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The Jian Ghomeshi trial: courtroom drama doesn’t reflect real life

What looked like a slam dunk for R v Jian Ghomeshi, with multiple women accusing the former radio host of abuse, turned into a murky courtroom drama full of contradictions, fuzzy recollections and disputed facts.

Did Ghomeshi choke, slap, bite, smother and/or pull the hair of any of his accusers? If he did, was it consensual?

In 2014, when allegations first surfaced against Ghomeshi, he defended himself to his CBC bosses by showing them graphic videos of dates with another woman he had allegedly abused, describing his behaviour as rough sex and a “human right.” 

To the reasonable, if not the legal mind, this self-revelation shifts any uncertainty to the second question: was the choking, slapping, biting, hair-pulling consensual? 

In pursuing charges, the three women might have thought they had safety in numbers. But on the witness stand their testimony was painstakingly dissected by Marie Henein, a defence lawyer trained to demolish. Her chief weapon was their sexy texts and photos, sent to Ghomeshi after the alleged abuse and saved by him for over a decade. 

Was this a man preparing for his future? Why would a woman, who has been violently abused by a guy date him again, even agree to a sexual encounter? And after voluntarily re-exposing herself to him, why would she charge him with sexual assault?

Lucy DeCoutere explained that her communications were an attempt to “normalize” her relationship with Ghomeshi.

I get that. 

For women, “normal” typically means playing nice, accepting the blame and otherwise protecting men, a cultural practice so well established that it might be in our DNA.

As a teenager with a summer job at a swimming pool, I was asked by the older man who tended the pool’s machinery if I would help him with a task in the basement. Suddenly, he grabbed me and kissed me hard enough to bruise my lips. When I was too surprised to react, he slapped my face. “Do you let any man who wants to do that to you?”

What had just happened? I felt dirty. I also felt sorry for the lonely widower who must have had some freakish moral lapse – or, a character “blip,” as DeCoutere first excused Ghomeshi’s behaviour. For me, normalizing also meant filing this incident in my secret memory drawer, already stockpiled with gender humiliations, then pretending it hadn’t happened.

Now let’s imagine that, 10 years later, this man has been charged with a violent rape. Suddenly I begin to wonder: how much danger was I in alone with him in that basement? This thought creeps me out. I dutifully tell my story to the police and agree to be a witness.

I am cross-examined: When did this happen? “July” isn’t good enough for something you say you remember so vividly. Were you wearing a cover-up over your bathing suit? What “job” were you supposed to be doing in the basement in your bathing suit? Did you report this to anyone? Why not? You’re a writer, aren’t you? Becoming involved in this case makes a good story for you, doesn’t it? 

After Ghomeshi allegedly put DeCoutere in a chokehold, she wrote to him, “I love your hands.” As DeCoutere explained: “I’m trying to make Mr. Ghomeshi less of an assaulter and more of a friend.” The defence implied that this constituted consent. It can only be consent if you first acknowledge that Ghomeshi did the choking.

When I was in high school, admittedly a long time ago, if a boy “felt up” a girl during a slow dance, she was supposed to wait till the dance ended before ditching him. We girls knew that boys stuck together, so offending one meant offending them all, and they might badmouth us. 

Decades later, my husband and I attended a social event at Hotel Oloffson in Haiti, where Graham Greene had set his novel The Comedians. A local character made famous by Greene as a wily meet-and-greeter with connections to Haiti’s notorious “Papa Doc” Duvalier regime asked me to dance. 

Once on the floor, he was all over me like a basket of snakes. Having been so well socialized as a teenager, I waited till the end of the dance to escape.

Later, in the taxi back to our hotel, I ruefully told my husband what had happened. Usually unflappable, he was so incensed he wanted to return to the Oloffson.

I pleaded with him to drop it.

Next evening, my dance partner turned up at a reception at our hotel. As soon as he saw me, he grinned toothily and confidently swaggered toward me. Did he think I had consented to his slimy overture?

Though my husband still wanted to punch him, we compromised by leaving the event. This was, after all, Papa Doc territory, controlled by the Tonton Macoute secret police.

Both my husband and I were operating out of our gender stereotypes, well below our level of intelligence. In retrospect, I should have been sophisticated enough to ditch my dance-floor python without causing an international incident. Instead, I played his game.

Ghomeshi’s accusers had professional reasons not to offend this popular entertainment host – and, let’s face it, the CBC, his staunchly supportive employer. Now that women are allowed into the workforce, the most persistent advice we hear is “network, network, network.” We’re not supposed to act like men, but neither are we supposed to act like women. It’s a landscape crisscrossed with invisible tripwires, especially now that sexting and casual sex are norms. For female artists in a field where uncertainties outweigh opportunities, confusion over how to behave toward those in control – almost always men – often leads to unwise, contradictory choices. 

One of Ghomeshi’s characteristics not in dispute is his charm – at least whenever he chooses to use it. That caramel baritone, his instant rapport with people, made him a star in a country that only grudgingly creates them. Charisma can cast a strange, seductive spell, causing all of us to forgive far too much. Even convicted child abusers who leave behind a tragic heap of broken lives have their chorus of apologists: but he was such a wonderful coach – our team won three trophies our church choir never sang more beautifully than when he was conducting.

While Ghomeshi sat in the courtroom, mute and untouchable, armoured by the presumption of innocence along with the best defence money can buy, his accusers occupied the hot seat, naked targets, each probably naively convinced that if she told her truth she would be believed. 

Though quick to smear them as liars, Henein never challenged their slapping, choking, smothering, biting allegations. As she once publicly joked to colleagues before being hired by Ghomeshi, “We represent people who have committed heinous acts – acts of violence, acts of depravity, acts of cruelty. Or as Jian Ghomeshi likes to call it, foreplay.”

Even in a murder trial bolstered by forensic evidence, “beyond a reasonable doubt” is a challenging standard. In any unwitnessed encounter fuelled by primal impulses it is out of reach. If only Big Ears Teddy, Ghomeshi’s stuffed bear and confidante, could have testified!

What happens in a courtroom does not reflect real life.

Ghomeshi went into this trial as damaged goods. He’s a guy who admits he likes to hurt women. Whatever the judge’s verdict, the scarlet “A,” historically used to shame female adulterers, is now the Ghomeshi brand: “A” for Abuser.

Sylvia Fraser is author of a dozen books, hundreds of articles for major magazines, and received numerous prizes for her work.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

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