Sacrificing our Children: Sexual Abuse Myths in Fame Culture by Bobbi Parish (@BobbiLParish)

• Child sexual abusers are scruffy looking middle aged men who live in their mother’s basement, subsisting on Mountain Dew and Hot Pockets, and hang out at the local playground trying to lure their victims away with puppies and candy.

• If a child doesn’t have any immediate difficulties after sexual abuse then they’re just fine. If, years later, they claim they are having problems because of the abuse it’s just because they won’t let the past go, stop playing the victim, and forgive their abusers.

• Childhood sexual abuse rarely happens.

• If an abuser’s behavior is found out, the shame itself is enough to keep them from ever abusing anyone again.

• Child sexual abuse only happens in poor, dysfunctional, chaotic families, never in Christian, upper income, well-educated families.

• Boys love it when adult women have a sexual relationship with them.

• Sexual abuse isn’t emotionally or psychologically damaging to the victim unless it involves penetration.

• Girls dress so seductively these days, it’s their fault if they get unwanted sexual attention.

• There’s no such thing as sibling sexual abuse. Sexual behavior amongst siblings is normal. There’s nothing wrong with it if everyone involved is a child.

• If children fought back against their abuser or told an adult about what happened, the abuse would stop immediately.

Myths. Lies. Ignorance. Misinformation.

What we label these statements is not as important as why our society insists on believing them, even in the face of staggering evidence that they are not true. My Google works like everyone else’s Google. If I look up statistics about childhood sexual abuse or facts about perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse the same results show up on my screen as anyone else’s. Why does anyone insist on believing these lies when the truth is so easily found?

Is it the taboo or stigma surrounding the topic so abhorrent that society can’t bear to discuss it, let alone learn the true facts about it? According to the Center’s Disease Control one in four girls and one in four boys are sexually assaulted before the age of 18. How many more victims do we need to have before we decide discussing and addressing this crime is worth ignoring our own discomfort with the topic?

Is it ignorance? Does it seem genuinely likely to the general public that young girls dressed in short skirts and crop tops are seeking involvement in sexual acts with adults? Is it possible to live in our media saturated society and still not know that mothers rape their sons or brothers molest their sisters?

Is it denial based on personal beliefs? Christians don’t abuse children. Good men, leaders in their community, don’t abuse children. Celebrities don’t abuse children. No one abuses their own child, grandchild, niece or cousin. How many stories need to be blasted across the television and internet for people to surrender their denial? How many victims need to publicly share their story before victim blaming and minimization of the crime’s frequency or impact stop?

The Headlines

Duggar:

In May of 2015, it was revealed that Josh Duggar had molested five girls younger than himself when he was a teenager. Despite calls for attention to be paid to his victim’s well-being and the possibility that he may continue to offend others, large contingencies of the public cried “He was forgiven so let it go” and “Anyone who is talking about this is bringing shame on the victims and is therefore complicit in the crime” and “He was a teenage boy so it’s understandable” and “He only touched them and they were asleep most of the time so it’s no big deal”. Every time we excuse an act of child sexual abuse with a myth or lie we marginalize the victim’s experience.

On August 20, 2015, it was reported that Josh Duggar had a paid account on the infamous Ashley Madison website that helps users find a partner with whom they can engage in an extramarital affair. He even paid a $250 premium for a guarantee that he’d have an affair due to his participation on the site. On Friday, Josh released a statement that he was “the biggest hypocrite of all” who had indeed been unfaithful to his wife (and also apparently had a ‘porn addiction’ as well).

To date, I’ve not seen any articles defending his infidelity as “harmless,” “boys will be boys,” or “no one else’s business but his and the victims.” Why is marital infidelity not worthy of the huge rush to defend him that was displayed after his sex crimes were brought to light? [share ]Could infidelity honestly be seen as “less forgiveable” than child sexual abuse?[/share]

Fogle:

One day before Josh Duggar’s membership on Ashley Madison broke, the plea deal made by former Subway restaurant spokesman Jared Fogle was made public. An article in the Washington Post about the deal displayed the remarkable gall of victim blaming and shaming reflected in the Post’s language. Erin Matson (@Erintothemax) tweeted her hand written edits to the article – correcting the minimizing language. Sex between an adult and a minor is child rape, not a “sexual encounter” or merely “sex with an underage girl.”

Every time we soften the language of child sexual abuse we minimize the life experience of all victims.

How many more child rapists and purveyors of child pornography do we have to see in the news before we’re willing to accurately name their behavior and the impact of their crime on their victims?

Shattuck:

On Friday August 21^st, 2015 former Raven’s football team cheerleader Molly Shattuck was sentenced to only two years of probation for raping a 15 year old boy. Kudos to the Huffington Post for properly naming the crime but how long will this *wink, wink, nudge nudge* mentality that rape of a minor boy by an adult female is less damaging, and more acceptable, than a rape of a female child by an adult male? Why do we allow this myth to be institutionalized by our judicial system?

Why We Need To Discuss Sexual Abuse

Is it easy to discuss childhood sexual abuse? No. Is it uncomfortable to confront our denial about the frequency of childhood abuse and the depth of damage done to its victims? Yes, absolutely. But how much longer are we willing to let that discomfort and denial justify ignoring high numbers of children sexually assaulted each year and the population of men and women sexually abused as children who suffer from mental illness and addiction, crowd our jails and prisons, and experience re-victimization at an alarmingly high rate?

When it’s your child, will you finally understand that boys can be raped by their female teachers? When it’s your granddaughters or grandsons abused at the hands of your clergyperson, will you let go of your denial that childhood sexual abuse isn’t perpetrated by “good people” who profess religious beliefs? If it’s the neighbor’s child, will you hang onto your discomfort and ignorance because the crime isn’t “close enough to home?”

Which child do we decide deserves to be sacrificed to our ignorance and which do not?

I will tell you: none of them. Not one more child deserves to be sacrificed to our societal denial, ignorance and discomfort. Not. One. More. [share ]Educate yourself. Educate your children. Support victims.[/share]

Demand equitable, appropriate justice.

Not. One. More.

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Pictures courtesy of Unsplash

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