When my sister was 12, she was sexually assaulted by someone close to my family. But you’d never know it because when she finally told my parents, no charges were pursued. You’d never know it because in our family, we don’t talk about it; we don’t acknowledge it. Still, the truth is always in the room; it’s an undercurrent of uncomfortable electricity that buzzes in the silences, in the things we don’t say, in the people we don’t mention.
Once, I broke that silence at a family gathering. I was frustrated with the righteous half-lies being spoken, and I stood up and screamed. I yelled what happened. I said it over and over. And I’ll never forget how my parents sat there, quiet, barely flinching. Later, I was the one who was expected to apologize. After all, I disrupted everyone’s nice evening.
That story is about my family. But it is also a story of how rape culture works, not through active conspiracy, the aiding and abetting, the plotting and the violence itself, but through the quiet complicity of turning your head the other way. The real conspiracy is always silence.
Right now, America is awash in Epstein conspiracies – who knew, what and when.
Last week, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released photographs from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate. And even as I write this, more photos are being released. Some are mundane: Epstein’s water heater, a white institutional-looking bathroom, an outdoor construction project surrounded by palm trees. Others feel more sinister: Epstein in a bathtub, the warranty on a “jawbreaker gag,” sex toys, and Donald Trump-branded condoms.
They don’t show evidence of wrongdoing. But they do show so many powerful people – Woody Allen, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Steve Bannon, Bill Gates and so many others. The pictures obscure the faces of some of the women. So many of these men say that they did not know what Epstein was doing. They had no idea.
Right now, America is awash in Epstein conspiracies – who knew, what and when. Who did what? Where were these powerful men, and with whom? Internet rabbit holes, podcasters and anonymous posters on X all spiral out threads of speculation.
But I am a woman in America. I live in a family marred by sexual violence. I, too, was a victim of sexual violence, assaulted when I was in college. I am also a reporter. I have had so many people come to me with their own stories, which were never made public and never will be. And I know that we don’t need complicated theories to hide the violence done to women and girls. All we need is silence.
This fall, I read “Nobody’s Girl,” a memoir by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, published posthumously after she died by suicide. Giuffre was a victim of Epstein’s sexual violence and was trafficked by him to other powerful men. What struck me was how not a secret her secret was. How she, a child, was right there among the swirls and eddies of the rich and famous. And how they must have known, or known enough to stay silent, to look the other way. How some of America’s supposed geniuses didn’t think for one moment to question her presence or the presence of so many other victims.
But I also believe something else must have been going on, too. Bill Gates says he didn’t know anything about Epstein’s crimes and regrets his meetings. But Melinda Gates has stated that while her divorce from her husband was caused by a lot of factors, one of them was his friendship with Epstein.
During Trump’s first administration, the #MeToo movement, which had been launched in 2006 by activist Tarana Burke, gained momentum as abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein made national headlines. Women across the world began sharing their stories of the everyday acts of violence they endured, from unwanted touches by bosses to rape. Yet, even as the movement began to kick over the rotten log of rape culture, people were eager to turn it back over, claiming that the movement was going too far, taking supposedly good men down with it.
After his re-election, Trump himself, who has been found liable for sexually abusing E Jean Carroll, seemed determined to put into positions of power people who had also been accused of alleged sexual misconduct. Even as he claimed to protect women and girls. We live in a culture where it is far more dangerous to say what a man did to you than for the man to actually do the thing to you. These actions feel like a kind of “quiet, piggy” insult in the face of women, as we watch reproductive rights continue to be reversed and alleged sex pests appointed to high positions, and we scream to know the truth. Well, we know the truth; we just want someone to say it. I’m so tired of the quiet. And now, the Epstein files, the photographs, the stories, the emails, the documents, are all coming out and everyone – many of the same pundits who said #MeToo had gone too far – are now studying the complicated evidence board of metaphorical red yarn and conspiracy theories. We live in a culture where it is far more dangerous to say what a man did to you than for the man to actually do the thing to you. And that is because of all the people who know without actually knowing, the ones who turn their heads the other way. That silence is its own kind of sexualized violence. A person doesn’t have to assault a woman to victimize her. He just has to turn his head when his friend does. Stay quiet when she so clearly needs help. And the moment we get close to fully excavating this reality in our culture, the backlash and victim shaming begin. So now, Americans want to know who did what to whom and when – poring over the photographs like the Zapruder film of a new generation. But I know that the victims have already told you the truth. The only conspiracy in America that remains is silence. The only conspiracy is what we don’t say, the questions we refuse to ask, the women we turn away from when they speak. And once again, I want to stand up and scream.
Lyz Lenz is the author of the book "This American Ex-Wife." She lives in Iowa and writes the newsletter “Men Yell at Me.” 
