookers livestreaming it at home, Scarlett Johansson began her speech with a pointed barb aimed squarely at James Franco."How could a person publicly stand by an organization that helps to provide support for victims of sexual assault while privately preying on people who have no power?" said Johansson, one of the 300 original signatories of the Time's Up letter calling for an end to abuse and harassment of women everywhere.Scarlett Johansson was calling out James Franco in her Women's March speechBy Jen Yamato - journalist, film reporter, culture writer, amateur singer. Scarlett Johansson is a Scarlett Ingrid Johansson is an American actress and singer. The world's highest-paid actress since 2018, she has made multiple appearances in the Forbes Celebrity 100. Her films have grossed over $14.3 billion worldwide, making Johansson the third-highest-grossing box office star of all timeActress Viola Davis, on the day when hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets across America, on Saturday sought to give voice to the silent and faceless victims of sexual assault."Every single day, your job as an American citizen is not just to fight for your rights, but it is to fight for the right of every individual that is taking a breath, whose heart is pumping and breathing on this earth," she told the crowd in Los Angeles.Meg Wagner✔@megwagnerAnd back at the LA women's march, Viola Davis is now addressing the crowd http://snpy.tv/2F0MeWNAnd back at the LA women's march, Viola Davis is now addressing the crowd https://t.co/Kh2niSEh8E— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) January 20, 2018Twitter Ads info and privacyAnd back at the LA women's march, Viola Davis is now addressing the crowd https://t.co/Kh2niSEh8E— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) January 20, 2018Her remarks came at a time when women across the country have come forward to accuse high-profile men of sexual misconduct in what's become known as the "Me Too" Movement.Actress Viola Davis"I am speaking today not just for the 'Me Toos, because I was a 'Me Too,' but when I raise my hand, I am aware of all the women who are still in silence," she said in an emotional speech."The women who are faceless. The women who don't have the money and don't have the constitution and who don't have the confidence and who don't have the images in our media that gives them a sense of self-worth enough to break their silence that is rooted in the shame of assault and rooted in the stigma of assault."Viola Davis is an American actress and producer. Having won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, she is the first black actress or actor to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017.Meet Meg. Hi. I'm Meg, and I like to break things. I am a New York City-based breaking news editor, currently working for CNN. Previously, I was on the founding team of http://Tribune.com, a never-launched Tribune Media-owned news site, and before that, I worked on the New York Daily News's digital news desk.Greg Gilhooly speaks out: How one of Graham James’ first alleged victims found justiceby Nick Faris, Features WriterGreg Gilhooly is a corporate lawyer, father, memoirist, advocate and former hockey player at University.“Once Graham had an opening to talk to me, that was all [he] needed to work his skills in terms of trying to get to me. I didn’t recognize it as grooming when it was happening, but when I look back on it as an adult, I can see that anything he ever told me—I have no idea whether it was true or not—but to the boy I was back then, it all made perfect sense.” – Greg GilhoolyA coach of the hockey team several years ahead of Gilhooly, James promised a kind of personal mentorship to the young goalie, a path to bigger stages, as long as one caveat was followed.“Right from the get-go, secrecy was of paramount importance to Graham,” says Gilhooly. “He made it clear, even from our first conversation in Minneapolis, that I was not to tell anyone that we had even spoken about this. That if my coaches caught wind that Graham was interfering at all, that would be no good for me.”“I’m a 14-year-old kid, and it all makes perfect sense to me as to why I shouldn’t be telling anyone,” he adds.When the two met, it started with conversations about hockey and personal training sessions. Over time, though, James began to work on breaking down Gilhooly’s barriers.He positioned himself as a mentor: a caring mentor who was going to ask me things that nobody else would ask me. That’s exactly what he did, except he wasn’t going to be a mentor, he was going to be an abuser.”“The way Graham worked on me for months was that he effectively became my father figure … He had me thinking that my father was not [looking out for] my best interests, that Graham was the only one who cared about me, [that] my coaches didn’t care about me, my friends didn’t care about me.” – Greg GilhoolyGreg Gilhooly speaks out: How one of Graham James’ first alleged victims found justiceOne year later, in New York State Supreme Court, David Newman was sentenced to prison after lab tests showed that, in addition to the morphine that had been prescribed to her and logged in to the hospital record, Aja had been given an unauthorized dose of propofol, a powerful anaesthetic used in surgeries and in smaller doses to help patients disassociate during the setting of a limb. It is what killed Michael Jackson. Semen samples gathered during forensic tests had matched David’s DNA, and, in a deal that reduced his prison time to two years, he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse in the first degree and four counts of sexual abuse in the third degree. The state’s case included three more people — all young women of color, all poor — who said David Newman had touched or grabbed their breasts when they came to the ED in the last half of 2015. One had come in for a cold, another for a rash on her eyebrow, a third for a headache.In a field that doesn’t generally breed superstars, David Newman was the exception. He had published op-eds in the New York Times and the Huffington Post; he had done a TED Talk showing how medical data gets misinterpreted. He had been profiled in Wired magazine. With help from the superagent Binky Urban, he had published a book with Scribner, Hippocrates’ Shadow, which advocates for transparency between doctors and patients. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome in a little-brother, college-athlete kind of way or that he had been a medic in Iraq or that he had a confrontational, wiseass way of talking that delighted the residents he taught in the ED.When Detective Eusebio Santos came to his door in Montclair, New Jersey, at around 9 p.m. on January 12, David started to lie. “I am embarrassed,” he said, “because I whacked off in the lounge, and it was possible that the ejaculate may have gone from my hands to the woman’s blanket. Semen may also have transferred from my hand to her face during the time I treated her. I can’t believe this is happening. My explanation doesn’t make sense.” And then: “She may be mistaken about me ejaculating on her face, because she was on morphine. I gave her a second dose of morphine myself.” And then, three different times, “Is she alleging that I raped her?”By the time of his sentencing a year later, he had been fired from Mount Sinai, and the New York State Department of Health had suspended his medical license. (It was later revoked.) The $1.2 million house in New Jersey he had recently bought with his wife, also an emergency-room doctor in the Mount Sinai system, was sold, and his wife had started divorce proceedings and moved with the kids to her hometown of New Orleans, where her parents still lived. In the courtroom, David called his own actions “disgusting,” and the judge commended him on his remorse. But on the day of his sentencing, Aja stood up in court and gave a victim-impact statement. David, seated at the defendant’s table, twisted all the way around to look her in the eye. “I believe you’re only sorry because you got caught,” she said.Aja Newman is a tall 33-year-old woman with sparkly eyes and a wry smile. At the time of the assault, she was working as a baggage handler at La Guardia airport. Aja thinks of herself as a fierce person, a fighter, so “victim” sits uncomfortably with her, though, after years of therapy, she understands that the word fits. In the courtroom, David Newman said, “It’s not your fault,” and at this acknowledgment of her powerlessness, Aja wept. “I believe what people do is they stop associating themselves with you,” she says, describing the dynamic between doctors and patients. “It’s like, ‘I’m the superhero, and you’re the damsel in distress,’ and it’s almost like you’re disposable. You’re a thing to do.”In a statement, the hospital says, “We are so sorry that Ms. Newman was the victim of this horrible criminal act.” But for more than three years, it has been fighting her in court, where she has brought a damages suit. It has cut ties with David Newman and deployed what might be called a “bad apple” defense — despite a finding by the U.S. Department of Health that members on staff had failed, at least twice, to report his activities up the chain of command, thus placing “all patients at risk.” In the meantime, David has served his brief sentence and is living in New Orleans near his ex-wife and kids.One Night at Mount Sinaiby Lisa Miller Lisa Miller is an American writer and journalist. She is currently a contributing editor for New York. Formerly a senior editor of Newsweek and a religion columnist for the Washington Post, Miller is a Wilbur Prize-winning author and a commentator on religion, history, and religious faithHospital records show that Newman ordered four milligrams of morphine, which a nurse administered around midnight.Newman then gave Aja another dose although she objected.“Don’t jump,” she recalled him telling him as she felt the burn around her skin from the medicine going through the IV port.“I’m like, ‘Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not okay.’ And I am immediately concerned. I”m going under way too fast,” she said.Aja and her six siblings, as well as her three children, had been born at the hospital where her grandmother had been a nurse, so she didn’t feel there was any reason to think then-Dr. Newman had any intention of harming her.Mount Sinai was “my hospital,” she told The Cut, adding that she generally felt safe like, “Hey, Doc, do your thing. I trust you.”Aja recalled feeling Dr. Newman move the bed and wedge himself between it and the wall. He then began groping her breasts and masturbating.“I was in and out of consciousness, and one of the first things I felt was him groping my breast,” she told The Cut. “It wasn’t really real until I realized I couldn’t move. I can’t say I know my eyes weren’t open, but I couldn’t see. I felt the bed move. And the groping was making me like, ‘Get off me.’ I’m trying to move. I’m trying to fight. And it’s like either he’s really strong or I’m not doing anything at all.”Aja said that the sound of him masturbating was unmistakable and afterward he roughly wiped her down with the bedsheet before muttering, “Bitch.”A while later, Aja was able to get up from the bed and stumble her way to the bathroom while having foggy images of what just occurred. She didn’t feel confident anyone would believe her if she told anyone what happened since she was still drugged and not in a position to say anything.“But I know I’m in danger. And I’m like, ‘You’ve got to get out of here,’” she said.Four hours later, Aja was stable enough to leave the ER alone.Hospital video shows her dressed in her winter coat and fedora-style hat, moving unsteadily toward the exit. She was carrying a large plastic bag with her hospital gown and bedding inside with the hope that she could use it as forensic evidence, The Cut reports.Hospital video also showed Dr. Newman moving about the ER attending to various patients. Around 2 am he was working at his computer before he got up and walked away only to return moments later. This time though, his shirttail appeared to be untucked a little, The Cut reports. After that, the video showed his shirt was tucked in again.Aja vomited outside of the hospital on the sidewalk before walking half a mile to her sister Shatekqua’s house and asking her to call the police.“My sister went to the hospital last night. She says the doctor masturbated -- jerked off … on her? On her. This is crazy, the stuff you make up in movies. I mean, what the hell?” her sister said on the 911 call, The Cut reports.Aja declined an ambulance and her sister relayed that information to the 911 dispatcher before adding, “She just needs the police.”Newman told a detective who showed up at his Montclair, New Jersey home around 9 pm on January 12, 2016, “I am embarrassed because I whacked of in the lounge, and it was possible that the ejaculate may have gone from my hands to the woman’s blanket. Semen may also have transferred from my hand to her face during the time I treated her. I can’t believe this is happening. My explanation doesn’t make sense.”He then told the detective, “She may be mistaken about me ejaculating on her face, because she was on morphine. I gave her a second dose of morphine myself.”Newman then asked the detective three times, “Is she alleging that I raped her?”Luckily, Aja had taken the hospital robe and bedsheet in hopes it would lead to proof of her claims.But when she also asked the technician, who sprayed Luminol on the bag of evidence, to also spray her, what they saw was shocking.“It was all over my face, all over between my breasts like I told her,” Aja told The Cut. “I remember she started crying, and she was like, ‘Aja, don’t move.’ And she took the samples off my face. I believe that’s the only thing that caught him.”The New York State Supreme Court sentenced David Newman to prison one year later after lab tests showed that Aja was given more than just morphine that night.In addition, she was given an “unauthorized does of propofol,” The Cut reports, which is the powerful anesthetic often used in surgeries and was responsible for the death of Michael Jackson.Semen samples gathered during forensic tests matched the doctor’s DNA.Despite the evidence, Newman cut a deal by pleading guilty to one count of sexual abuse in the first degree and four counts of sexual abuse in the third degree to reduce his sentence to two years.There were also three more victims, who claimed Newman also molested them in the last half of 2015. Their symptoms and reasons for visiting the ER included a cold, a rash on an eyebrow, and a headache.All four of the women, including Aja, are women of color from low-income areas.Newman was fired from Mount Sinai and the New York State Department of Health revoked his medical license.Dr. Uché Blackstock, who knew the former physician, tweeted Tuesday (October 22) in support of Aja and all victims, writing, “I knew David Newman, but when I very first heard your story, Aja, I believed you. You deserved to be protected the most. I’m so sorry you had to go through this, but we are fighting to make sure this never happens again.”by Zayda Rivera. Zayda Rivera is a CEO & Founder, 3L Communiqué; Founder, Sisters of the World; Culture WriterRabbi Avrohom Zippel, 28, and father of two, first came forward in an article in February in the Deseret News. The newspaper said he may be the first Orthodox rabbi to come forward during the #MeToo movement as a survivor of sexual abuse.The rabbi, who works as a Chabad emissary in Salt Lake City, where he grew up, said the #MeToo movement inspired him to come forward. He also cited as an inspiration Jewish Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, who testified in court alongside 156 other women against former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted of sexually abusing them.Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City in 2002 at 14 and was sexually abused during her nine months being held captive, was in the courtroom for the verdict. She has advised Rabbi Zippel throughout the case.Rabbi Peretz Chein, the co-founder of the Chabad House at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, also was in the courtroom. He came forward earlier this year as a sexual abuse survivor, the newspaper reported.Florreich, a native of Tonga, a kingdom in the South Pacific, was arrested in March 2018 on suspicion of 131 counts of child abuse.Former nanny found guilty of sexually abusing Utah Chabad rabbiRabbi Avrohom Zippel is a Talmudist, religious scholar, rabbi, father, advocate and Chabad emissary. Article published by JTA.Former nanny found guilty of sexually abusing Utah Chabad rabbiSo it depends what you mean by hate. If, for you, hate is fighting child sexual assault, child physical assault, and child sexual abuse, then yes, groups like Undermine the Patriarchy represent hate. On the other hand, if you oppose violence directed at innocent fellow citizens and believe child abuse is wrong, then groups like Undermine the Patriarchy do not represent hate. If you advocate life-threatening violence to children and the destruction and splitting of families, then it is hate. If you oppose violence against children, it is not hate. If you support gang rape, sex slavery, slavery, and honor killing, it is not hate. If you advocate for and enthusiastically support slavery, gang rape, domestic violence, child marriage, child slavery, rape in prison, rape as a weapon of war, and abuse of men, women, and children, then I would advise you to stay away from Undermine the Patriarchy. OP, sadly, your values may not be welcome there.In which category would you place yourself? There’s the answer to your question. Hope that helps, and have a great day!P.S. BTW, for future reference, you may be interested to know that “Undermind” is not a word. You may want to consult a dictionary before you ask questions on Quora. Or read a book or two or many, many more of them.

The 30 Best HBO Shows of All Time:30. True Blood (2008-2014)In this Southern-gothic romance series, recently invented imitation blood allows vampires to come out of the coffin, and it only gets weirder from there. Built around a steamy love triangle between telepathic rural Louisiana waitress Sookie Stackhouse and not one but two alluring vampires, the show, adapted from Charlaine Harris' novels by Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, was a ratings smash and HBO's first prestige-era genre success, lighting the path for Game of Thrones a few years later. The series frequently veered into schlock and silliness, and went off the rails after Ball bailed following Season 5, but True Blood's strong ensemble cast consistently sold all the jibber-jabber about shapeshifters, werewolves, and faeries, and introduced America to bohunks Alexander Skarsgård and Joe Manganiello, to boot.29. Vice Principals (2016-2017)For their follow-up to Eastbound and Down, the creative braintrust of Danny McBride, Jody Hill, and David Gordon Green went back to school. (Again!) From his low-budget star-making vehicle The Foot Fist Way, McBride has displayed a gift for interacting with kids, particularly when he's in a position of authority he probably doesn't deserve, and Vice Principals milks his gruff rapport with our nation's youth for big laughs. But the best part of the show is McBride's toxic relationship with Walton Goggins' Lee Russell, a bowtie-wearing maniac with a cruel streak that would make Kenny Powers take a step back and reassess some shit. By letting Goggins be the crazy one and forcing McBride to actually grow up a little, Vice Principals manages to be more than an Eastbound retread. Over two seasons, it became its own wild, uncaged animal.28. Flight of the Conchords (2007-2009)Flight of the Conchords heralded the coming of a brand of comedy that's exploded more recently. Now, New Zealand humor has found its way into major blockbusters like Thor: Ragnarok, but when Conchords premiered in 2007 we hadn't seen much like Bret and Jemaine. While the premise was highly reminiscent of Tenacious D (see #25), the Conchords tweaked the idea of depicting struggling troubadours with precisely one overzealous fan (Lee vs. Mel) and their attempt to navigate an uncaring music scene by focusing on the fish-out-of-water struggles of two Kiwis in America saddled with a manager (played by scene-stealer Rhys Darby) who also works at the New Zealand consulate, who's every bit as inept as the agent played by Stephen Merchant in Extras. And as with Tenacious D, the reason to watch and rewatch Conchords all these years later is the catchy, hilarious songs, brilliantly deployed via low-budget numbers that tie in with each episode's plot. They're still going on tours, and we're happy to hear them play the hits.27. Westworld (2016-Present)This sci-fi series, set in a theme park that attracts people who get off on Wild West cosplay and doing appalling things to extremely lifelike robots, explores artificial intelligence, human empathy, and the ethical ramifications of merging technology with consciousness. Produced by J.J. Abrams and created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, it is also a mind-bending puzzle show that has launched a billion Reddit posts that attempt to sleuth all the timeline fuckery. It's inherently not for everyone, but to paraphrase the show for the haters, this game isn't meant for you. For the rest: welcome to Westworld, where you will revel in this violent brain-teaser of a program, which is based on the 1973 movie written and directed by Michael Crichton. Witness its impressive cast, led by Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, Tessa Thompson, and Sir Anthony Hopkins, all gathered to perform for your considerable amusement. Delight in its theme song and soundtrack of cover songs. Season 3 should be here before we know it.26. Tenacious D (1997-2000)In just six episodes, a pre-megafame Jack Black and his songwriting partner Kyle Gass give us the crystal-clear worldview of Kyle and Jack, aka KG and Jables, a Burrito Supreme-loving, Sega Genesis-playing folk-rock duo with self-aggrandized song-writing skills and bombastic on-stage theatrics. While the vignettes that power the episode plots and take us on their quests to write the perfect song, find Sasquatch, and ditch their only fan hold up two decades on -- and that's not too surprising, given that Bob Odenkirk and David Cross produced the series. But it's the songs, along with star-making gonzo performance by Jack Black, that will hold up for eternity, much like their beloved "A Stairway to Heaven."25. The Deuce (2017-Present)HBO has long given David Simon the space to explore urban decay and revitalization. The former reporter and Homicide: Life on the Street writer has walked down every sketchy alley and ordered drinks at every dive bar in Baltimore (The Wire), New Orleans (Treme), and Yonkers (Show Me a Hero). The Deuce is Simon's take on New York City -- specifically, 1970s Times Square, arguably the seediest time and place in the city's seedy history. The show also uncharacteristically features what could be considered two gimmicks, but which in Simon's hands never appear gimmicky: James Franco plays twins who are embroiled in the Mafia-connected nightlife and gambling scene, and gratuitous sex scenes as the result of a sex industry backdrop. While both offer a measure of comic relief -- whether in the form of Franco's Fonzie-esque portrayal of Frankie Martino, or uses for potato soup you never thought possible -- The Deuce succeeds by taking interest in the humanity of pimps, sex workers, bartenders, and mafiosos in equal measure. It also boasts the not-so-secret weapon of Maggie Gyllenhaal's Candy, a sex worker without a pimp who's making the transition into porn films, and who is the show's most fully realized character in an era bubbling with second-wave feminism, yet still dominated by men. With a third season officially confirmed as the show's last, The Deuce leaves you with a feeling every New York City resident experiences regularly: Damn, I missed all the good stuff.24. Looking (2014-2016)Looking is one of those shows that had too much pressure on it from the outset. Billed as the gay men's answer to Girls or Sex and the City -- given that it was simply about a group of friends in a major metropolitan area -- some viewers felt it needed to answer for an entire community. Look beyond those early headlines, though, and you'll find one of the most compelling and downright romantic love triangles anywhere on television. The show really hit its stride when it began to tease out the conflicted heart of Jonathan Groff's Patrick -- torn between his sexy boss, played by Russell Tovey, and Raúl Castillo's handsome barber Richie. Looking always had a dreamy quality, thanks to executive producer Andrew Haigh's direction, but the characters never felt like caricatures, even when they were frustrating.23. Bored to Death (2009-2011)In 2018, the jig is up for shows about sad, quirky white boy artists in New York, and so Bored to Death certainly looks its age. Women are either needy nuisances or conquerable objects, the homophobic jokes don’t exactly hold up, and the mopey beta-mensch schtick of Jason Schwartzman's Jonathan Ames (actual author, show creator) can get pedantic. Jonathan, a struggling novelist and sometimes journalist, decides to list an ad for his unlicensed private investigator services on Craigslist after getting drunk and reading a Raymond Carver novel, and turns it into an non-lucrative side gig full of hijinks, to the dismay of his best friend, cartoonist Ray Hueston (Zach Galifianakis, six months out from The Hangover-level fame). They otherwise spend their time fighting off early 30s malaise with booze and weed, and some of the series' funniest and shockingly progressive conversations come from dissecting the relationship between addiction and mental health. It’s a frustrating satire for modern times, to be sure, but like a theme party from 2009, we can say that it was fun back then, and remember it fondly for its high points: Ted Danson as a neurotic magazine editor, early career cameos for likes of Jenny Slate, Kristen Wiig, and Zoe Kazan, bad detective stories, and tons of white wine.22. Girls (2012-2017)Oh, Girls. Girls -- if discussions in Thrillist's office are an indication -- is probably the most controversial HBO show on this list. And sure enough, Lena Dunham's creation was a lightning rod for hot takes throughout its six-season run. Some of the complaints were justified: Girls presented a far too white look at hipster Brooklyn, and never truly improved when it came to diversity. Some were not: Dunham's mere existence seemed to enrage people, especially considering she had absolutely no qualms doing nude scenes. The show was often hit or miss, but when it was good it was wonderfully awkward, as Dunham and co-showrunner Jenni Konner created indelibly cringeworthy moments (Marnie singing Kanye, anyone?), and genuinely laugh-out-loud scenarios like basically anything involving Andrew Rannells as Elijah. Girls will never be for everyone, but it was often brutally honest when it came to the prickly and inconsistent nature of young friends.21. High Maintenance (2016-Present)What started in 2012 as a web series about a weed delivery guy became a slightly glossier TV series about a weed delivery guy. (Quite literally: The central character’s "name" is The Guy, played by co-creator Ben Sinclair.) In its transition to HBO in 2016, High Maintenance retained its low-budget, hyperrealist allure, relying on the large talent pool of New York City residents to star in its vignettes of people who order weed from The Guy. Some stories focus on peculiar interactions with clients in their apartments, others on longer arcs of people in various levels of existential conflict that lead them to cross paths with The Guy. Some have more to say than others, but, since each portrait never really surpasses 12 minutes, none quite overstay their welcome. High Maintenance doesn’t have the propulsive high stakes or cliffhangers of other shows on this list, but creators Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld plucked an odd thing that only really happens in NYC and made it a broadly relatable abstraction of the zeitgeist.20. Barry (2018-Present)Like more than a few shows on this list, Barry is early in its run and could jump to a higher spot if it manages to deliver more seasons of the same caliber as its excellent first year (and the second season indicates that it will continue in the same vein). SNLstandout Bill Hader plays the titular Barry, an ex-Marine-turned-hitman who arrives in Los Angeles to kill a mark for the Chechen mob and ends up sticking around in his new city to study acting. The premise of the show is a little tired -- Grosse Pointe Blankand countless crime novels have robbed the hitman of real cultural potency -- but the tonal tightrope Hader (who directs multiple episodes) and his co-creator Alec Berg (Silicon Valley) walk is thrilling. Most of all, it's surprising! Of all the half-hour shows on TV currently blending drama and comedy, Barry is the only one that explores Breaking Bad-like moral conundrums while delivering actual laughs. (As good as Emmy-winner Henry Winkler is as acting teacher Gene Cousineau, Anthony Carrigan's kind-hearted gangster NoHo Hank might be the funniest supporting character on TV.) If the show can keep hitting its targets with the same level of efficiency, it could be a classic.19. Extras (2005-2007)The arc of Ricky Gervais' career makes it easy to forget that after he hit the jackpot with The Office, he followed up with a genuinely funny show about the perils of seeking, and eventually finding, fame. Extras is similar to The Office in that Gervais plays a small-timer with outsized ambitions, but the conceit -- he and his friends take roles as extras while they're trying to make it big -- allows for some legendary cameos. The most memorable are Ian McKellan explaining that the key to acting is pretending to be somebody else, Patrick Stewart's screenplay in which he has the ability to make people's clothes fall off, and David Bowie's impromptu song mocking Gervais. It may be enough to make you forgive him for Derek.18. Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014)When Boardwalk Empire premiered, it was seen as an attempt at a Sopranos-type hit, but with a vintage flair. Created by Terence Winter -- who wrote for Tony and the gang -- Boardwalk looked at the lives of gangsters in Prohibition Era Atlantic City. The Martin Scorsese-directed pilot set the tone for the show, which centered on Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson. That initial season might have been too gratuitous, too bloody, too slow, and too male for some, but Boardwalk rewarded those who stuck with it. Sure, it stayed violent and sex-filled, but it also dove deeper into characters like Michael K. Williams' Chalky White, Jack Huston's Richard Harrow, and Gretchen Mol's Gillian Darmody. It was a prurient history lesson with a healthy amount of pathos, and a top-notch cast of character actors. Everyone from Michael Stuhlbarg to Michael Shannon was sublime.17. Big Little Lies (2017-Present)Big Little Lies is the perfect peak TV product. The adaptation of Liane Moriarty's novel was sheparded by Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, who decided not only to produce, but also star in this tale of the nasty secrets hiding among the moms of Monterey society. They brought along their other big screen pals: Director Jean-Marc Vallée and actors Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley. Better than just high-wattage star power? Big Little Lies actually turned out to be some of the tastiest TV in years. It's both pulpy -- Witherspoon's performance is made for memes -- and devastating. With Vallée's killer soundtrack in the background, the show cuts through its gossipy exterior to weave a sensitive portrait of domestic abuse, and Kidman in particular does career best work. The one caveat: There's a season two coming. Despite covering the territory in the novel, the fan response led to a surprise renewal. But how bad could it be? It's going to be directed by American Honey auteur Andrea Arnold, and features Witherspoon throwing ice cream at Meryl Streep.16. Succession (2018-Present)Roystar Wayco is a Fox-analogous titan of the entertainment industry in Succession, and the moneyed family behind the media conglomerate is a fucking mess. Unlike the main players in Showtime's Billions, a roster stacked with Machiavellian geniuses, the Roys are mostly so, so bad at being in charge. After the aging patriarch Logan (Brian Cox) suffers from an incapacitating stroke, the siblings -- Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck) -- conspire against each other, waging buffoonish internal allyship campaigns for control over the company. Among the constant infighting and callous mega-wealthy antics in the show is an innate comedic timing that makes, say, covering up grave corporate negligence one big goof. Other things that happened in Succession's first and only season thus far: Shiv went to work for a leftist opposition presidential candidate, a relapsed Kendall did a Chappaquiddick, Roman basically OK'd the launch of a malfunctioning rocket ship into space, Shiv's fiancé Tom (a very funny Matthew Macfadyen) did a sex act at his bachelor party that may or may not exist in real life. When our luminary of integrity is Greg (Nicholas Braun), the perpetually stoned cousin who pukes through a mascot's eyehole, it's safe to assume the moral compass is definitely off-kilter here. (Love you tho, Greg.) Did the world really need another TV show about shitty rich white people? Probably not, but Succession creator Adam McKay (The Big Short) and showrunner Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show) made the case that there's room for one more.15. True Detective (2014-Present)The conventional wisdom says that Season 1 of Nic Pizzolatto's cop anthology is Very Good, and Season 2 is Very Bad. But! (Hot take alert!) Season 2 is also good, though it certainly lacks the charming rapport between Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, not to mention the moody, supernatural bayou aesthetic cultivated by director Cary Fukunaga in the show's first season. The sneaky truth of True Detective is that, for all the cop show tropes it riffs on, it's much more about developing mood, tone, and a sense of human inscrutability and isolation. Do you remember the specific crimes Rust Cohle and Mary Hart investigated in Season 1? Or do you remember McConaughey uttering dorm-room zen koans like, "Time is a flat circle," and flatly telling a child-killer, "You should kill yourself." You almost certainly recall the crazy raid scene, but do you remember why they raided that house? Season 2's labyrinthine murder mystery, which is actually about a complex infrastructure corruption plot (can't understand why people were turned off!), is not the point. You're here for the suburban malaise of Los Angeles sprawl, the least entertaining bar singer ever, Colin Farrell calling Friends a show that's like 20 years old, Rachel McAdams vaping, and Vince Vaughn struggling through monologues that ask way too much of him. Season 3 represented a return to the themes that made the first installment such a hit: memory, unfinished business, trauma, and regrets. With Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff forming the kind of grudgingly likable duo that McConaughey and Harrelson pulled off so effortlessly in Season 1, True Detective Season 3 proved to the Season 2 haters that the show hadn't lost its touch.14. Insecure (2016-Present)One of the questions that will go down as one of the most divisive of the late 2010s: Lawrence or Daniel? Though Insecure is so much more than its on-and-off-again relationships, Issa Rae's hunky love interests, played respectively by Jay Ellis and Y'lan Noel, yank out existential questions of our own malleability: What kind of person do we want our partners to help us be? Insecure's thoughtfulness about How to Act in Your Late 20s is part of what makes the show so brilliant, a theme that's carried on from its days as a web series called "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl" and has only became more cogent over its three seasons. Its frank discussions about race are also integral; Issa and her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji) are the lone black women in predominantly white offices and have to deal with some real bullshit in their very different careers. Beyond office politics, there are run-ins with the historically racist LAPD and conversations about interracial dating -- a mere few examples in a series about the black experience in America. Insecure is also damn funny: Issa's raps and pep talks to herself (primarily) in the mirror serve as reliable and relatable laughs, the awkward sex scenes are all too real, and Issa and Molly's friendship -- really, the show's backbone -- delivers endless gold.13. Silicon Valley (2014-Present)Mike Judge's biting satire about tech-world douchebaggery is a bit long in the tooth now -- and it's a testament to how well-defined the characters are that that sounds like a set-up for a Gilfoyle joke. Focusing on five dudes working at a start-up for a data-compression app its thin-skinned genius developer, Richard Hendricks, decided to call, to much derision, Pied Piper, Silicon Valley successfully created a universe of would-be power-players and confirmed back-stabbers, and excels when things never go right for the gang and their complete failure is masked by someone else fucking up even more.12. Enlightened (2011-2013)Buried under higher-profile and much-lauded work like Big Little Lies, for which Laura Dern won an Emmy, is perhaps Dern's best HBO performance: Enlightened, about a corporate executive who gets demoted to basement-dwelling work after self-destructing in spectacular fashion, and which earned microscopic ratings during its two-season run before getting the axe. The series, created and written by Mike White (School of Rock), gives Dern total freedom to teeter on the edge of a breakdown while manically insisting she's learned how to control her demons, and the result is a humorously melancholy sendup of both wellness subculture and corporate doublespeak. Dern's Amy Jellicoe so desperately needs to feel in control of her life -- which has blown up thanks to booze, an affair with her boss, and a miscarriage, among other things -- that she constantly threatens to make her situation worse, despite the new-age-y techniques she learned in rehab. Jellicoe's troubled relationship with her mother (played by Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mom) is especially layered with the emotional depth that runs through the entire series. As we look back for the cultural artifacts that best represent the Obama years, there may be no better candidate than Enlightened: Full of hope, constantly brought down by a brutal, unfeeling reality.11. Six Feet Under (2001-2005)Most of the praise Six Feet Under receives focuses on its finale, and rightfully so: It's the rare end to a series that stays true to the characters, offers a sense of resolution, and avoids saccharine sentimentality. But that kind of finale was only possible thanks to the sensitivity with which creator Alan Ball treated the people involved with Fisher & Sons Funeral Home, a place where death and grief were the norm, not the exception. They're daring topics for American television in particular, entertainment in a nation that doesn't exactly relish confronting death and grief. An outstanding cast that includes Michael C. Hall, Peter Krause, Frances Conroy, and Richard Jenkins as the dead family patriarch buoys the nuance with which raw human emotions dictate the action. These are people whose lives center on death, but that doesn't give them any philosophical advantage over the rest of us when it comes to dealing with the minor tragedies that afflict the living.10. Eastbound & Down (2009-2013)The deranged saga of the washed-up, narcissistic relief pitcher Kenny Powers from Danny McBride, Jody Hill, and David Gordon Green (among others) resulted in one of the funniest and most profane TV shows of the past decade, hands down. Kenny (McBride) is a singular anti-hero, his self-destructive tendencies capable of ruining any upward momentum he's caught, whether he's coping with fame or bottoming out with drugs and alcohol, spending money he comes into on things like jet skis and pet wolves, or treating those closest to him with total contempt. His utter dickishness leads to some dark places, but it's just how far Kenny Powers can fall after we think he's done the worst possible thing he could do that compelled us to watch him teach grade school gym, move to Mexico, fake his own death, open a baked potato restaurant with sidekick Stevie Janowski (Steve Little), host a sports show, etc. The supporting cast -- April (Katy Mixon), brother Dustin (John Hawkes), and his wife Cassie (Jennifer Irwin) -- tries to save Kenny from himself, with little success; he's a maelstrom of self-loathing and obnoxiousness in a curly mullet and athletic sunglasses. Eastbound & Down was hardly a comfortable watch, but there isn't a single episode that won't elicit some physical reaction, whether it's a laugh or a groan.9. Game of Thrones (2011-2019)Were this ranking based on how inspired you are to write fake lyrics about your cat to the sing during the theme song, then Game of Thrones would be number one with a bullet. By far the most popular and successful program in HBO's long history, the epic series based on the novels of George R. R. Martin, track the rise and fall and stumble and rise again of the Stark family, as they do battle with ancestral rivals, murderous skin-flayers, back-stabbers and front-stabbers, and mystical creatures known as White Walkers. If only it could continue forever! Alas, Game of Thrones is over, and while its eighth and final season drew the ire of many longtime fans, the series finale still delivered the kind of devastation, twists, and humor for which the show became famous in the first place. Will this ranking hold up? Ask us again in 10 years.8. The Leftovers (2014-2017)More than any other HBO show, The Leftovers leaves you feeling gutted. Based on a Tom Perrotta novel, the series follows the aftermath of the "Sudden Departure," a cataclysmic event where 2% of the population vanishes into thin air with no explanation. A small-town sheriff (Justin Theroux), a reverend (Christopher Eccleston), and a grieving mother (Carrie Coon) are left to sort out the emotional and psychological wreckage. Most recommendations of the show arrive with a caveat about how the first season doesn't deliver on its potential, but we think the whole series works, even when showrunner Damon Lindelof (Lost) was adjusting the levels and figuring out the story he wanted to tell early on. (Season 2, which shifts the action to Texas, is the series' high-water mark.) It can be draining, but this isn't a highbrow version of This is Us: The Leftovers doesn't withhold information to deliver tear-jerking catharsis. It's chasing more cosmic truths.7. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-Present)Two years after Seinfeld went off the air, its bumbling, socially ignorant, very wealthy co-creator turned up on HBO as the star of a show about nothing. Who cares that it doesn't reinvent the wheel? Curb is so laugh-till-you-cry funny that it can continue building storylines out of thin air, taking Chekhov's gun writing to absurd extremes as Larry David commits one social assassination after another for nine seasons. It mines all of Larry's idiosyncrasies, which bounce off an equally hilarious cast anchored by Cheryl Hines, Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, JB Smoove, Ted Danson, and countless guest appearances to hammer home a central thesis: Larry David can ruin your day in myriad ways. In so many awkward situations, Larry David says and does what good manners prevent the rest of us from saying and doing, and he remains undeterred no matter how often he finds himself at the mercy of a scenario that went south in a hurry -- a feeling captured in a classic meme.6. Sex and the City (1998-2004)Of all the series that premiered during HBO's heyday in the 1990s, Sex and the Citymay not be the most serious, but it arguably had the greatest impact on the cultural lexicon. Twenty years later, people are still categorizing themselves as Carries, Mirandas, Samanthas, and Charlottes. Breaking up with someone via Post-It is still heresy. "I couldn't help but wonder" is still one of the most evocative preambles in the English language. And Miranda even ran for governor of New York. Not all of Sex and the City has aged well. (See, for instance, any time our foursome deals with people who are not white and cis.) But what has sometimes been written off as guilty pleasure fluff is being appreciated for how ahead of its time it really was. Amid all the bon mots and crappy boyfriends, Sex and the City saw the value in telling stories about women who weren't ashamed of getting laid and living life on their terms.5. The Larry Sanders Show (1992-1998)More than 25 years after the debut of this iconic series set at a talk show, certain elements do seem a bit dated. All the clothing, for one thing. But also some of the celebrities: anyone watching now would be hard-pressed to know the then-zeitgesty details about the guests who turn up to tape their appearances. But that's half the fun of rewatching: why did this person appear on the show again? The writing is next level -- to be expected from a writers room that, over the years, boasted Judd Apatow, Bob Odenkirk (who, in Saul Goodman mode, also plays Larry's agent) and more. The characters -- from Hank "Hey Now" Kingsley to Janeane Garofalo's frequently exasperated talent booker -- are as well-defined as any in sitcom history. No flipping.4. Deadwood (2004-2006)Compared to the two other major early HBO dramas created by guys named "David," Deadwood can be a harder sell to the casual prestige television viewer looking to brush up on the 21st century canon. Like David Chase's mafia drama The Sopranos and David Simon's cop saga The Wire, Deadwood is a twist on a familiar Hollywood genre -- it's a Western filled with boots, spurs, and cowboy hats -- but creator David Milch's profanity-packed, quasi-Shakespearean dialogue takes some getting used to, and the show's lack of a "clean" ending may scare away closed-minded binge-watchers hoping for a definitive conclusion. (The series was canceled after Season 3 and, despite a steady hum of rumors, the spin-off movies have not yet materialized.) Still, Deadwoodisn't some dusty homework assignment on the premium cable syllabus: There's vulgar wit, white-knuckle tension, and truly impeccably maintained facial hair in each carefully plotted episode. Sporting a black mustache and a villainous sneer, Ian McShane's bar owner Al Swearengen remains one HBO's most fully realized, vividly drawn characters. He's a violent man attempting to maintain order in a land with competing moral codes and dueling financial interests, and the brutality he unleashes isn't a stylistic flourish or a troll-y poke in the eye; it's part of a larger thematic examination of who thrives and who perishes as a society gets built.3. Veep (2012-2019)"That's like trying to use a croissant as a fucking dildo." "Epileptic Picasso painting." "Jonad." Long before Trump took office, Armando Iannucci created a series that managed to capture Washington, DC at its dirtiest and most profane. Not only has Veep been one of TV's most consistently funny comedies for the entirety of its seven-season run, it's the one that somehow gets closest to the core of our current nightmare. Selina Meyer's exact politics have never really mattered; it's her unending quest for power that drives the show and its worldview. Over the years -- and even as she's advanced beyond the titular position -- Selina has lied, debased herself, and lost her mind not for the good of the country but for her personal gain. Meanwhile, she's dragged her lackeys along with her: The ambitious Dan, the earlobe of a press secretary Mike, the tightly wound Amy, and jolly green jizz face Jonah. While the final season abandoned some of the nuance that made earlier installments so cuttingly smart, the series finale turned out to be a nearly perfect way to end the show and deliver the verdict on Selina Meyer's legacy. It's the truest series about America there ever was.2. The Sopranos (1999-2007)From the quacking ducks to the the wandering Russian gangster in the woods, The Sopranos is often discussed as a show of highly ambiguous symbols. And, yes, the dream sequences and therapy sessions between the show's protagonist Tony (James Gandolfini) and his psychiatrist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) make it a rich psychological text, but David Chase's mafia drama, which ran for 86 episodes from 1999 to the end of the Bush administration, is also filled with surface-level pleasures: the sound of Little Carmine coining a new malapropism, the sight of Paulie Gualtieri debuting a new tracksuit, or the joy of young A.J. Soprano waking up after a night of drinking and realizing his eyebrows have been shaved off. These are people you may not know, but you recognize their humanity and their humor. While the series orbits around the gravitational force generated by Gandolfini's brilliant lead performance, the side characters, encompassing the deeply tragic Adriana La Cerva and the truly vile Ralph Cifaretto, make this violent corner of New Jersey an oddly comforting place to revisit. Even when you know the darkness ahead, you want to climb behind the wheel with Tony and make that long drive home again.1. The Wire (2002-2008)You've heard this one before: The Wire is the best show HBO's ever made. During its five-season run, David Simon and George Pelecanos' Baltimore-based drama earned heaps of critical praise, but suffered from poor ratings and a lack of mainstream awards (it won zero Primetime Emmys), all of which combined to make Wire fandom a cultural signifier. It went so far as to become parody; oh, you like The Wire? You must be so cool and smart! Stepping back from the show's reputation, however, you can find what made it such an innovative, intricate, and exciting show in the first place. After the first season introduced viewers to the Avon Barksdale crew, a twist on the anthology format took us inside the corrupt dealings of dockworkers, revealing the depths Simon's writing would plumb and the controversial ideas the show would tackle (Season 3's drug legalization plotline is one of many examples). Everything in The Wire is connected, and everyone is a little bit tainted, with politics, police, drugs, race, and crime intersecting through the troubled personal lives of iconic characters like Avon, Stringer Bell, McNulty, Greggs, Bunny, Bunk, and, of course, Omar. The show's fourth season, set largely in Baltimore's education system, masterfully demonstrates the futility of human intervention in the face of systemic failures, which makes the comically hacky fifth season all the more baffling. Every show has its ups and downs, but The Wire always managed to challenge the viewer in a medium that rewards superficial entertainment. In the end, we have to say it (sorry): The king stay the king.credits :; THRILLIST