Childhood Sexual Abuse Victim Speaks.

If you haven't read this 2005 account by now Professor Larry Lessig, you ought to reconsider. Very realistic, and illuminating, I'm sure.

“This thing happened to me,” Lessig says, “and I can see how it changed me. But to be too angry about it would require me to kind of hate myself. Now, there are certain things I did hate about what it did to me: the way I would destroy relationships and the pain I would inflict on people when I did. But there are other parts—the weirdness of me and my relationship to the world. Being deeply reflective about institutions, responsibilities, and my role. Spinning deeply from the age of 14 about issues. And it’s like, well, if this hadn’t happened to me, who would I have been? Maybe I would have gone to work with my dad and run the steel plant and become a Republican congressman from Williamsport. I would have been a totally different person.”

Bless him for getting past the headline label, and for having the courage to tell the truth about the whole mess... Details matter. And imaginations are no substitute for reality.