“I’d thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it’s profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.”
–Tahar Ben Jelloun
Me at 22 in my favorite jumpsuit. RJ took this picture.
During 1986-1987 Sheri and I moved into the house in San Francisco. I say it needlessly, this was a very different time. In those years Reagan was president, the Challenger exploded and the Iran-Contra affair was exposed. Hustler was in court with Falwell defending our right to printed porn and phones were still corded to walls. Michael Jackson released Bad but it would be 5 more years before the World Wide Web was born.
Trigger Warning
It seems an innocent time, but when looking at the past what time doesn’t? When I look at this period I am no less shocked by what I didn’t know. Why I didn’t leave, fight back, call bullshit. Why none of us did. I have come to understand, (surprise-surprise), it is very similar to why people stay in cults. Read about the 8 steps that explain why people stay in abusive relationships. This article’s title actually says women but I’ve seen men be abused in the same way in and out of RJ Testerman’s group.
The Start
I met Sheri when RJ and I were still at the hair salon on Maiden Lane. She worked across the alley at a skin salon as an esthetician. I don’t know when or how RJ actually met her, but he started cutting her hair. I would wash and dry it sometimes. Once in awhile she would come over to just get her hair styled for the evening.
Sheri seemed delicate and upper class to me; I was in awe of her. She was so beautiful and well turned out, always in heels. I think RJ saw this. He could tell I was enamored with her. At some point, RJ me told privately that she was a “Streetwalker” which was ‘80s lingo for “Sex Worker” and that she worked the area around Union Square. Even at the time I knew he told me this to shock me. RJ always undermined, or tried to undermine, anyone and everyone I liked. It took years for me to realize he did it to everyone else too. I had met plenty of women who worked the streets and it wasn’t easy for me to reconcile the Sheri I knew with what I had experienced of them.
Kindred
Instead of Sheri falling in my esteem though, I actually grew an even bigger soft spot for her. I never asked who her pimp was or if she worked alone. I never told her my story either but from that moment on I felt close to her, like I wanted to protect her. I actually remember thinking how lucky I was that I didn’t have to do something dangerous like walk the streets and I got to work for Sharon. Another reason to be grateful for RJ, right?
First crush
Dancing in the kitchen
I believe this is where Sheri’s and my friendship was born…friendship or just compassion for one another. I had never felt as close to Wendy, but that was normal because I wasn’t close to women in general. Wendy was too soft for me, she was victimized way more than I could stand. The way she would get about RJ reminded me of high school girls fawning and swooning over boys, repulsive. Sheri was more my kind of woman. Not only did we have a shared experience but she grew up in Oakland and had a tough core I could recognize.
Also, she was sweet to me and the only woman who was ever easily affectionate. Even up until the last time I saw her she would brush my hair, rub my head, sit close, and hold my hand. Physical intimacy outside of sex has been an issue my whole life. I’m sure why that is is clear by now. Sheri always sailed right through my barriers and I loved her for it. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Sheri is the heart of the group. Wendy always loved RJ absolutely, but the rest of us she could take or leave. Sheri loves RJ absolutely now, but in the beginning it felt like she moved in as much for a family as it was for him.
How our garden grew
SF in the ’80’s
RJ started renting a salon, Robert James, in the 166 Geary building by Union Square is San Francisco and I continued to work for him. We had large Mark groups that Brian and Kassy ran. They were fun and provided a stream of people through our lives.
Sheri moved into the communal house in SF before I did, or just after. I was still at the More House out by Golden Gate park when RJ told me about Sheri and her boyfriend, Alfredo. He told me Alfredo was a pathological liar and that Sheri needed help. RJ very much wanted her to move in, and Wendy to a lesser degree. I remember going to Sheri’s apartment once with RJ near the end of Sheri and Alfredo’s relationship. She could no longer deny that the alleged “cancer-ridden” “secret agent” she was supporting was also stealing from her. It was sad.
Sheri did move in and I moved in with my boyfriend, Kevin. The first night we arrived RJ, Wendy, and Sheri, and a few other people who were living there, sat Kevin and I down in the front room. RJ told Kevin he was just my baggage. Nobody wanted him there but he could come because he was with me. He better watch out and be on his best behavior. Surprisingly, Kevin stayed. RJ never liked Kevin, he didn’t even really know him at that time but I think he’d always planned on me moving in by myself. Hence the baggage.
Alpha
The only other male living there besides RJ was Gerry, a guy from RJ’s vet group. RJ had decided to adopt Gerry, too. He had been living alone in a small room in North Beach. RJ loved Gerry but always dominated him. RJ would tell the women there to be nice to Gerry, make out with him. In those days there was group sex and sometimes Gerry would be excluded. At the same time he was supposedly looking out for Gerry, RJ would constantly publicly humiliate him so he rarely looked attractive to anybody.
Public humiliation as a form of communication
RJ has always had the need to be on top, be smarter, better at sex, know more about women, and always have the right answer. If he ever does allow anyone else to take the lead, it is benevolence. Gratitude will need to be demonstrated. Like an alpha dog, all men are challengers to RJ. He will either run them off or make them succumb to his will. When RJ is irritated with a man living with him, or just visiting, and has had a few drinks, he might accuse the man of “getting scraps from his table,” meaning he got the approval and sex from “his” women that was left over after RJ had the best bits. Uber “sloppy seconds”. RJ believes that other men should be grateful they get to even exist is his world. Kevin was no different.
How the domestic abuse got embedded in the culture and system of the group
Wendy and RJ’s wedding. I was comforting RJ because we heard a friend died just before the ceremony, my mom attended this at the SF house.
Wendy struggled with Sheri being there. Wendy and RJ had done a lot of courses at More House together and got married. They slept in the master bedroom together. Wendy would get mad, jealous or disapprove of RJ and there would be a fight. More than once I would be woken by the screaming and pounding happening above my head. Running into the living room with everyone else who lived there we’d see Wendy and RJ fighting naked, swinging at each other. She was easily overpowered. I can still clearly see RJ standing in the living room, angry, fists and teeth clenched, panting like the Tasmanian Devil with Wendy at his feet, crouched on the floor with a bruised head, pissed off and snarling.
We would watch, all of us who live there. Like children we stood there and witnessed the beatings and wished our parents would make up. Partly we stayed because we felt we should make sure no one got seriously hurt, partly because RJ would start drawing us in, telling us how mean she was being, castrating him, cutting his nuts off, making him wrong. Any push-back from anyone was met with full frontal anger, insults, threats and even banishment. We would sit on the couch, silently wishing it would end. At some point it would devolve to a challenge of wills. He would smack her until she submitted. Submission meant stop being angry and just be sorry for hurting him so bad, for making his life so miserable.
The devil you know…
RJ would toy with her, “Can you guess which side it’s coming from?” hide his hands behind his back and laugh maniacally. He would build the fear, make her try to guess on what side he would strike her next. Beating her down, he’d call her names and accuse her: “You hold-out bitch. You won’t approve of me or let anyone else approve of me, either. You want to make sure no one has any fun, especially me.”
Then the worst of all he’d call her “Dot.” Dorothy–Dot– is Wendy’s mom’s name. RJ calls you by your mother’s name to take you down a notch if you are not behaving. It works. Most women do not want to be their mothers.
…is the one you love
My father had taught me that he beat me because he loved me. Wendy believed it now, too. While nursing the morning hangovers we would listen to Billie Holiday singing, “I’d rather my man would hit, than for him to jump up and quit me” and we’d feel understood. We believed the song, better to be beaten than left, believed that Wendy brought it on herself, even felt irritated with her for making him go through such hell. Poor guy, sometimes his fists would even be swollen and painful from having to hit her so much on her hard head. This would become a pattern and later Wendy would not be the only one kneeling in the living room while RJ raged.
Are we having fun yet?
Sheri and I at dinner
There was a lot of drinking and partying during this time. People moved in and out and there were no prescribed practices yet, not even doing, and definitely no Withholds except at Mark Groups, from which BenchMarks were copied. It was exciting and awful. There was a liquor store on the way from the house to the freeway and I stopped there regularly for a pint of tequila.
There was always some psycho-drama going on.. We watched Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf and started playing “get the guests.” Always some intensity. Half the time it felt like I had barely escaped with my life. RJ and I worked together and lived together now. These drunken escapades took the place of the old coping technique of disappearing into the Tenderloin.
Sobriety as an afterthought
Wendy with Kim and Harvey when they were still guests
You might remember the part of my history about getting cancer. I had joined AA, NA and CA and been sober for almost two years. RJ had been sober as well but he’d started drinking. The view he had picked up from More was that we were always responsible and always making a choice. Since we were conscious of our choices we weren’t ultimately powerless over alcohol or drugs, as the program insists. When I first heard that I said “Yahoo!! Let’s go have a drink!” RJ being older and wiser and caring for me so much said maybe I should contemplate that a bit more even though he was back to drinking everyday.
I was sober almost 2 years when I had my first drink. It was with RJ at the Edinburgh Castle on Geary Street in SF. I drank a Black and Tan, half Bass Ale and half Guinness Stout. it was delicious. Then I bought a dime bag of pot on my way home. I can’t say I was ever sober much after that, until I got pregnant with my boys. What was different was that I couldn’t pretend I was unaware of what I was doing. My continual choice of drugs and alcohol only confirmed for me how basically flawed I am.
And then…
SF House
Around this time I remember RJ calling Wendy and me into the bedroom, I think Kim might even have been there visiting. Kim had married Harvey and was running 80 Hamilton, a More House in Oakland. Sheri was on the bed naked from the waist down. RJ was sitting next to her fully clothed and doing her. “Look!” RJ said with a big smile. Sheri showed all the signs of orgasm: contractions, lubrication, stomach ridge-ing, and engorgement. Every woman and every orgasm is different but most only show some signs, some only when going over the edge. Even in extended orgasm this much visual confirmation is not always present. RJ was excited, but Wendy crashed hard. This was a turning point for everyone. RJ took it as approval…finally, what he had been waiting for his whole life. Sheri and RJ’s relationship became more serious.
Kevin and I lived in a bunk downstairs like everyone else. Sheri was nice to Kevin and she even fucked him. I think he might actually be the last person she had intercourse with other than RJ. Now it’s probably been decades since she has had intercourse with anyone. At the time Sheri told me it felt like a friendly thing to do. I was jealous, but it did seem friendly after all the abuse Kevin had taken in the group. Not long after that Kevin did something that really pissed RJ off. I don’t remember what. The sex with Sheri could have had something to do with it but honestly I can’t remember the exact reason. What I do remember is being in the bathtub scared.
Bobby got his gun
RJ and Kevin were sitting across from each other in the sun room attached to RJ’s bedroom. RJ was really angry and had a loaded shotgun by his side. I was using “the hose”–masturbating with a hose hooked up to the shower head for that purpose. I believed that RJ and Kevin were responding to me and I was causing this disagreement. Sheri and Wendy also believed it was me stirring up RJ to challenge Kevin, and me stirring up Kevin to push back against RJ. I was sure that if anyone got hurt it was all my fault. If I could masturbate enough to remove all of the tumescence from my body then RJ wouldn’t shoot Kevin.
I can still touch the sensation of being scared in that bathtub, hyper-tuned listening for the gun cocking. It still lives in my nervous system. Eventually I did hear Kevin leave the room and I got up and out of the tub, sure that I had done the right thing.
Beginnings and endings
The Cheetah
Not long after that Kevin and I moved out, almost got married, and then broke up. I think Kevin’s ceramic cheetah statue still lives in the garden at the house in SF. We would go through many things before our relationship ended, but this isn’t a story about Kevin. Suffice to say that I see that time in my life very differently now. After Kevin and I broke up I started renting a chair at Larry’s on Maiden Lane three days per week. Then I moved back to Redwood City, stayed a short difficult time with my parents and went back to college to start my English/Journalism degree. I was 22 years old.
Eventually, like a horse returning to its stall, I moved back in with RJ. Just as with all splits between RJ and I (before this last one) at some point we would speak. On my return I would be enfolded into the bosom of the family and fit so well it would be clear I should never have left.
Context
This was 31 years ago. This has been my belief system and way of life for a very long time. Sometimes as I work on extracting these beliefs it leaves a vacuum in my identity. I feel lost, transparent, disconnected from the ground. I’ve learned to get still and silent, get around some trees, let go of the need to know. To know anything at all. This is progress.
The beliefs started here but are refined and embedded in the community now. The men in the group may be humiliated by RJ at times, but they are also functioning under these same principles with all women. Women who live in and out of the group. Some live there because they are unable to have relationships any other way.
For some of you reading I’m sure this was tough. The writing is getting easier, if that helps. Take care of yourself and others. It matters.
Thanks for reading,
Christine
I remember Sheri. She did seem very elegant.
I remember the back room of the Geary shop full of bloody rags, I asked RJ if someone had cut themselves. He said no, it was menstrual blood.
I remember the term, “rubber-gloveable”… It was at the beginning of the AIDs epidemic.
I remember washing peoples’ hair and they moaned and writhed around… I felt kind of molested by just doing my job.
Was I there when you worked there? Or were you there when I was gone? Sorry I haven’t replied earlier, my offer stands for you as well. Email me at truthaboutrj@gmail.com and we can chat. I apologize for any abuse you suffered, especially at work. That sucks.
I remember the first time, Chris, that Annetta and I went to Brian + Kassy’s mark group at the salon – probably March, 86, either shortly before I moved in w/ Annetta, or just after. Sheri was there with Alfredo and when she was on the hot seat tears were rolling down the side of her face. I believe she + RJ met at a NA meeting as she told her story. She did then and now, has that elegant and simple look: beautifully, naturally coiffed, very appealing. And I remember how you were like the “hyperfiziactive” kid in the group – full of lots of energy, much of it pure tumesence. Always liked you, and , if you remember, you gave me a haircut just a couple of days before we got married (8/2/86). Of all the folk in the RJ crew, Sheri is the strongest, the heart of the organization. Rachel + Susan, too, do a great job (at least when I’ve been around) of corralling RJ’s worst behaviors. Wendy always has been, unfortunately, RJ’s personal doormat. (Dang! I know that’s going to get me a love note or 2) . When you started your blog Sheri called me up and asked me what I thought of your first posts. Being both diplomatic and truthful, I commented that I didn’t feel any way about RJ’s acts, other than the fact that I had observed him for a log time and felt he was capable of anything from great affection to massive disgust and abuse of a person within a very short time period. His moods then were volcanic as was some of his behavior.
Understand that we (Annetta + me) were living at 80 with Harvey + Kim, Greg + Katherine – the Morehouse Oakland crew. We supported Brian + Kassy + Steve/Vera and all the rest. Lafayette considered RJ and crew a good source of revenue, among other things, and a place where they might get new students. So RJ was (seemingly) well tolerated by Brian/Kassy and the folk at Lafayette. In fact, RJ + Wendy took the Pleasurable Mutual Stimulation of the Human Nervous System (a.k.a. 2 headed monster) course with us among others in the fall of 86, and did some homework together. We were friends at that time and enjoyed them. This was before or just around they moved into Joost street as I recall, but before going full-fledged communal.
Enough of past history. To finish up w/ the Sheri part of the story – when she called me early this year when you first started publishing – she asked if I was on your side or RJ’s. And I said neither: I have no “parti pris” in French – no attachment to either side of the story. And that, in concluding, that my memories of 86 and 87 were still very clear in my mind, that much happened in the world of sexual and sensual experimentation, and that your first efforts were “plausibly possible” and a reflection of the upheaval of the time. Neither good nor bad, your experience was atypical of the general public’s life, but very well aligned with what many of the folks we call friends were doing, and still may be doing: sexing and having fun, loving and making babies as well as taking advantage, oppressing and reigning over others at will.
Final point: I’ve been happy to be close to Sheri, Shawn and both Kiernan and their Mom. Shawn has lived with us; has come to Hawaii with us and is a great friend; Kiernan too, and Jean was the dearest of grandmas. Love them all.
The last time I saw RJ was 4th of July weekend 2013 up at Smith River. He was very funny, kind, friendly and well-behaved. Had a great 3 days and 2 nights there, enjoyed every minute. And I’ve been really close to Mallie + Ginger, especially when Ginger was at U.C. I helped her get a scholarship for her last year as part of the Leadership Scholarship program for which I was a volunteer candidate evaluator.
So that’s about all I can say for now. I hope your healing progresses and that you can get through to the other side. If you want solace or guidance, listen to the Grateful Dead’s album, American Beauty: 2 tunes, Box of Rain and Ripple pretty much say all there is to say about the nature of our life on earth: the existential quandry and the beauty of the joy and chaos of this life,
Or as we say: “May God be with you!”
Hi Greg,
Thanks for commenting and sharing your memories. I’m surprised to hear you say you don’t feel either way about RJ’s acts though. Most people have strong feelings about pedophilia and sex trafficking of minors, if not physical violence. If I was your daughter would you feel the same? Are you saying that my experiences were neither good nor bad? Do you feel that way about every experience? I don’t understand what you mean I think. Because they were both good and bad, just like real life. This fundamental truth is what has people sitting on the proverbial fence, writing me privately with their painful memories of abuse and yet staying silent and playing along when they get the call from someone from the Welcomed Consensus. I’m not surprised to hear that you are hoping not to get a “love” note about Wendy’s doormat status. Fear of having your heartstrings played is not something I brush off lightly. I know how difficult it is and how much people don’t want to be splashed by this big pile of doo doo, you are brave to join in at all. Still, you should know that Shaun called me when this blog first went up. I have 30 years of stories of how RJ abused her and her son, I was the one Shaun called to talk her down after some awful episode with RJ that had been endorsed by her own sister. Shaun called and asked me to walk away all the same, to just let it go. She had no good reason I should, and it hurt, but I know she was trying to protect her sister and niece. Jean lied about her feelings for years so she would not be completely abandoned by Sheri, Shaun told me all about the terms of the will and how her mom really felt about RJ and what he had done to her daughter. Now that she is gone, Sheri and her brother are all Shaun has left and she has taken up the same tact and will continue to do so to preserve that relationship.
Good and bad exist in everyone and everything, but so does right and wrong. Existential quandary is fine where it is appropriate, but do you think I am the only one RJ hurt? The only one he is still hurting? Do you think because he was charming to you for a weekend that he no longer operates the way he has been operating his whole life? This hurts me writing this blog, it helps and it hurts. It hurts to hurt those people I love, but I know with out a shadow of a doubt that the alternative is worse. I can’t walk away because my complicity caused/causes harm, I am not the only one in therapy trying to recover from RJ’s abuse. I’m just the only one so far, besides Denise of course, willing to put it online for everyone to see. (actually a few more authors are in the editing stage so watch this space ;)). I mean truly, what do I have to lose? I’ve already lost everything, my family, friends and community. I might not ever get closure on this but I know I have helped people already start to heal and get perspective on their own experiences with RJ and the Welcomed Consensus.
I will also probably never talk to my oldest and dearest friends again, but I love them all as much as I ever did. It is because I love them that I can’t just walk away, pretend that it is all okay and no one is being hurt. I believe that you must tell the truth to those you claim to love or what ever relationship you think you have is imagined. With any luck by telling my story and describing how the Welcomed Consensus operates I can at least neuter the group. I want to give people who are considering getting involved with the Welcomed Consensus and RJ the information they need to make an educated choice. Also, I hope to give the people still stuck in the group something to consider, and will also always hope that RJ’s children will someday become self determined and able to make choices freely with out all the manipulation from their Dad and community. I believe that it is not too late for those women either, they could all still have real love in their lives, and someone they can count on to have their best interests at heart. I will not walk away and pretend to be helpless in the face of abuse.
Reading your comment it feels more like you are musing, or are you trying to make a point? Did I miss it? I do appreciate you being willing to say what is on your mind and how you feel, I guess I’m just not clear exactly what that is? I remember you and Annetta, mostly through Shaun and I enjoy seeing you faun over your grandchild on FB. If there is anything you are curious about you can always write me at truthaboutrj@gmail.com. I leave out 90% percent of the story so as to protect who I can and try to give examples for context without overwhelming people, but I am willing to tell you what ever you might want to know privately.
Peace and thanks again,
Christine
Thanks for the commentary, Christine: I’ll send you an email elucidating my thoughts.