The woman, whose name has not been revealed by most media outlets (but see below), claimed the "abuse" lasted much longer than Goldschmidt claimed. As slimy as Goldschmidt was, the encounters continued until she was 27 years old.
The woman told Boule she was in eighth grade when Goldschmidt attended a birthday party for her mother. She said, “He asked if I wanted to play ping pong. We went down (to the basement) and then he said, `Oh, do you want to come give me a hug?’ “
Boule said the woman told her the encounter turned into oral sex, adding she had “never even kissed a boy.”
The woman told Boule that sex with Goldschmidt continued throughout his tenure as mayor; his years in Washington, D.C., as U.S. secretary of transportation; the years he worked at Nike; and even into his term as Oregon’s governor.
“It lasted until I was 27,” she told Boule.
Where does abuse end and consensual sex begin? Obviously Goldschmidt committed at the very least statutory rape by messing around with a 13-year-old, but what in the HELL was this woman's excuse for continuing a relationship with her abuser for 13 or 14 years? THAT is what fucking boggles the mind. It makes NO sense at all. The only thing I can think of is this woman was seriously mentally screwed up, but why didn't her family get her the hell away from him?
From the Oregonian:
She said, though, the sex with Neil Goldschmidt continued throughout his tenure as mayor, his years in Washington, D.C., as U.S. secretary of transportation, the years he worked at Nike and even into his term as Oregon's governor.
"It lasted until I was 27," she told me.
The Oregonian has no independent reporting that substantiates this, but it is consistent with what she told friends and family members through the years. Goldschmidt said it ended "some months later" in the year after the abuse began.
Willamette Week identified her as Elizabeth Lynn Dunham, born May 12, 1961, and died January 16, 2011. The obituary has pictures of her at various points of her life.
Still, journalism ethics experts disagree on naming Dunham.
“My personal opinion is that the story has been told. Goldschmidt has suffered the consequences,” says Tom Bivins, chairman in media ethics at University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication. “I don’t see any justification for exposing her memory and her family and friends to further inquiry and potential embarrassment this far after the fact.”
But professor Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, says preserving Dunham’s anonymity beyond her death would be dishonest.
“It is time to name the victim, to put a human (and specific) face on an anonymous victim,” Ward wrote in an email. “Putting a name on the victim adds strength to your story—it allows you to tell readers about a real, identifiable person. Specifics in stories of this kind can be very important.”
Dunham's life was a total mess. It's a miracle she lived as long as she did:
Although her adult life was a chronicle of nearly uninterrupted misery, Dunham expressed a range of conflicting feelings about Goldschmidt.
As a young girl, friends say, she was thrilled to be the object of a powerful leader’s attention.
Later, she would come to blame him for her problems. But, according to friends, there was always a part of her that was lovestruck, a part that felt he was, in her words, “a savior.”
,,,
Smolak says the relationship with Goldschmidt dominated Dunham’s life, and her unresolved feelings about him plagued her.
“Neil Goldschmidt was her savior one moment and the devil incarnate the next,” Smolak says.
“Goldschmidt had an enormous impact on her life,” adds Matson, a former boyfriend. “She was probably in love with him as a teenager and flattered by his attention. But she was very damaged, and she was a person who could not help herself.”
I would bet dollars to donuts Dunham had it in her youthful head she would one day be the wife of a powerful politician, and never mind the fact that it would never, ever happen. She probably felt "love" for Goldschmidt, and hence all of the years she continued with her affair with him. She continued seeing him hoping against hope he would eventually marry her. Remember, this person was already screwed up from having been violated at 13. It wasn't going to get better in any case.
The article makes clear this case was NOT at all cut-and-dried. Goldschmidt deserves all of the criticism for his actions, but Dunham certainly can't let off the hook, either, for continuing it. It's just a matter of common sense.
WW's original article which won it the Pulitzer Prize
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