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Reader,
So they're covered, they're hiding, and she's staying loyal despite everything.
But where did the serpent go?
The Serpent Vanishes
As abruptly and boldly as he came on the scene,
making incredible claims about wisdom and identity and knowing what God knows,
his silence is marked.
He's not helping them to sort out their fig leaf fashion
or process their soul-shaking new reality in the aftermath of having taken him seriously.
He didn't disappear entirely, since he was still there when God came looking, which we'll look at soon enough.
But like many predators, he went quiet the moment the damage was done.
Not necessarily gone—just fading into a useless, clueless bystander.
Watching the fallout without a flicker of remorse or responsibility.
This is classic predator behavior.
Slither into a person's life with lies and false intimacy, extract what they want,
then often go silent when the chaotic consequences come.
The serpent got what it wanted—the desecration of God's image bearers—
and then stood by—satisfied—while they unraveled.
When Love Comes Looking
And then they heard it—the familiar sound of the Lord God walking in the evening breeze.
This wasn't new. But today that sound sent them scrambling for the trees.
They hid. Together.
Let's pause here because this logic is… questionable.
They're trying to hide from God.
The same God who made them.
The same God who made the trees they're hiding behind.
How exactly did they think this was going to work?
But here's where it gets even better:
when God calls out "Where are you?" the man immediately answers and gives away their location!
Guy.
You just spent all this effort crafting clothes and crouching behind trees with your ride-or-die wife,
and the moment the very one from whom you are hiding asks where you are, you're like, "Oh hey, over here!"
Apparently, this is what having a run-in with evil (trauma!) can do to our reasoning skills.
We get convinced that the very presence we once ran toward is now the presence we must run from—
and then makes us terrible at the actual hiding part.
Or Could It Be Something Else?
But what if this isn't solely about trauma?
What if we're witnessing something... more calculated— in the man's response?
Here’s what we know from the text:
“Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.” (1 Timothy 2:14) He watched the entire manipulation unfold.
He knew what God had said about the tree.
He chose silence when he could have intervened.
He chose complicity when he could have protected.
He ate only after seeing she survived—
essentially profiting from her victimization.
Yet the moment consequences arrive, he's covering himself and hiding right alongside her.
This could be victim posturing—
where those who enable or participate in harm
immediately reposition themselves as equally victimized once accountability looms large.
The Anatomy of Victim Posturing
How It Works:
Step one: Participate in or enable the victimization of another
Step two: Remain silent during the harm, even when intervention is possible
Step three: Benefit in some way from the outcomes of that harm
Step four: Before consequences arrive, adopt identical victim responses
Step five: When consequences come, co-opt the language, behaviors, and emotional responses of actual victims
Step six: Deflect accountability by positioning oneself as having been equally harmed
Step seven: Time the shift strategically when public opinion changes or realistic threat of consequences emerges
Step eight: Leverage existing positional power or social influence to successfully reframe their role in the harm
Step nine: Claim ignorance of the harm they enabled despite evidence of awareness or willful blindness
Step ten: Force original victims to compete for sympathy and credibility, (often re-traumatizing them in the process)
Step eleven: Successfully obscure the original harm and derail meaningful repair by muddying accountability conversations
Why It's Effective:
- Avoids responsibility – “I’m a victim too. How can I be blamed?”
- Generates sympathy – Directs attention toward their suffering instead of their choices.
- Obscures the power dynamic – Complicity or responsibility is lost in "shared" victimhood and pain.
- Creates false equivalence – Suggests harm was mutual, when it was actually directional.
- Manipulates protective instincts – Leverages others’ desire to help victims, rather than confront perpetrators.
- Exploits trauma responses – Uses distress signals that look and feel real, triggering care while dodging scrutiny.
- Shifts the narrative timeline – Reframes the story to begin at their pain, not the harm they helped cause.
- Weaponizes vulnerability – Wields openness as a shield from accountability instead of a step toward it.
- Exploits the benefit of the doubt – Counts on people's tendency to assume good intent, especially in distress
- Gaslights the moral compass – Makes accountability feel like cruelty, and questioning feel like betrayal.
- Fragments opposition – Sows confusion and divides those seeking justice by blurring who needs support and who needs to repent.
The Psychological Precision
Notice the man's response mirrors the woman's exactly—covering and hiding.
But perhaps the motivations are entirely different:
- Her response: Genuine shame and trauma from manipulation and betrayal
- His response: Strategic self-protection from accountability
What if he's not experiencing the same thing she is, but he's performing like he is?
Let's see if what happens next can help us deduce what's really going on.
Sleuthily,
Camille
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