UNITED STATES
Forward
Sara Kabakov
November 14, 2016
Editor’s note: Earlier this month, the Forward published Marc Gafni’s own words defending himself against accusations that he sexually abused Sara Kabakov when she was 13 and he was 19. Here is Kabakov’s response.
I struggle with the impulse to respond to Marc Gafni’s letter regarding my January 2016 article about him sexually abusing me. Should a survivor even dignify her abuser with any response at all?
I wrote my account of sexual assault not as part of an “orchestrated smear campaign”, as he claims, but as a personal description of an experience that impacted my life in profound and immutable ways. I have no vendetta against Gafni and don’t spend time thinking about his career or reputation.
I do, however, care about girls and women and protecting them from sexual predators. I care about the way so many predators make excuses for sexually criminal behavior. I care about the way the term “youthful mistake,” is used to explain away deplorable actions that can turn a survivor’s life into a nightmare. I care about the New York State legal system, with its outdated statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, which protects alleged abusers and prolongs their access to more children. Indeed, if a sexual predator is stopped when a victim comes forward, whenever that may be, many souls could be saved from his subsequent actionable behaviors.
Gafni’s use of the words, “romance” and “dating”, when describing our association, leaves me speechless. Seriously? Is it romantic when someone creeps into a girl’s room at night, wakes her up, and sexually assaults her? Is it romantic when a man forces his hands and fingers on, and in, a girl’s body, against her will? Is it romance, when she says “No!” unheeded, while repeatedly pushing him away? Perhaps it is the selective memory, or fantasy of a predator that can spin this horrific scenario into a normal, consenting relationship.
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