Content warning: This article contains mention of rape and sexual assault.
The Epstein files captured the attention of people around the world when social media users were exposed to their gruesome details and the theories that attempt to explain them. While many speculate about the contents, few have a comprehensive understanding of what the files are and what they reveal about society writ large.
Instead, conspiracy theories distract from what actually matters: the countless female victims, whose lives have been upended by trauma and abuse at the hands of powerful men.
The emails are dense and range widely — topics include “little girls” and correspondents’ attraction to them, nude photos of young women and pizza, babies and cream cheese, while other messages contain poetically eerie diary entries about a child being stripped from its mother. They are full of what seems to be code words, concealing the extent of the atrocities committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his inner circle.
A lack of corroborating evidence won’t stop internet users from projecting their conspiracy theories onto reality. Internet personalities, typical social media users and conspiracy theorists alike have blamed Epstein and his network’s actions on occult practices or age-old antisemitic tropes. But the files’ contents are much less imaginative, and hit closer to home, than many are willing to accept.
In the United States, a child is sexually assaulted every nine minutes. One in five women will be the victim of an attempted or completed rape at some point during their lives, and 81% of women and 43% of men report experiencing sexual harassment or assault. Sexual violence, rape and other forms of abuse are rampant societal problems — not just isolated to the elite and powerful. Although Epstein’s status among powerful people allowed his operation to traffic and abuse women and children on a large scale, the epidemic of sexual abuse permeates life regardless of class.
Theories that deem Epstein’s circle devil-worshippers or Illuminati members divorce perpetrators from guilt and accountability. People who commit acts of sexual violence against children and young adults are not controlled by extraterrestrial force or celestial demons, but choose to exploit and abuse because they have access to money and power that back up their desire to do what they want with impunity. As such, theorists are not always truth seekers, but sometimes propagandists who choose exploitation over explanation — and in doing so, sanitize a bleak reality.
Abusers commit acts of rape and assault to feel power and exert it. As members of such secret rings have risen to actual authority, like President Donald Trump, behaviors driven by manosphere ideals have become the norm.
The present media and cultural landscapes compound to create an unsafe environment, where young girls and women are hypersexualized, abused and accused of being liars. PornHub boasts an extensive “Barely Legal” category, and “teen” is one of the website’s top searched words. When women do speak out, they face intense backlash, which forces them back into silence and leaves them unable to find justice. Even trusted institutions can still house and perpetrate sexual predators, like the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandals and the high rates of assault at schools and universities.
Epstein also had clear access to and influence within NYU — he donated to the university, giving himself the ability to offer scholarships and acceptances to applicants as abusive leverage. Even after his 2008 conviction, Epstein was invited to personal events by Matthew Bronfman, a President’s Global Council member and the honorary chair of NYU Hillel. Wealthy and powerful institutions are not only desensitized to sexual abuse, but often excuse it in the name of maintaining power and the unobstructive nature of the status quo.
Epstein’s wealth and power set him apart from most perpetrators — but sexual abuse of children and young women is not a new, distant phenomenon. Spreading conspiracy theories and blaming demonic entities for such behavior simply ignores society’s widespread failures and takes accountability off the table.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Grace Carmody at [email protected].