Vanessa Springora

"Stockholm syndrome is not just a theory. Why shouldn't a fourteen-year-old girl be in love with a man thirty-six years her senior? I turned this question over in my mind a hundred times, without realizing it was the wrong one. It wasn't my attraction to him that needed to be interrogated, but his to me."

Vanessa Springora's memoir, Consent is not an easy read. It's disturbing, it's heartbreaking, and it's more than a little angry -- and rightfully so. And the horrifying undercurrent show more throughout her prose is the fact that her relationship with G.B. -- French writer Gabriel Matzneff -- was no secret, but rather an open fact. He brought her to interviews; he went to dinner at her mother's house; he wrote about her. And deeper than that, his pedophilic (or ephebophilic, as Springora clarifies toward the end of her memoir) nature was not just a known fact, but a celebrated one. He wrote thousands of words about how he delighted in abusing children and publishers paid him for them. He was given awards for those words.

These days, "cancel culture" is the big buzzword. Some men like to rabble-rouse and act as if this is some sort of puritanical witch-hunt, some secret cabal of women searching for famous men to kneecap. Of course, that's nonsense. As Idris Elba said, in the midst of many women coming forward to tell their stories, "It's only difficult if you have something to hide." Even "cancel culture" is a misnomer, as most men caught up in #MeToo scandals are still working today.

But what Consent points out so well is that, in a patriarchal culture, there are multiple insidious forces at work: the abuser; the wall of defenders that rally to his aid, even when his crimes are so blatant he talked about them openly; and the larger societal forces that give leeway to a serial abuser because of his celebrated status as a creative and ruthlessly punish the survivor of his abuse.

I hope that, in writing this book, she was able to take her story back. show less

French editor Vanessa Springora shares the horrifying story of how she was sexually abused as a young teen by a much older man, an illustrious author she refers to by his initials: G.M. Apparently, everyone who was anyone in French literary circles knew all about G.M. and his pedophiliac proclivities, and these sophisticates all smiled knowingly at his sordid behavior. Even Vanessa’s negligent mother seemed flattered by the old man’s attentions to her daughter. In this harsh environment, show more Vanessa struggles to regain control of herself, her sexuality, and her sense of agency.

This brief memoir is an uncompromising indictment of the author G.M. and the milieu that enabled him. Recommended. show less

I read this in one sitting while at work, and then immediately purchased a copy so I couldn't read it again.

I first heard about this memoir in Alice Capella's YouTube video "the dangerous world of online child exploitation," and I am thankful for it. Like when I reviewed Betrayal: The Crisis In the Catholic Church: The Findings of the Investigation That Inspired the Major Motion Picture Spotlight by the Spotlight Team and Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly by Jim DeRogatis, I stated that show more it is hard to rate a book on child sexual assault because these are never "good" books. These types of books can be well written and tell a deeply emotional story, but they are never good nor are they bad, they just are. "Consent" was a truly gripping memoir that got me out of read slump, and has easily become one of my favorite books.

Springora details her "relationship" with G. (Gabriel Matzneff) in such a way that shows how she was preyed on by him and how she felt about it at the time, and her realization of how corrupt this relationship was. G. took advantage of Springora at a time when she was already struggling and corrupted her. Springora also details how the people around her reacted to this relationship, with other famous authors and writers as well as Springora's own mother accepting the relationship, but Springora's classmates and their families saw it as wrong from the get go and knew that Matzneff was in fact a pedophile (something he openly admits/ed). Europe knew what he did to teenage girls and young boys and no one tried to actually stop him, instead they bought his books and gave him rewards.

Springora does not go into heavy detail on their sexual life, besides saying that they did have one and what it felt like for her at a young-age, and I think this is part if the reason I was so immersed in the book. Springora is telling you both the story of the young girl who thought she was in love and the adult woman who knows she was a victim and is now a survivor. I think also the lack of graphic detail was important because it wont allow for someone to get off on her trauma, G has already made sure that people can do that through his writings about their time together.

People will blame Springora or Matzneff (which makes sense because he is beyond a terrible person), but we should be blaming the culture that allowed the rise of Matzneff and the system that shielded him for decades. Springora is never to blame for what happened to her, and no other survivor should be blamed. show less

This book may have been slim, but I felt as if I read a longer book because of the heavy content. I know the culture in Europe is different than the United States (particularly in the 1970’s & 80’s), but I just couldn’t fathom so many adults approving of or looking the other way when it came to Vanessa and the writer, who was almost 40 years her senior. I was also extremely angry on Vanessa’s behalf when she recounts how the writer posted underage pictures of her without her consent, show more and nothing was done legally about that either.
Despite all of the trauma, the neglect, and the gaslighting that Vanessa endures, her perseverance shines through the pages. After years of being made the subject of a story she tried so hard to escape from, she is finally writing her own. show less