our friend for the information. We both hugged her and made vague plans to meet for dinner. Then we drove home.
As for so many victims, Trav’s options for justice and reparation are nearly nonexistent.
On one side is an institution with a well-documented, decades-long history of childhood sexual abuse allegations, and on the other side my husband juggles more than a decade of documented post-traumatic stress in an effort to function. For a 51 percent likelihood that the two are related, this seemed like an easy correlation.
It sounds fair, but it is common for men who suffer from childhood sexual abuse-related post-traumatic stress disorder to bury memories deep. While specific statistics vary, childhood sexual abuse cases, especially among boys, are vastly underreported and rarely see legal action. Statutes of limitation vary in intricacy and by state; financial settlements can be taxed as income, and generally speaking, 30 percent is paid to a personal-injury lawyer.
Most importantly, while in litigation and often as a settlement condition, nobody involved can talk or write publicly about the topic.
The invasive and prolonged discovery process is a tactic likely meant to avert false accusations. False accusations are a fear, but false accusations are also exceedingly rare and account for approximately 1–2 percent of all accusations. Victims tend to understate, rather than overstate, their experience, and many victims are reluctant to take their cases to court.
Shame, fear, and lack of basic vocabulary contribute to underreporting in children. For adults—especially and exponentially among male victims—it is not facing the perpetrators; it is the lead-up to the process. For men, it’s often less about fearing the perpetrators (as it is with children) and more about dealing with the machinations of the justice system. A large majority of victims lock memories away in an effort to survive. Recollections often emerge slowly and in dim fragments over time. For anyone attempting to hold an individual or, worse, an entire institution responsible, those fragments do not feel convincing.
It is a cycle that perpetuates itself: Shame and lack of vocabulary for children result in shame and buried memories for adults.
“I might not have the timeline and details 100 percent,” Trav maintains. “But I know what I saw, and I know what I heard.” And, most heartbreakingly, “I know what happened to me.”
As his wife, I needed to know that I had brought Trav every option for his consideration. I could not do push-ups or pound a hammer, but I could find the best experts for the best advice. I could bring my husband choices.
I contacted a second lawyer—one who represented other alumni in other sexual-abuse cases against the American Boychoir School. This lawyer confirmed our friend’s explanation, and his ease with the process was equal parts disarming and reassuring. He asked what Trav’s medical records would indicate, and more importantly, when.
What and when?
They seem like simple questions, but again, the answers are much more complex. I draw a line of accountability from my husband to the institution tasked with keeping him safe, but legally, this line gets wiggly. If, for example, Trav spent a weekend at the home of a trustee, off campus and out of state, but the perpetrator was the trustee’s colleague and not the trustee himself, that abuse would likely not “count.”
Being afraid to sleep while resisting sexual advances by staff and teachers or witnessing the repeated sexual abuse of other boys? This is difficult, too, because as with the damage caused by secondhand smoke, those sleepless months were harmful, but were they caused by actual sexual abuse or fear of sexual abuse? The former is a straight line, and the latter is not.
Any sexual activity among students—even older students acting out their own abuses by faculty and staff members on younger boys—could be considered consensual and age-appropriate experimentation.
The Boychoir traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe, spending nights with random, unvetted host families, and laws governing childhood sexual abuse differed in each location. Compounding the confusion, Trav was barely eleven years old and often only remembers first names or no names at all.
The “when” is even more laughable. His clinical depression, when first diagnosed? Or the first inklings of memory confided to me a year later? When he actually spoke the words, with conviction, “This happened to me” in the therapist’s office? Or years later, after the biggest rush of specific vivid details? Or most recently, on the night I made those apple pies and drove him to the venue, when he remembered the details of his friend’s rape?
“What and when?” asked the second lawyer, well versed in claims against the American Boychoir School. These questions also included an implied “how much?”
Personal injury lawyers often work for 30 percent of any damage award. Damages are generally connected to physical injuries, and with the modest symbolic goal of a full tuition refund for his parents and possibly uninsured healthcare costs, Trav’s circumstance is in no way a big moneymaker. After taxes and expenses, any settlement might buy a decent car or a year at a good college. And, again, the American Boychoir School’s insurance company, not the school itself, would address the details.
That is how “what, when, and how much” morph into a complex algorithm of “Is it really worth it?”
For that car or tuition payment, Trav would need to out other victims and lose all of his privacy while subjecting himself to a years-long period of intense scrutiny. Or, he could get nasty and request even more money, knowing that any increased amount would prolong the process. In exchange for any settlement, there would almost certainly be a requirement that he not disclose the terms or discuss his experience.
Trav’s fear is that he might disappoint me by not wanting to pursue legal action. “I am worried you will think I am weak,” he once said.
Then, in a reversal a day later, it was “Screw them.”
The next day, back to “No.” Then, again, it was “I have nothing to hide.”
That is what it is like. Some days, it feels worth a fight. Some days, just getting through the day is what matters.
Right now, he has taken it off the table. Most victims do.
2 HARDWICKE V. AMERICAN BOYCHOIR SCHOOL. Decided August 8, 2006. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/nj-supreme-court/1138661.html
I wish I had good words to describe New Jersey’s physical details, but from the van I was unable to see beyond grimy green highway signs. As I searched for any positive association, even the abundance of hot and chewy Auntie Anne’s salt-covered pretzels at nearly every turnpike rest area could not diminish the spaces’ overwhelming toilet scent.
In the weeks before this trip, we had learned about a new movie in production. The early press publicized that the feel-good family film was about a young boy overcoming challenges through his involvement in a fictitious boy choir academy.
Trav
