rapeculturerealities:

Joseph Shapiro and an investigative team at NPR have just released an in-depth series on disability and sexual assault that took nearly a year of work. “Abused and Betrayed” unfolds in a series of features exploring various aspects of the sexual assault epidemic in the developmental disability community — from exclusion in sexual education to rape in institutions.

Part of me is glad that this series exists. Shapiro has a long history of involvement in disability reporting and culture — his book No Pity is a must-read — and sexual abuse in disability communities is an issue that rarely receives public attention.

But, to my knowledge, no one who worked on this investigation is disabled, which is extremely disappointing. The lack of visibility for disabled reporters is a serious failure for newsroom diversity that has real consequences — we can tell stories nondisabled people can’t, and consider issues nondisabled reporters and editors tend to miss.

In “She Can’t Tell Us What’s Wrong,” (warning: this article is very graphic) the team looked at cases where communication issues hinder disabled people’s ability to report abuse. In many cases, this also presents challenges for sex education and personal empowerment. A disabled person may not realize that abusive behavior is, in fact, abusive, with some reports of abuse relying on witnesses who observe something going wrong.

That was certainly the case when a staff member at an institution walked into a patient’s room and saw a member of the staff “with his pants down.”*

In rape reporting, there are certain conventions people follow. Many publications will not use rape survivors’ last names, for example, and may at times change the first name as well. They may take other steps to shield a survivor’s identity out of respect for the fact that rape is an intensely personal, violating crime. A special duty of care is required in places where the ability to consent may be compromised.

And so I was startled when NPR opted to redact this rape survivor’s last name, but then provide extremely specific identifying details about her. Her sister is named in full, and the feature includes numerous photographs. The name of the institution is also included, and so is identifying information about the specific room the victim lives in. The detailed reporting on her case suggests that, while she knows some sign language, she lacks the ability to communicate explicit consent to have her story told in such detail.

While the rape survivor welcomed the NPR crew, it’s not clear whether she fully understood what they were doing, or the ramifications. Did she know that an intimate and traumatizing incident in her life would be broadcast nationwide? Would she have consented if she understood that? This decision was made for her by her sister, in a familiar patronizing pattern.

The piece also explored the case of a woman whose sexual assault was revealed when she tested positive for a sexually transmitted infection. Again, NPR shows her photograph, names her family, discloses the specific infection she was diagnosed with, names and shows her aides. Again, her capacity for consent was not explored, and the voices of her family members are centered in her story.

Infantilization and desexualization are troubling themes throughout the series; one family member compares an adult victim to a “child,” expressing shock that she would be targeted for sexual assault. The nondisabled public is horrified at the thought of sexual abuse that involves adults who are “like children,” as though this is somehow “worse” than sexual abuse in general. Turning disabled people into metaphorical children doesn’t stop abuse, though; if anything, it increases vulnerability to assault.

Readers and listeners come away with a strong sense that disabled people aren’t sexual and don’t have agency. Their family members, meanwhile, are given considerable authority — and the series doesn’t delve into the history of caregiver abuse committed by family members.

This kind of storytelling troubles me because it taps into a long, dark history of focusing on the voices of parents and family members while excluding disabled people from their own narratives. Commentary from disabled people was reserved for the end of the series, in a single set of first-person interviews. This is one result of allowing nondisabled people to dominate the media landscape; they tell stories about us without us rather than centering disabled voices.

When the idea that family should be the voices in the conversation is normalized, it makes it much harder to push back on abuse of power. One would expect a series about abuse to empower people, not reiterate the social structures that contribute to abuse. It is very uncomfortable to admit that nondisabled people and reporters should be stepping back to provide room for disabled voices in storytelling. But it is a conversation we need to have.

These sexual assault survivors have difficulty communicating their stories in a way that’s accessible to nondisabled people. But does that mean their stories should be told for them in such graphic detail? Reporting like this often justifies such sharing on the grounds that this is the only way to get listeners, viewers, or readers to “pay attention” — by humanizing an epidemic of sexual assault that would otherwise be dry statistics or vague nonspecifics. Does that justification make it okay?

Like many disabled people, I’ve had my stories told for me, without my consent, “for the greater good.” The sense of profound personal violation that results does not make up for the supposed social benefit.

As a journalist, this is an issue I think about: Would this action bother me, if I was on the receiving end? Or has someone who’s been in a similar position told me it was violating and upsetting? Because if so, that’s an indicator that I need to find another way to tell the story.

There’s a way to report on this serious epidemic in our community that respects privacy and autonomy, as for example in a later installment in the series where victim privacy is respected.  Why couldn’t the same have been done across the board?

NPR’s Series on Disability and Sexual Abuse Brings Up Complex Ethical Issues