After Cornell: if you’re a boy or man who wants to talk to that guy friend about his abuse.
If a girl or woman tells you that a boy or man in your circle of friends has abused them, then here are some suggestions as to how you can talk to that boy or man. First, you can set a time and a place to talk to him. Don’t let him set it, because he’s used to having control. If you’re worried he’ll get violent with you, do it over the phone. If you’re worried he’ll try to sit down with you and charm you round to “his side of the story”, do it over the phone. Next, work out how long you want the conversation to be. Short is better - fifteen or twenty minutes is plenty enough. That will help you to keep your composure while he loses his.
Try to avoid having this conversation at the end of the day, because this will be a tough chat to sleep on; especially if your guy friend has a malicious or explosive reaction. Ideally, as soon as you finish speaking with your guy friend, call someone who loves you. They will reassure you that you did what you had to do. Because, in yourself, you know you had to do it; you had to. And, as tough as this chat will be, remember that this is a fragment of what the girl or the woman had to navigate before she came and told you: please, never never forget this glimpse of what she was up against.
Before you speak to him, remember who you are, because he will try to make you forget. You are someone who cares about the girl or the woman he harmed and about the girls and the women he may go on to harm. He will try to make you forget that and instead focus on the fact that you are his boy, his bro, come on dude, that’s not how it happened at all. Now, write down a list of the things you’re going to tell him. Bullet points are good, numbers are better, because then you can count them down. A list, a script, is good because it will help you to remain calm, and he does not want this conversation to remain calm, he wants it to descend into rage and chaos.
If you give him stillness, if the delivery of your words remains even, gentle and firm, then he will see himself as he does in his bathroom mirror, his shame starting back at him. If you give him rage and chaos then you will give him debate, and that is where he will hide. When you tell him that you’ve heard about his abuse of the girl or the woman, he’ll tell you he’s not that kind of person, that he can’t believe you’d believe that of him, as if going for curry with him once a month and watching sport with him each fortnight was you co-signing the terror he brought to the girl or woman when no-one else was watching. When he says that, you don’t have to argue back, you just have to repeat, “This is what she told me. This is what she told me.”
Warning. If you talk to that boy or man about his abuse of the girl or the woman, you might find that things do not go as you expect. To be specific: you, and not they, will suddenly be the one who is not getting invited to dinners or parties or weekends away with the guys. You may find yourself in a confusing sort of isolation where many people around you are fine with the precise details of what the boy or man did to the girl or the woman because the boy was troubled, so troubled, he wasn’t in his right mind and anyway he must succeed no matter the cost, if we just throw the boy aside we will ruin his life, so the boy must carry on unhindered while the girl or the woman remains trapped in the moment that he did it.
Yes, some or all of that will likely happen, because you will discover that this is what he does: he weaves people around him to shield him from himself. He will only speak or boast about his abuse of girls or women with other boys or men who share his enthusiasm for what he does. Everyone else in his life is a decoration. If you speak to him then, if nothing else, you will have pulled away one thread of his mask. You are not his decoration. From now on, he cannot use you as his disguise, and for now, maybe forever, that may have to be enough.