I'm Not Engaging With The Epstein Files

What we owe ourselves

On 30th January 2026, the American Department of Justice released “the last batch” of evidence in connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s conviction of federal sex trafficking charges. I will not be looking at these files. I have absolutely no interest in seeing evidence of children getting abused, raped, and murdered. The files include not only photographs that the investigators working with the DOJ took; they also include photographs and videos taken by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. The evidence being reviewed by the ‘internet courtroom’ is not exclusively information gathered after the fact; much of the evidence being reviewed is photographs or videos taken by the abusers themselves. 

The social response was immediate and intense. People opined about justice, accountability, and exposure. Conspiracy theorists leapt out of the woodwork, invoking devil worship; others described feeling sick, yet unable to look away. People want to validate the victims through witnessing their abuse and expressing outrage, yet few of these men have undergone meaningful investigation or consequence. The people most impacted by the release of the files are, unsurprisingly, the most vulnerable among us; the release of these files serves only to further the narrative that we might as well give up resisting horror and oppression because there is no hope. The material is so grotesque that “satanic worship” has become the internet’s shorthand explanation. It is easier to reach for the supernatural than to confront the reality that ordinary men abuse children. I am bombarded with jokes, patterns and systems of abuse flattened into ‘-gate’, teens joking about how they “dodged the draft”; the conversation is destabilising and dehumanising. 

Curiosity does not always equal strength — sometimes it is self-flagellation. Not consuming graphic content of abuse is not a moral failure, it is an act of agency. There is a narrative in the information age that being fully informed is a moral responsibility, and to turn away is to be complicit in violence. I believe this to a degree, but saying one is complicit in this violence by looking away from images of the assault and murder of children is misinformed. Consuming every document, testimony, image, and detail does not make you more moral than anyone else; it is not a prerequisite for caring about justice. Bearing witness has value, but so does a level head and a regulated nervous system. I am not ignoring the Epstein Files — but I can only see too much before my hope starts to waver. As (the always relevant) bell hooks said, “Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change, when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.”

Sexual violence is not abstract for me; it lives in me, altering my ability to trust, to feel free in friendship, to have ‘fun.’ Engaging in material that exposes systemic exploitation — especially when it involves older men in power abusing girls — does not feel like reading the news, rather it stretches a wound that will not heal. I did not need to read the Epstein files to understand that many men like to have sex with girls who are incapacitated or unconscious. I do not need graphic documentation to understand that powerful men who abuse women are protected; I have been listening to the news my entire life. I do not need to see evidence of this abuse to know it happened. I believed these women from the moment I heard them. 

There is a difference between seeking truth and immersing oneself in horror to the point of desensitisation. The facts of Epstein’s crimes are already established. I do not need to absorb graphic details to believe survivors. Choosing not to engage is not always avoidance; it can be agency. Trauma, specifically sexual violence, strips people of control. Deciding what I allow into my mind and body is a way of reclaiming that control. I am finding strength in saying, “I care, but I will not consume this.”

In an environment that rewards ragebait, restraint is radical. But my own journey towards self-actualisation and sexual empowerment requires discernment. Not every door needs to be opened by every one of us. I do not have a concise or uplifting conclusion. There is evil in the world, and it does not reside exclusively in ‘evil people.’ The world we live in was built to enable and protect white men; the system did not ‘fail,’ it is working exactly the way it is supposed to. Just because I’m not studying its minutiae, doesn’t mean I don’t know this to be true. 

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons