Yesterday afternoon, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens was arrested for a felony charge of invasion of privacy. He'd been indicted by a grand jury in St. Louis—a jury of his constituents.
The charges came after news of Greitens' extramarital affair broke in January, just hours after his first State of the State address. KMOV-4, a CBS affiliate in St. Louis, released audio of an anonymous woman alleging she'd had an affair with the married governor before he was elected to office. In the recording, the woman also alleges that Greitens had bound her hands and blindfolded her. The account suggests that, while their encounter began consensually, the woman soon grew uncomfortable, after which he took a photo of her and threatened to distribute the image if news of the affair went public. The woman did not consent to being photographed.
While these claims are abhorrent and disappointing, an equally troubling piece of the puzzle has been overshadowed: how did this audio come to light?
Numerous outlets have acknowledged that the woman in the audio was not aware that she was being recorded. Her ex-husband created the recording, again without her consent. And though I don't believe that this act is as troubling as Greitens' alleged violation and blackmailing, it's still worth exploring. He claims that Greitens' threat of blackmail pushed him over the edge, so he responded to this alleged mistreatment by overtaking control of his wife's words and experiences.
The ex-husband subsequently released her testimony to the public. It's unclear whether she gave permission for him to release the tapes, but if I had to put money on it, I'd guess she had little to no control over how the story—her story—broke. And that's not to imply that Greitens' affair isn't Missouri's story as well. It is. But the core of this narrative has been snatched away from the very woman who experienced this abuse firsthand.
I don't know what motivated the ex-husband to release these tapes, whether it was politics, notoriety, or something else entirely. What I do know is that the woman in the audio has not stepped forward, has not identified herself, and has not had the opportunity to take control of her story without compromising her anonymity. To out herself is to forever be known as the stain that disgraced Greitens, and to lose a great deal of her own identity in the process.
In short: these revelations hinge on a single woman, one who's been exploited several times over by men to control a public power structure. So why is no one talking about that?
