Power, Silence and Influence - An Analysis of the Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial

Written by Sophie Lennox

“Silence is the residue of fear” - Clint Smith

On May 12th, 2025, the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs began in a New York courtroom. The charges - ranging from sex trafficking to racketeering - form part of a growing body of testimony from women who have described years of abuse.

As the trial unfolds, it has become more than just a courtroom drama involving a music mogul. It is a mirror held up to our culture - a culture that has for too long tolerated abuse, downplayed coercion, and shamed survivors into silence. It’s a trial not just of one man, but of the architecture that made his alleged behaviour possible.

This moment matters. Because it tells us what we are willing to ignore when power, fame, and influence are involved.

We’ve seen this pattern before. In the cases of Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly. The names change, the industries shift, but the mechanics remain: unchecked power, cultivated silence, and cultural narratives that protect perpetrators more fiercely than they protect survivors.

Rape culture is not a glitch in the system. It is the system, reinforced not only by those who commit harm, but by all of us when we look away, minimise, or rationalise abuse.

Silence as Structure

“Silence is the residue of fear.”

Silence is not merely an absence of voice; it is a consequence of systemic power imbalances and the threat of social, professional, or even physical retaliation (Smith, 2021). When poet and educator Clint Smith wrote those words, he was naming a structure - a social arrangement in which speaking up often means being punished, not just by the perpetrator, but by peers, employers, media, and the public as a whole.

In the early 2000s, women in the entertainment industry were already warning one another about Diddy. The same was true of Harvey Weinstein. Dozens of women - assistants, actresses, colleagues - spoke in whispers long before they ever went to the police or testified in court. They warned one another in coded phrases. They declined meetings in private hotels. They managed their fear through silence.

In her seminal book Trauma and Recovery, Sociologist Judith Herman notes that “the ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness.” She was speaking about trauma, but her insight remains applicable to society’s response to allegations of sexual violence. Survivors are often asked to stay quiet for the “greater good.” They’re told that speaking out could ruin a man’s career, destabilise a family, ‘go viral for the wrong reasons.’ Those who aren’t told this hear it anyway, and thereby silence accumulates, becoming the cost of survival.

The Reshaping of Truth

In comparing Combs’ case to historic precedents, we see a defining feature of rape culture: the way power enables the manufacturing of reality.

Power, operates not just in physical domination but through cultural authority, shaping who is heard and believed (Kimmel, 2018). The ability for powerful men to shape narratives around their conduct normalises the dominance and normalisation of behaviour.

This trial highlights the intersection of power and sexual violence, exposing how celebrity status can often insulate perpetrators from accountability. When powerful people are accused of abuse, their defence is frequently not just denial - it is a complete reframing of the narrative. The survivor becomes ‘vengeful,’ ‘confused,’ ‘mentally unstable,’ ‘looking for a payout.’ These character assassinations are not just personal; they are strategic. They re-establish the perpetrator’s authority while isolating the accuser.

This has been well-documented in academic research. A study conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School (2024), which we share with the students we work with, found that a vast amount of rape culture bias still exists. Cases involving male victims are significantly less likely to be believed, and assaults that take place at parties or social gatherings are far less likely to be reported or taken seriously, often dismissed as the result of poor judgment or mutual intoxication rather than as legitimate harm. These ingrained biases create an environment where survivors are doubted before they are even heard.

These myths are particularly effective when the accused holds social or economic power, making it easier to discredit the accuser and preserve the status quo. The experience of survivors in these cases frequently involves not only the trauma of assault but also the daunting challenge of confronting public disbelief and victim-blaming, magnified by the fame of the accused (Benedict, 1992).

This manipulation of perception is not incidental. It is foundational to rape culture. And it is compounded by race, class, and gender - factors that determine whose pain is heard or acted upon and whose is dismissed.

Cultural Norms and the Politics of Silence

One of the most insidious myths underpinning rape culture is the belief that abusers look a certain way. That they’re monsters, loners, visibly “bad.” But most abuse is committed by people known to and often respected by their victims - family members, friends, colleagues, public figures. People whose charm or influence becomes part of the cover.

This is why accountability feels so difficult in public discourse. Because holding someone responsible for harm requires us to sit with contradiction: that someone can be both talented and abusive, generous and coercive, loving to one person and violent to another. Our collective discomfort with that duality often leads us to reject the possibility of harm altogether.

Sexual violence scholar Dr. Jennifer Freyd emphasises the concept of “institutional betrayal,” where the very systems meant to protect survivors instead perpetuate harm by dismissing or disbelieving their accounts (Freyd, 2014). In high-profile cases like Diddy’s, this betrayal is compounded by media sensationalism that often prioritises spectacle over sensitivity, reinforcing the culture of silence.

This is a dangerous standard which sustains rape culture by making abuse a matter of personality, not power.

What We Don’t Teach Is Just As Powerful

Cultural norms do not emerge in a vacuum. They are taught - formally and informally - through schools, media, and peer behaviour. And what we choose not to teach is just as powerful.

Within the Everyone’s Invited Education Programme, both students and educators often express frustration with the narrow, often moralistic ways sexual violence is discussed within classrooms. Boys often come to us feeling alienated by accusatory language. Girls report feeling overburdened by the responsibility to “protect themselves.” Crucially, both groups want more: they need honest conversations, the space to ask questions, room to speak without shame or stigma

When we talk about rape culture, we must also talk about education - about what’s absent as much as what’s said. We must ask why so many children learn that consent is a legal issue, not a relational one. Why we speak of violence as aberration, rather than a predictable outcome of systems designed to privilege some and silence others.

Collective Responsibility

What the Diddy trial offers us is not just a case study in individual wrongdoing; it is a lesson in societal accountability. It reflects back to us the infrastructure of silence, denial, and selective accountability that sustains rape culture. It reveals how abuse is not a singular event, but a process. A process facilitated by institutions, normalised by media, and dismissed by those who benefit from the abuser’s success.

But perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that change does not begin in the courtroom. It begins within our culture.

Accountability must extend beyond individuals to the environments that shape them. The goal is not simply to punish but to transform - to build a world in which silence is no longer the safest option and where power is not synonymous with impunity.

We Are All Part of the Culture

Rape culture survives because it is ordinary. It is embedded not just in actions, but in assumptions - in who we believe, what we excuse, and what we remain silent about. Yet if culture is something we make, it is also something we can unmake.

The work of dismantling rape culture is not just about who we hold accountable. It is about who we empower to speak. It is about how we listen, how we think critically and how we show up. To make progress, we must begin by listening to survivors without scepticism and examining how power shapes silence. This requires media literacy, survivor-centred approaches, and systemic reform. We must move away from reactive outrage towards proactive empathy-driven education, delivered in a building block approach.

The Diddy trial is a facet of a much bigger story. It is a call to examine the structures that enabled it - and to commit, collectively, to something better.