Recently, during a hair salon visit, the man cutting my hair told me, in reference to my hair color changing, that pregnancy can affect your hormones, which can affect your appearance. I was outraged. Who was this man? What gave him any right to explain or teach me something about my own body? He didn’t know anything!
I would have said something biting in response, but he was holding my hair in one hand and scissors in the other.
I had a similar, but more serious reaction to a draft of my dad’s weekly post. My father is just, he is kind, and he is the reason I knew what kind of man I deserved to marry. But I was angry reading his words. I felt like he was being wishy-washy and sympathetic; like he was trying to give an explanation or a justification when there is none.
How can there be anything but condemnation for the men in the Epstein Files? There isn’t room for explanation. Even if there are degrees of guilt and involvement, I don’t really care. When I think about the women, the children, and the situations they were put in, nuance becomes irrelevant.
Hypothetical situations and hindsight also become irrelevant.
I know what it’s like to be leered at, to be touched inappropriately because I am a woman in a crowded bar. I know what it’s like to feel a little unsafe because I am alone with a man and I’m unsure what to do.
I don’t expect my dad to write from this sort of lens because that would be weird and inauthentic, not to mention pandering and performative. I do, however, expect my dad to “take himself out of himself” and understand that his lens may be triggering for others.
Michael Wolff's ongoing Daily Beast commentary on Epstein--and Trump--from his years of hanging with both men as a biographer/journalist, is quite illuminating in its attempts to explain the Inner Circle allure. But is also told from an older guy's perspective.
From Wolff's accounts, it seems Epstein would tailor the "illegality" of his gatherings to the moral caliber--or lack thereof--of the attendees. Wolff claims Epstein showed him photos of Trump, who in one had topless young women "..of an uncertain age..." on his lap. Because the Trump1 DOJ botched the initial search of Epstein's brownstone, an entire safe full of recordings and photographs "disappeared." Thus, we may never know the identities of the rich and powerful sexually compromised by the late financier.
That Epstein was indeed running an ongoing Honey Trap to extort and control powerful men now seems nearly indisputable.
I hear you and understand where you are coming from. Personally, I saw the essay as a psychological exploration into human nature and a dire warning from CS Lewis. Nice to meet you, Lauren. (My daughter’s middle name.) 🥰🙏🏻👏
That’s how I saw it, too. In my experience, the good guys like David, and my own husband, really can’t fully comprehend how women have to live in the world. When Me Too started, my husband said to our daughters, then young teenagers, “If anyone ever harasses you, you let me know. “ The three of us looked at each other for a millisecond and then roared with laughter. He was confused.
I haven't. Don't know if I can stand it! I'm still trying to explain the whole good guy fallacy to my very good husband. He can't comprehend this behavior, none of his friends would do these things, ever, or excuse them, (he is correct), so....it must be unusual, right? Gahhhhh I was in high school when what was called Women's Liberation was new, and we are still still still here.
I went to closing night (in costume!) but they are making it into a movie. It’s a MUST see. My husband, like my father and brothers, fall into the exception category, not the rule. My daughter is 16 months, I am glad I don’t have to explain this to her. Your story about your husband/daughters laughing made me laugh out loud! Classic!!!
I’ll have to wait for the movie — missed the Broadway run. (It’s so crazy expensive, I only see shows when someone comps me or gives them as a gift. I love it that you went in costume! I plan to see two plays based on ancient Greek dramas (my wheelhouse), The Other Place (now at The Shed, where prices are reasonable) and Antigone (A Play I Read in High School) opening at The Public next month. I’m especially excited about that one. Anna Ziegler’s work is so good and it’s a premier!
I had a similar response to Lauren's, and I thank you for sharing it with your readers. Of course, as women, Lauren and I both know what it means to navigate in a world where men so often behave as if our bodies and lives are theirs for the taking.
Though I am fortunate enough not to have been trafficked as these vulnerable young girls were, I was sexually harassed--IN SCHOOL--at the tender age of 11. I know the humiliation and shame of boys--whose gaze was paramount, according to society's relentless inculcation--ridiculing my early-developing body, slapping my behind, snapping my bra strap, and calling me names like "big tits" and "fat ass."
I also know the pain of having been ostracized from the rich, popular girls' clique and mocked by the football jocks strutting through the halls of my high school like they owned the place and were generously letting the rest of us exist.
So I have zero compassion for grown male wannabes who suck up to famous assholes. If I had no patience for the teenage versions, I most certainly do not care a whit about the boys who didn't grow up and, at 40 or 50 or even 60, are still looking for validation from the party gang.
My takeaway from my own experience was to become a woman who has no desire or need to be validated by horrible people, no matter how rich or famous. Their money and influence do not make them better than me. We'll all lose loved ones, know heartache, and one day die. I have no patience for men of such pitifully weak character that they will abandon wife and child in a time of crisis for a chance to be in the presence of the grand poo-bah.
We all have our weaknesses, and I'm certainly not without my own flaws. But I fully believe that people who degrade themselves for the blessings of evil men will one day reap what they've sown, whether in this life or the successive incarnations required to work off all that lousy karma they've generated.
To be clear, debasing oneself in a desperate bid to obtain money or status is not the failing of men alone. I am aghast at how Fergie used her own daughters to leverage some sort of favor from Epstein, while standing by her husband's behavior.
David, like CK Steele, I see what you were going for here and I appreciate it. I’m happy to know about CS Lewis’s talk and will look for it. The impulse he describes has also brought us Trump World, within the White House - the disgusting obsequiousness of his Cabinet - and across the country with the hardcore MAGAs and the Christian right. What they have in common is the belief that women and people of color are valued only insofar as they serve you, and that political power begins at home, where the father rules. Why so many women and people of color seek to belong to this world, I don’t know. Is it the same wish to be in the circle of the powerful?
I don't have much to offer (other than smashing my fist into the glass and screaming into the void) about the Epstein files, or Attila, because it's all being said more eloquently and more precisely both here and elsewhere, but I really want to echo Lauren's assertion that "Hypothetical situations and hindsight also become irrelevant." That is, perhaps, my least favorite move of a certain kind of male worldview - the devil's advocate, the "but have you thought about it this way," the "yes but how can you be sure" rhetoric that gets used by men in order to hold themselves at arm's length, unmistakably supporting the status quo while deluding themselves with their own hubris - they believe themselves to be the rationale thinkers, freed from the hysteria from those of us who have been harmed. I know it's impossible to ever fully step outside of oneself, but the endless, intellectual exercises of folks who have no skin in the game will never cease to amaze me. I say this not in any way directed at David (whose willingness to acknowledge not only his own privilege but also his own potential to do harm I find vital), but at other men I've known, including most recently so many men I met while dating in middle aged, the white men who label themselves "apolitical," who see themselves as totally "removed from" the messy realm of politics, as though their very ability to label themselves "apolitical" (surely this is how Attila would have positioned himself - politics are not my problem - ?) isn't the most political thing of all?
truth must come to light for human evolution, for the freedom of all. I love CS Lewis. we have the same birthday. as does Louisa May Alcott and her father too. something in the sunlight angle of late November.
Thank you for this, David. (And thank you, Lauren, for your rebuttal.) You've hit on a fine point that most of us, even outside those elite walls, can understand. We do all brag about meeting or hobnobbing with 'names'. We don't necessarily want to be them, but we think rubbing elbows with them rubs something off on us. We become special, if even for that moment, but it's not all that special if we can't tell anybody. Of course we want to tell everyone!
But would any of us want to be close to someone like Epstein? I'm a woman so I can safely answer 'no'. But what about most men? He traveled in those circles and somehow became that person the men there wanted most to be known to have been with. It wasn't a badge of honor, it was a badge of wickedness. Was it innocent? Maybe at first. Maybe it went nowhere. But enough of them succumbed, and there's the story. The scandal. A scandal that's been covered up because those involved aren't ordinary folks, they're wealthy and powerful in their own spheres, yet they were reckless in their need to be looked on as bad boys. Or to be bad boys.
I don't understand it. I couldn't possibly understand it, and I despise their collusion and their actions. The girls who are now women will suffer throughout their lifetimes for the things that happened to them when they were vulnerable victims hidden from the world for who knows how long, simply to satisfy men who used them and abused them, as if they only had bodies and no souls.
We need to get to the bottom of this, we need to see punishment, but we need also to understand why so many with so much at stake put their own lives and reputations at risk to follow a path that could only lead to disaster once it was exposed. And you've helped us see why some of them would do what they did. Inclusion into an exclusive club. That simple. It was their weakness.
Thanks Ramona. I saw and see the parallels with belonging to Trump's inner circle, Despite the fact that being in Trump's inner circle has not turned out well for many in his first term. I think in addition to weakness it was a belief that there would not be reckoning. Whether there will be a sufficient reckoning is still in doubt.
Yes, I can see the parallels with Trump, except their acceptance and collusion was never kept secret, no matter how gross and ugly it became. They were never ashamed of it.
My husband and I just watched Nuremberg last night and it’s clear it was happening with his inner circle of command as well. It ended with this sobering quote, “The only clue to what man can do is what man has done."
Lewis was prescient, as it was the Kim Philby inner ring of spies at MI6 that did so much damage to the West. They weren’t actually Communists, they just enjoyed being part of an even more secret society within the secret society.
Thank you for including your daughter's reaction to this post. She articulated what I felt after reading it. I appreciate your essay, but I don't think it's possible for a man to understand the depths of the pain of sexual assault and misogyny. As a woman, I can not imagine what the groomed and trafficked girls and women went through and how their trauma could ever be healed.
The Epstein "circle" seems to be worse than any normal person could imagine. In my gut, I believe we will never know the full extent of this. I fear we will continue to receive breadcrumbs of pieces of the story, and the cover-up by our government will continue. Obviously, there are levels of involvement and guilt for those in this circle, and if my name appeared, I would be begging Congress to depose me to offer up everything I knew.
Great points. Unfortunately there are many Epsteins in the world. They just haven’t been caught and they probably avoid celebrities in order to keep their evil a secret.
Thanks Jean. I do lack the perspective that you and my daughter have. I hope that there will be an organized investigation. Maybe initiated by the 2026 House.
Congratulations, David, on the guts to face your frailties. And bless you, Lauren, for your high regard for your dad. I hope my kids and grandkids hold me in comparable esteem -- maybe I'll ask them. C.S. Lewis got it right, as he so often did: we are all enticed into our particular inner circle. Back in my career days, I'd have been flattered by Epstein's hospitality, if extended, though I'd have fled the infidelity and vile treatment of girls, if these had been a requirement. These days, if Thoreau and Shakespeare invited me to a boys' night, I'd be there in a flash, no matter how I disapproved of the goings on. To each their Circe.
there has to be a balancing and honest reckoning. women create life. and men are clearly suffering if behaving this way. the only relief is acknowledging we are in this together. or we are not and we are different species. but I think men as a whole are showing the distortions that exist in our collective field.
Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian prayer, seems appropriate here. see what a doctor did using this prayer over files of people. big healing occurred.
Neptune just left the illusionary dreamscape of Pisces where it was for a decade and a half. It’s time to be wide awake in this world, and make choices that are aligned with goodness and inner authority. we are all responsible for following our true north.
women have had to endure and use the challenges for growth. now men can level up too.
then we can all have fun instead of hurt each other. we’ve had enough of that.
it’s gonna take men releasing womb envy. a tall ask.
I am a woman who has been sexually assaulted more than once and harassed in the workplace as have many, perhaps most. I’m concerned that women who I see all over social media are projecting their own personal suffering onto this situation. Peter Attia isn’t even accused of doing something illegal. I dare all the women condemning him to ask their husbands and boyfriends for their email passwords and phone codes and see if they find no off color comments. Me Too has made sure that men are presumed guilty and I’ve seen way too many good men ruined along with men and women whose careers suffered because the men accused and all their ideas were tossed out, their businesses destroyed. Obviously Epstein was a vile human being and it’s good that he’s dead. Obviously many people showed very bad judgment in associating with him, so many rich and powerful people that it looked like a reasonable thing to do. Those of us mere mortals who don’t even get invited to the local block party may feel very self righteous passing judgment, but we really don’t know how we would react if we were in the circumstances that Attia was. I love your thought experiment David. I think it’s remarkably honest which is what I love about your column. I’m very glad I’m just a school teacher and no one cares what I’m up to - which is basically work and volunteering at a cat shelter. If you were to check my private texts you’d find a lot of Game of Thrones and Star Wars references in some long conversations, and I’m sure someone could take offense. We should all do what my mother told me to do when I learned to write: never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times. All these years I’ve been writing and I’m not yet in the Times because I am delightfully unimportant. If I ever am asked to a party by anyone rich and powerful, please remind me of the beauty of being no one. And female. For now women get a little more slack.
I was disgusted to read what Peter Attia wrote in those emails… I purchased his book and on occasion would listen to his podcasts. I’m not so naive that I don’t know that men say these kinds of things - kind of like an eternal frat party - what disgusted me more was that as a physician (who is clearly smart enough to get through medical school and write book) - he was stupid enough to put those disgusting thoughts into an email. One has to wonder if he was in constant stress once the Epstein files were ordered released. He had to know his days were numbered. I feel for his wife and children. He’s destroyed what was an amazing career. I was raised with five brothers, worked in a male dominated industry for 32 years… so I know when it’s just “locker room talk” and when it’s genuine “creep” factor. Sadly, even though many of these men were drawn into wanting to belong in that “inner circle” they showed their true colors by not knowing when to back out. What I know of you based on your writings, I believe you would have backed out. Also, appreciate your daughter’s response. Most women (probably all) can relate to the things she alludes to. Interesting read as usual.
Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar a Lago because he kept taking his young female employees, meaning it affected his business. Not because he thought Epstein was a creep, because they partied together. Trump gets no 'credit'.
there is a way of giving this thing energy to feed it and normalize it, and there is a way of alchemizing it. as long as people seek validation from the approval of others there is danger of manipulation. that’s the sin - following the mind that is controlled by outer forces or following the inner knowing which is guided by nature.
As a survivor myself, a Restorative Justice circle facilitator in and out of prison and trauma therapist, I can say with all certainty that yes we are all human and capable of inflicting horrific pain on others.
However, most of us operate with a moral compass and spend our lives working with the parts of us who long to be let loose on the world because of our own trauma, humiliation, oppression and silencing. But we don't give those base impulses expression.
I am not surprised that any of my abusers have never acknowledged the immense pain they caused me or the demolition of my spirit and will that has taken all of my 65 years to try to heal from. I am still not completely healed and may never be.
The heartbreak for me in this Epstein story is the degree to which parts of this country are satisfied to let women and children's lives be devastated and ask our country to value the lives, careers and reputations of those involved with a sex trafficking ring over the survivors' lives, careers and reputations. Some of the survivors' lives have been lost to suicide as many survivors would rather die than live in the hell created by their exploitation.
Compassion for the perpetrator or enabler to predation comes only after accountability. Asking the country to have compassion for the frailty of those mentioned in the files is premature and an impossible ask for a country of survivors of trauma of all kinds, whether it be sexual trauma, trauma from violence including community violence, trauma of exploitation and oppression.... I could go on but I hope that I have made myself clear to those who ask us to be compassionate. I organically move to compassion after my devastating pain is acknowledged and not before.
The psychological impact of group think without G-d, morals and decency is dangerous. This essay could have overlapped with what’s going on today throughout the world with Jew hate. (Oh— one of your readers from last week didn’t like that I mentioned Carney as a Jew hater so I’m sure he will “love” this comment. Haha.) My point is this essay is a template for the dangers of group think. People are always looking for a group to belong to, rich or poor. It’s how they choose that matters.
In some ways, it was very good for me to grow up in a town so small that the schools lacked enough people to form cliques. I didn't see anything like that until I was in college.
Thank you for this excellent article David. I appreciate the references to C.S. Lewis and that it is innate to want to belong just as I agree with Lauren that there is no excuse for anyone vaguely aware of Epstein's crime and character. Yes, the decor alone is a horrible clue, OMG.
Good essay. Turns out Eyes Wide Shut was a documentary, who knew? And be sure to tell Lauren it’s ok, there’s a 98.6% chance her hairdresser is gay so he gets a pass.
Joe Rogan has a great interview with Mike Benz from last week. He does a great job of connecting the Epstein dots. The lurid part is just a sideshow to it all.
This is a disturbing sentence, a stereotype that any man involved with women's care is gay. And a smiley face doesn't negate that. But I'm sure you thought you were clever.
I don’t know if you are a man, but if so, telling a woman that another man has a right to assume social permission because he is gay is just a perfect illustration of the way men think they should get to control the bodies of women and gay people.
No. Our Brit,'Lord'Peter Mandelson has been using that get out. " I can't have been involved in any sexual molestation because I'm gay" and the media commenters in the UK are just not accepting it. It's a very strange claim anyway.
My daughter Lauren's comment
Recently, during a hair salon visit, the man cutting my hair told me, in reference to my hair color changing, that pregnancy can affect your hormones, which can affect your appearance. I was outraged. Who was this man? What gave him any right to explain or teach me something about my own body? He didn’t know anything!
I would have said something biting in response, but he was holding my hair in one hand and scissors in the other.
I had a similar, but more serious reaction to a draft of my dad’s weekly post. My father is just, he is kind, and he is the reason I knew what kind of man I deserved to marry. But I was angry reading his words. I felt like he was being wishy-washy and sympathetic; like he was trying to give an explanation or a justification when there is none.
How can there be anything but condemnation for the men in the Epstein Files? There isn’t room for explanation. Even if there are degrees of guilt and involvement, I don’t really care. When I think about the women, the children, and the situations they were put in, nuance becomes irrelevant.
Hypothetical situations and hindsight also become irrelevant.
I know what it’s like to be leered at, to be touched inappropriately because I am a woman in a crowded bar. I know what it’s like to feel a little unsafe because I am alone with a man and I’m unsure what to do.
I don’t expect my dad to write from this sort of lens because that would be weird and inauthentic, not to mention pandering and performative. I do, however, expect my dad to “take himself out of himself” and understand that his lens may be triggering for others.
Sounds like something my daughter would say to me. Thank you for your perspective and on behalf of all of us men who don't fully understand, I'm sorry
Michael Wolff's ongoing Daily Beast commentary on Epstein--and Trump--from his years of hanging with both men as a biographer/journalist, is quite illuminating in its attempts to explain the Inner Circle allure. But is also told from an older guy's perspective.
From Wolff's accounts, it seems Epstein would tailor the "illegality" of his gatherings to the moral caliber--or lack thereof--of the attendees. Wolff claims Epstein showed him photos of Trump, who in one had topless young women "..of an uncertain age..." on his lap. Because the Trump1 DOJ botched the initial search of Epstein's brownstone, an entire safe full of recordings and photographs "disappeared." Thus, we may never know the identities of the rich and powerful sexually compromised by the late financier.
That Epstein was indeed running an ongoing Honey Trap to extort and control powerful men now seems nearly indisputable.
I’m with your daughter here. Burn it all down.
I hear you and understand where you are coming from. Personally, I saw the essay as a psychological exploration into human nature and a dire warning from CS Lewis. Nice to meet you, Lauren. (My daughter’s middle name.) 🥰🙏🏻👏
That’s how I saw it, too. In my experience, the good guys like David, and my own husband, really can’t fully comprehend how women have to live in the world. When Me Too started, my husband said to our daughters, then young teenagers, “If anyone ever harasses you, you let me know. “ The three of us looked at each other for a millisecond and then roared with laughter. He was confused.
Have you seen John Procter is the Villain? I saw it 3 times. It was breathtaking. Very affirming and right on target about “good guys” and “me too”
I haven't. Don't know if I can stand it! I'm still trying to explain the whole good guy fallacy to my very good husband. He can't comprehend this behavior, none of his friends would do these things, ever, or excuse them, (he is correct), so....it must be unusual, right? Gahhhhh I was in high school when what was called Women's Liberation was new, and we are still still still here.
I went to closing night (in costume!) but they are making it into a movie. It’s a MUST see. My husband, like my father and brothers, fall into the exception category, not the rule. My daughter is 16 months, I am glad I don’t have to explain this to her. Your story about your husband/daughters laughing made me laugh out loud! Classic!!!
I’ll have to wait for the movie — missed the Broadway run. (It’s so crazy expensive, I only see shows when someone comps me or gives them as a gift. I love it that you went in costume! I plan to see two plays based on ancient Greek dramas (my wheelhouse), The Other Place (now at The Shed, where prices are reasonable) and Antigone (A Play I Read in High School) opening at The Public next month. I’m especially excited about that one. Anna Ziegler’s work is so good and it’s a premier!
That’s a great anecdote thanks for sharing
I had a similar response to Lauren's, and I thank you for sharing it with your readers. Of course, as women, Lauren and I both know what it means to navigate in a world where men so often behave as if our bodies and lives are theirs for the taking.
Though I am fortunate enough not to have been trafficked as these vulnerable young girls were, I was sexually harassed--IN SCHOOL--at the tender age of 11. I know the humiliation and shame of boys--whose gaze was paramount, according to society's relentless inculcation--ridiculing my early-developing body, slapping my behind, snapping my bra strap, and calling me names like "big tits" and "fat ass."
I also know the pain of having been ostracized from the rich, popular girls' clique and mocked by the football jocks strutting through the halls of my high school like they owned the place and were generously letting the rest of us exist.
So I have zero compassion for grown male wannabes who suck up to famous assholes. If I had no patience for the teenage versions, I most certainly do not care a whit about the boys who didn't grow up and, at 40 or 50 or even 60, are still looking for validation from the party gang.
My takeaway from my own experience was to become a woman who has no desire or need to be validated by horrible people, no matter how rich or famous. Their money and influence do not make them better than me. We'll all lose loved ones, know heartache, and one day die. I have no patience for men of such pitifully weak character that they will abandon wife and child in a time of crisis for a chance to be in the presence of the grand poo-bah.
We all have our weaknesses, and I'm certainly not without my own flaws. But I fully believe that people who degrade themselves for the blessings of evil men will one day reap what they've sown, whether in this life or the successive incarnations required to work off all that lousy karma they've generated.
Gillian, thank you for such a thoughtful comment.
To be clear, debasing oneself in a desperate bid to obtain money or status is not the failing of men alone. I am aghast at how Fergie used her own daughters to leverage some sort of favor from Epstein, while standing by her husband's behavior.
David, like CK Steele, I see what you were going for here and I appreciate it. I’m happy to know about CS Lewis’s talk and will look for it. The impulse he describes has also brought us Trump World, within the White House - the disgusting obsequiousness of his Cabinet - and across the country with the hardcore MAGAs and the Christian right. What they have in common is the belief that women and people of color are valued only insofar as they serve you, and that political power begins at home, where the father rules. Why so many women and people of color seek to belong to this world, I don’t know. Is it the same wish to be in the circle of the powerful?
That desire to belong is so powerful. Best to beware of its malign influence.
I don't have much to offer (other than smashing my fist into the glass and screaming into the void) about the Epstein files, or Attila, because it's all being said more eloquently and more precisely both here and elsewhere, but I really want to echo Lauren's assertion that "Hypothetical situations and hindsight also become irrelevant." That is, perhaps, my least favorite move of a certain kind of male worldview - the devil's advocate, the "but have you thought about it this way," the "yes but how can you be sure" rhetoric that gets used by men in order to hold themselves at arm's length, unmistakably supporting the status quo while deluding themselves with their own hubris - they believe themselves to be the rationale thinkers, freed from the hysteria from those of us who have been harmed. I know it's impossible to ever fully step outside of oneself, but the endless, intellectual exercises of folks who have no skin in the game will never cease to amaze me. I say this not in any way directed at David (whose willingness to acknowledge not only his own privilege but also his own potential to do harm I find vital), but at other men I've known, including most recently so many men I met while dating in middle aged, the white men who label themselves "apolitical," who see themselves as totally "removed from" the messy realm of politics, as though their very ability to label themselves "apolitical" (surely this is how Attila would have positioned himself - politics are not my problem - ?) isn't the most political thing of all?
truth must come to light for human evolution, for the freedom of all. I love CS Lewis. we have the same birthday. as does Louisa May Alcott and her father too. something in the sunlight angle of late November.
Thank you for this, David. (And thank you, Lauren, for your rebuttal.) You've hit on a fine point that most of us, even outside those elite walls, can understand. We do all brag about meeting or hobnobbing with 'names'. We don't necessarily want to be them, but we think rubbing elbows with them rubs something off on us. We become special, if even for that moment, but it's not all that special if we can't tell anybody. Of course we want to tell everyone!
But would any of us want to be close to someone like Epstein? I'm a woman so I can safely answer 'no'. But what about most men? He traveled in those circles and somehow became that person the men there wanted most to be known to have been with. It wasn't a badge of honor, it was a badge of wickedness. Was it innocent? Maybe at first. Maybe it went nowhere. But enough of them succumbed, and there's the story. The scandal. A scandal that's been covered up because those involved aren't ordinary folks, they're wealthy and powerful in their own spheres, yet they were reckless in their need to be looked on as bad boys. Or to be bad boys.
I don't understand it. I couldn't possibly understand it, and I despise their collusion and their actions. The girls who are now women will suffer throughout their lifetimes for the things that happened to them when they were vulnerable victims hidden from the world for who knows how long, simply to satisfy men who used them and abused them, as if they only had bodies and no souls.
We need to get to the bottom of this, we need to see punishment, but we need also to understand why so many with so much at stake put their own lives and reputations at risk to follow a path that could only lead to disaster once it was exposed. And you've helped us see why some of them would do what they did. Inclusion into an exclusive club. That simple. It was their weakness.
Thanks Ramona. I saw and see the parallels with belonging to Trump's inner circle, Despite the fact that being in Trump's inner circle has not turned out well for many in his first term. I think in addition to weakness it was a belief that there would not be reckoning. Whether there will be a sufficient reckoning is still in doubt.
Yes, I can see the parallels with Trump, except their acceptance and collusion was never kept secret, no matter how gross and ugly it became. They were never ashamed of it.
My husband and I just watched Nuremberg last night and it’s clear it was happening with his inner circle of command as well. It ended with this sobering quote, “The only clue to what man can do is what man has done."
— R.G. Collingwood
Crowe was seductively charming as Goring. I found myself manipulated into rooting for him at times.
Lewis was prescient, as it was the Kim Philby inner ring of spies at MI6 that did so much damage to the West. They weren’t actually Communists, they just enjoyed being part of an even more secret society within the secret society.
Good point about Philby!
Thank you for including your daughter's reaction to this post. She articulated what I felt after reading it. I appreciate your essay, but I don't think it's possible for a man to understand the depths of the pain of sexual assault and misogyny. As a woman, I can not imagine what the groomed and trafficked girls and women went through and how their trauma could ever be healed.
The Epstein "circle" seems to be worse than any normal person could imagine. In my gut, I believe we will never know the full extent of this. I fear we will continue to receive breadcrumbs of pieces of the story, and the cover-up by our government will continue. Obviously, there are levels of involvement and guilt for those in this circle, and if my name appeared, I would be begging Congress to depose me to offer up everything I knew.
Great points. Unfortunately there are many Epsteins in the world. They just haven’t been caught and they probably avoid celebrities in order to keep their evil a secret.
Thanks Jean. I do lack the perspective that you and my daughter have. I hope that there will be an organized investigation. Maybe initiated by the 2026 House.
Congratulations, David, on the guts to face your frailties. And bless you, Lauren, for your high regard for your dad. I hope my kids and grandkids hold me in comparable esteem -- maybe I'll ask them. C.S. Lewis got it right, as he so often did: we are all enticed into our particular inner circle. Back in my career days, I'd have been flattered by Epstein's hospitality, if extended, though I'd have fled the infidelity and vile treatment of girls, if these had been a requirement. These days, if Thoreau and Shakespeare invited me to a boys' night, I'd be there in a flash, no matter how I disapproved of the goings on. To each their Circe.
Thanks Carll!
there has to be a balancing and honest reckoning. women create life. and men are clearly suffering if behaving this way. the only relief is acknowledging we are in this together. or we are not and we are different species. but I think men as a whole are showing the distortions that exist in our collective field.
Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian prayer, seems appropriate here. see what a doctor did using this prayer over files of people. big healing occurred.
Neptune just left the illusionary dreamscape of Pisces where it was for a decade and a half. It’s time to be wide awake in this world, and make choices that are aligned with goodness and inner authority. we are all responsible for following our true north.
women have had to endure and use the challenges for growth. now men can level up too.
then we can all have fun instead of hurt each other. we’ve had enough of that.
it’s gonna take men releasing womb envy. a tall ask.
I love H’opoponopono.
I am a woman who has been sexually assaulted more than once and harassed in the workplace as have many, perhaps most. I’m concerned that women who I see all over social media are projecting their own personal suffering onto this situation. Peter Attia isn’t even accused of doing something illegal. I dare all the women condemning him to ask their husbands and boyfriends for their email passwords and phone codes and see if they find no off color comments. Me Too has made sure that men are presumed guilty and I’ve seen way too many good men ruined along with men and women whose careers suffered because the men accused and all their ideas were tossed out, their businesses destroyed. Obviously Epstein was a vile human being and it’s good that he’s dead. Obviously many people showed very bad judgment in associating with him, so many rich and powerful people that it looked like a reasonable thing to do. Those of us mere mortals who don’t even get invited to the local block party may feel very self righteous passing judgment, but we really don’t know how we would react if we were in the circumstances that Attia was. I love your thought experiment David. I think it’s remarkably honest which is what I love about your column. I’m very glad I’m just a school teacher and no one cares what I’m up to - which is basically work and volunteering at a cat shelter. If you were to check my private texts you’d find a lot of Game of Thrones and Star Wars references in some long conversations, and I’m sure someone could take offense. We should all do what my mother told me to do when I learned to write: never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times. All these years I’ve been writing and I’m not yet in the Times because I am delightfully unimportant. If I ever am asked to a party by anyone rich and powerful, please remind me of the beauty of being no one. And female. For now women get a little more slack.
I am so proud of my daughter Lauren and her comment. It says what I would say if I could write as well as she does. I am on team Lauren!!
Go mama! Lauren is quite eloquent. Maybe a Substack in her future?
Just what I was thinking!
I was disgusted to read what Peter Attia wrote in those emails… I purchased his book and on occasion would listen to his podcasts. I’m not so naive that I don’t know that men say these kinds of things - kind of like an eternal frat party - what disgusted me more was that as a physician (who is clearly smart enough to get through medical school and write book) - he was stupid enough to put those disgusting thoughts into an email. One has to wonder if he was in constant stress once the Epstein files were ordered released. He had to know his days were numbered. I feel for his wife and children. He’s destroyed what was an amazing career. I was raised with five brothers, worked in a male dominated industry for 32 years… so I know when it’s just “locker room talk” and when it’s genuine “creep” factor. Sadly, even though many of these men were drawn into wanting to belong in that “inner circle” they showed their true colors by not knowing when to back out. What I know of you based on your writings, I believe you would have backed out. Also, appreciate your daughter’s response. Most women (probably all) can relate to the things she alludes to. Interesting read as usual.
Great points. David would have definitely left early. Even Trump kicked out Epstein from Mara Lago.
Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar a Lago because he kept taking his young female employees, meaning it affected his business. Not because he thought Epstein was a creep, because they partied together. Trump gets no 'credit'.
Thanks Peggy!
there is a way of giving this thing energy to feed it and normalize it, and there is a way of alchemizing it. as long as people seek validation from the approval of others there is danger of manipulation. that’s the sin - following the mind that is controlled by outer forces or following the inner knowing which is guided by nature.
As a survivor myself, a Restorative Justice circle facilitator in and out of prison and trauma therapist, I can say with all certainty that yes we are all human and capable of inflicting horrific pain on others.
However, most of us operate with a moral compass and spend our lives working with the parts of us who long to be let loose on the world because of our own trauma, humiliation, oppression and silencing. But we don't give those base impulses expression.
I am not surprised that any of my abusers have never acknowledged the immense pain they caused me or the demolition of my spirit and will that has taken all of my 65 years to try to heal from. I am still not completely healed and may never be.
The heartbreak for me in this Epstein story is the degree to which parts of this country are satisfied to let women and children's lives be devastated and ask our country to value the lives, careers and reputations of those involved with a sex trafficking ring over the survivors' lives, careers and reputations. Some of the survivors' lives have been lost to suicide as many survivors would rather die than live in the hell created by their exploitation.
Compassion for the perpetrator or enabler to predation comes only after accountability. Asking the country to have compassion for the frailty of those mentioned in the files is premature and an impossible ask for a country of survivors of trauma of all kinds, whether it be sexual trauma, trauma from violence including community violence, trauma of exploitation and oppression.... I could go on but I hope that I have made myself clear to those who ask us to be compassionate. I organically move to compassion after my devastating pain is acknowledged and not before.
Joy, this is an important comment both because of your personal experience and powerful indictment of looking the other way. Thank you.
The psychological impact of group think without G-d, morals and decency is dangerous. This essay could have overlapped with what’s going on today throughout the world with Jew hate. (Oh— one of your readers from last week didn’t like that I mentioned Carney as a Jew hater so I’m sure he will “love” this comment. Haha.) My point is this essay is a template for the dangers of group think. People are always looking for a group to belong to, rich or poor. It’s how they choose that matters.
Yes, Carissa, a commonality of ideas can form a "Ring," and the ideas can be pernicious or virtuous. That's an important point.
In some ways, it was very good for me to grow up in a town so small that the schools lacked enough people to form cliques. I didn't see anything like that until I was in college.
Thank you for this excellent article David. I appreciate the references to C.S. Lewis and that it is innate to want to belong just as I agree with Lauren that there is no excuse for anyone vaguely aware of Epstein's crime and character. Yes, the decor alone is a horrible clue, OMG.
Good essay. Turns out Eyes Wide Shut was a documentary, who knew? And be sure to tell Lauren it’s ok, there’s a 98.6% chance her hairdresser is gay so he gets a pass.
Joe Rogan has a great interview with Mike Benz from last week. He does a great job of connecting the Epstein dots. The lurid part is just a sideshow to it all.
He was straight!!!
No way. Not a chance. He’s just in the closet. 😉
This is a disturbing sentence, a stereotype that any man involved with women's care is gay. And a smiley face doesn't negate that. But I'm sure you thought you were clever.
I bet you’re fun at cocktail parties.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of your small talk, either
I don’t know if you are a man, but if so, telling a woman that another man has a right to assume social permission because he is gay is just a perfect illustration of the way men think they should get to control the bodies of women and gay people.
No. Our Brit,'Lord'Peter Mandelson has been using that get out. " I can't have been involved in any sexual molestation because I'm gay" and the media commenters in the UK are just not accepting it. It's a very strange claim anyway.