The Stockholm Syndrome of Sexual Assault

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For Slate, Amanda Hess examines yet another first-person confessional: sexual assault victim Jenny Kutner’s essay “The Other Side of the Story,” published in  Texas Monthly.

The power of Kutner’s story is that it lends insight into a particular type of victimization—the kind that happens when the victim doesn’t see herself as one.

Kutner’s essay demonstrates how, in addition to the life lessons she unwittingly learned at the hand of her predatory teacher, she has also learned to write, and write well, somewhere along the way.

Dawn Pier is a developmental editor who blogs at the Rumpus, the travelogue Baja.com, and Dawn Revealed, a personal blog about her adventures surfing and living in Baja. She is working on a memoir about moving to Mexico to learn to surf and save a coral reef. More from this author →