Wellsy said:
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/climber-charles-barrett-assault-trial/
The above is a link to the pretty horrific story of continued sexual abuse by Charles Barrett in the US over literally decades
It feels like this is something to discuss? I know it made me feel horrified and deeply uncomfortable and I have to say Kevin Jorgeson and Alex Honnold come off pretty poorly in it...
Agreed that they don't look great, but in some ways I would be wary of judging them too harshly, because that can potentially lead to being over-confident that
you would never fuck up in the same way.
From what I've heard (and seen) in various communities: abusers are often very good at showing different behaviour to different people, cultivating positive relationships with socially-powerful people, and ensuring the abuse happens where other people don't see it.
Barrett broke that pattern by being abusive where someone with high status in the community like Lonnie Kauk could see it, but many abusers never do.
The problem is -- imagine someone who you've climbed with a fair amount, who's a friend, who you like and trust (if you want, for the purposes of this thought-experiment, you can imagine a specific real person; it will be upsetting).
They're a good friend; you've never ever seen them do anything violent or bad. Then you hear that there's this rumour that they punched their ex. Which seems totally out-of-character! But you know they've been having a really rough time with depression and drinking too much. And then someone else says "oh, I heard the ex's dog attacked them and they were really just trying to defend themselves against the dog" or "I heard they were both fighting, it wasn't one-sided, maybe they did take a swing but it was just the once."
Consider how strong the temptation is to decide that yeah, that sounds more plausible. Your friend's not some evil monster, after all! Maaaaaybe they did something stupid and lashed out once when they were having a really hard time, but they're not an actual
abuser, right?
(And what are you going to do about it, anyway? Tell them "I'm not climbing with you again because I heard this rumour"? Try to to get them kicked out of the local climbing community, even? Then they'll be angry at
you and it'll be a whole huge mess, over this thing which is just a rumour, and you weren't even there and can't say what really happened, so maybe it's better if you just stay out of it and don't take sides ... or so the thought process can go.)
Maybe they even admit it, they say they just snapped and threw a punch this one time when they were under so much stress and they don't know what came over them and they're so ashamed and guilty and suicidal and of course it'll never,
ever happen again (except that it always does).
In some ways, the idea of abusers as terrible monsters can be counter-productive, because it leads people to think "Well, I know this person, they're not a terrible monster, so obviously they can't really be an abuser, right?"
I feel like if we want to make climbing (or any other community) safer, part of it has to be being aware of how these patterns operate and how abusers take advantage of them.
And recognizing that some day, someone may make an allegation against someone you like, and you'll have to be prepared to fight down that kneejerk reaction and try to ensure it gets a fair hearing.
This shit is messy and
hard.
As I said in my previous comment, there was a whole lot that was public knowledge (or widely-spread rumours) about Barrett. But the social pressures and the temptation to rationalize and make excuses for people we like are also very strong.