“I don’t believe in writing as therapy. And if it existed, the idea of treating myself through books disgusts me. » There are so many sentences that resonated with me when reading the tragic story Sad tiger, by Neige Sinno, who has just won the Femina prize. They have insinuated themselves between the flesh and the skin of the soul, somewhere between what we keep secret and what we would like to see explode. I recognized myself in innocence, above all. I wanted everyone around me to read this book. Neige was 9, me 15; he was his father-in-law, me, my teacher. Similar, but not the same. Similar, but each case is unique, much like Little Red Riding Hood and Lolita are.
On the other hand, the predators were both imprisoned for incest or pedophilia; they ended up confessing. This is not enough for the author Neige Sinno, who would like suicide for her childhood thief, “the only honorable exit for a child rapist”.
She evokes it without hatred, as a fact (even being against prison) while it is most often the victims who suppress themselves. “When you’ve been a victim once, you’re always a victim. And above all, we are victims forever. Even when we get through it, we don’t really get through it. »
Apart from artists, it is only among priests that we have witnessed such impunity
Last week I was trying to choose which photo of myself would grace the cover of my own story; macadamia flower or blue flower? Lumberjack in Kodiak boots or beret and braids? As an elegant rider with a ponytail or full-length with a bandana? I don’t know. I am all these teenagers, all these young girls barely out of the depths of childhood. But as Neige Sinno notes in her admirable story/essay: “A child cannot open or close the door of consent. He doesn’t reach that handle. »
One thing is certain, I look so young, so naive, in these teenage photos; but I jumped the fence, the balcony, ignored closed or half-open doors. Lolita has taken the plunge.
There is not only the question of consent, also addressed in Vanessa Springora’s work on her relationship with the ephebophile writer Gabriel Matzneff. There is also that of pleasure, touched upon here and at Christine Angot (The journey to the East, Medici Prize 2021). And always the question of silence over years, even decades, which intervenes between pain and fear, denial and shame.
Paid silence
Silence is central. It allows an entire society that officially condemns abuse to continue to operate hypocritically. The incest taboo is enormous, as is that of pedophilia.
Until the word breaks everything apart, the family first, as for Camille Kouchner on the subject of her abused brother in The big family. Or like the actress Emmanuelle Béart in the documentary A silence so loud that she filmed with the director Anastasia Mikova on the subject of incest, her own by her stepfather, but especially that of other victims who are now 13 years old or in their late fifties, mainly women, a man also, abused by his parents.
I watched their film twice, once with a friend who was incested by her uncle from the age of 3 to 15. The after-effects are multiple and immense, even 50 years later. For this friend, this film was a balm, even if she does not want to file a complaint (she still could).
There was an extreme intimacy between us, which only victims and their executioners can experience.
“We have to speak, because words are the first aid,” we hear in the film. We learn that 160,000 children experience incest each year in France and that the phenomenon affects 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 12 boys, or 10% of the population.
There is no reason to think that it is different here. Sexual assaults on minors are increasing year after year, especially among teenage girls, an increase of almost 30% in Quebec in 2021. We see that children are affected too. (Graph 5, https://bit.ly/3ula7aI)
And the Internet has only made the crime more popular.
Paul Arcand made a chilling docuseries on cyberpedophiles last year. An investigator notes that predators come from all backgrounds, academics or workers, of all ages, from all cultures. The origin of the evil is universal and the origin of the sex too: it is male in more than 96% of cases. And as Paul Arcand says, there are no children’s unions in Quebec. If so, they would strike too.
The silence that screams
My incestuous friend hit a wall when trying to talk to other victims in her family. However, the damage is enormous, on her sexuality, her love life, her self-esteem, the legacy to carry and pass on. We trivialize to muzzle, we change the subject, we remain silent. Between shame and guilt, how can a child measure herself first against herself, then against her family, then against society?
These are the three circles of silence that Emmanuelle Béart talks about in the documentary.
All victims followed in A silence so loud took legal action, which sometimes backfired or was left unaddressed. In fact, according to figures put forward by Neige Sinno, 1% of the cases of those who file a complaint are convicted. How many dare to go that far?
There is never a happy ending for someone who was abused as a child
What is also striking, both in Neige and in the documentaries, is the banality of evil and how easily it is justified. But brutal reality often goes beyond the envelope of fiction: “What is good about non-fiction is that we can ignore plausibility, expose facts and sequences of facts which seem incoherent, even impossible […] »
The writer says that she remembers nothing from her childhood, except for the rapes: “Having been forced to go to the dark side forever prevents me from being able to return to innocence. »
After all the violence experienced, we still have to deal with disbelief, the presumption of being a liar, a fabrication or worse, an accomplice. This innocence, too, will never be able to return again. Neige summarizes: “You looked evil in the eyes and now no one can look at you. This is the legend of Medusa. After the rape, no one can look her in the eyes anymore. » At the risk of turning into stone…