Tim Lennon’s STAND UP SPEAK UP bears the subtitle “How Survivors Created a Movement to End Sexual Violence.” Lennon holds that sexual abuse is at epidemic proportions across the globe, and he advances ways in which it can be combated in America. As such, his book is a powerful read, mixing horror with hope for the future and dismay with determination to secure justice.

One of the book’s strengths is its rootedness in facts and figures while remaining accessible to the general reader. Because it so often appears in private or semi-public contexts, sexual abuse is frequently unseen and unreported; ascertaining its prevalence, when it occurs, and who perpetrates it is central to addressing it. Lennon draws on a wide range of sources to support his claims, including peer-reviewed academic material and government reports. Lennon notes the incidence of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (he was repeatedly abused by a priest during childhood), as well as in the Southern Baptist Convention. He also notes the high rates of abuse in and among various constituencies and spheres of activity: the entertainment industry, the military, higher education, and so on.

A particularly valuable part of the work is Lennon’s identification of “the playbook,” the five-step method by which institutions seek to abscond from justice and preserve their reputations when members perpetrate sexual abuse—a strategy that includes maintaining secrecy, gaslighting the victim, aggressive legal remedies, and leveraging power differentials. Such has been the historical approach of the Catholic Church with regards to the problem of child sexual abuse by priests, the scale of which is sickening to contemplate. Lennon gives no quarter, detailing the church’s multiple cover-ups in exhaustive detail. The book is well-written, though slightly repetitive in places.

Lennon’s calls for action are simple: the calling of a “convention of equals” of survivor groups; statute of limitations reform; and the banning of child marriage, which unbelievably remains legal in 34 states (37 at the time of the book’s publication). Plainly, there is no simple, one-size-fits-all way to deal with Lennon’s “epidemic;” sexual abuse, because it is ordinarily about exerting power, will continue for as long as human beings lack the ability to properly control the will to gain power. The answers Lennon advances sound humdrum and managerial; but then again, like the need to protect freedom through constant vigilance, such work can never be completed or skimped. The sooner we as a society roll up our sleeves and get on with it, the better.

Tim Lennon’s STAND UP SPEAK UP: How Survivors Created a Movement to End Sexual Violence is a chilling exposé of the widespread nature of sexual abuse, as well as a valuable work that details the many survivors’ groups and activism that help bring perpetrators to justice.

~ Craig Jones for IndieReader