Cassandra vs. Sean

In defense of too-young women

The unfolding RICO case against Sean Combs, the onetime music mogul, is about whether or not a 19-year-old woman held agency in her life. If you accept Combs’ attorney’s defense argument, the women abused by Sean Combs—Cassandra Ventura and “Jane” in particular—acted willingly. If you accept the prosecution argument, there can be no consent when a wealthy music industry powerhouse makes sexual demands of a young woman so many years his junior. Especially when you add consistent clarity-obliterating drug use, intimidation, violence, and shame.

As a onetime 19-year old woman, I can say that at that age, my limited experience did not equip me to make fully independent choices. I want to believe that I never could have ceded control of my life to a man so obviously violent and controlling. But the truth is less certain. At 19, I was preoccupied with trying to please, to feel accepted, to make myself into whatever it was that the culture demanded. Be thinner. Be taller. Be prettier. Examine your face at a skin pore level and make it as perfect as a retouched one in a magazine. Stop eating cookies. Stop eating altogether. Walk this way, talk this way. These forces are nearly inescapable, unless you grow up in a Wonder Woman utopia of female empowerment that, alas, does not yet exist.

The privileged world of Sean Combs was not unlike that of Harvey Weinstein (or, for that matter, our current president). Combs and Weinstein wielded influence far in excess of any natural physical appeal: they had extreme wealth and were in a position to make or break careers. Young women who ventured into their worlds did so largely without protection. They shared the insecurity of all young women, masked with exceptional physical beauty and practiced social skills that got them noticed and then left them vulnerable.

I met some beautiful young women like this on photography sets. On the surface, they surely seemed to have it all. When they smiled, their faces seemed genuinely full of joy. But I remember one young model who told me during a break to adjust lighting that she felt like she was just a collection of body parts. A pair of legs, as she put it bluntly. Beautiful legs that I might hope for in my next life, but only that. She wasn’t even twenty and she felt like nothing. She was having a bad day on this set, but in too many ways, I observed, she wasn’t wrong.

Do I think that any young woman would voluntarily subject herself to the sexual overtures and manhandling of a repulsive ogre man like Harvey Weinstein? To the young women who wanted acting careers or worked on film sets, his advances must have been terrifying, and the consequences of rejecting him even more so. Some women who said no lost their acting careers altogether.

In contrast, I imagine that Weinstein’s ex-wife understood what she was signing up for. She was not 19. She was a fashion designer who, by aligning herself with Weinstein, suddenly had rare access to the red carpet needs of A-list actresses. This might be considered an old-school marriage of convenience, or even more bluntly, a kind of well-compensated sex work. Weinstein’s wife was old enough to consider the math problem, to make a choice. Her prompt exit once Weinstein’s offenses were exposed tells us everything about her self-determination. She did not linger as a devoted, loving “good wife.” The deal she’d signed up for was now null and void. She got the fuck out, and after a period of lying low, re-emerged under her own power, her brand evidently revived.

A young, fame-chasing actress or model or pop star is under the influence of many ruthless forces. In the absence of a Mama Rose stage mother, there are too many evil-doers. Agents and managers send girls off to meetings without armed guards. And a host of paid assistants and enablers look the other way or, in the case of Sean Combs, actively ensure that these too-young women are kept in line.

This is what seems to have happened to 19-year-old Cassandra Ventura. She desperately wanted to be a pop star. She was beautiful, had some talent and poise. Many have succeeded with less. She met Sean Combs. He convinced her that he was on her side, if she did what he asked. She called him “Pop-Pop,” the same nickname she used for her own grandfather. Classic grooming behavior. The text threads presented in court might suggest two equals, but they were not equal. When he hit her, his enforcers kept her surveilled as she recovered, imprisoned in hotel rooms, sometimes without means of communication. The Combs defense argues that Cassandra spoke of being “in love” and that she therefore acquiesced to everything willingly. Maybe Cassandra thought that everything she did— “freak-offs” and drugs and abuse—would win his love, loyalty, and support. But despite signing her to a 10-record deal, he did not support her musical ambitions, rather the opposite. He had other priorities. He had plenty of other high-level musical talent. He turned Cassandra into a sex slave, debased, without compensation or full autonomy. He beat her, literally, into submission. That is sexual abuse, which the defense concedes did occur. And something worse, because it’s evident that he did this to other women with the well-organized assistance of his paid staff.

The stark inequality of their situations when Cassandra met Sean—age, experience, wealth, power—was never a level playing field. Cassandra was over 18, but just barely a legal adult. When she met him, she couldn’t buy herself a drink. She wasn’t a child, but she hadn’t truly learned how to protect herself and say no. That takes time. Now in her thirties, she has removed herself from the world of her abuser, spent time in therapy, and wrestled with the shame. Most important, she seems, at last, to have found a partner who cares about her mental and physical welfare.

It is distressing that we see the same tropes being presented in court, the woman being blamed, shamed their obvious inequality ignored. This is the reason women still hesitate to charge abusers. And that, in turn, leads to more such cases just like this one. I worry that even if Sean Combs is convicted and spends many years in prison, this case will not be a deterrent, and the ordeal will keep other victims from coming forward.

---

THANK YOU for reading and I’d love to hear from you! More posts on Fridays at noon. I hope you’ll subscribe (paid subscriptions help support independent writing on Substack!) and share with other readers. A free and open press has never been more important, especially as we experience life under an administration in Washington that is no friend to writers or readers. I know you all receive many requests, so to encourage you to consider a paid subscription, I am offering an annual rate of $30. Thank you all for reading and thank you for supporting independent writers!

You can find out more about my memoirs Perfection and Eva and Eve here and purchase here.

I work privately with memoir writers. You can reach out via my website: juliemetz.com.