Secrets

He was obviously still baffled over the consequences of turning himself in for sexually assaulting his lovely eight-year-old step-daughter over a long period of time. She had finally told her mother about the abuse, and he thought it wise to turn himself in rather than waiting for the police to come to the door. He also felt that any repercussions would be made lighter by taking responsibility for his actions. What he didn’t expect, was an angry divorce and a prison sentence. He was still in shock years after the experience and appeared every bit the suffering victim. “I thought I would get community service. They tried to kill me in there and no one even tried to stop them!”

He was as confused as the Syracuse Dungeon Master was at his sentencing. The Syracuse Dungeon Master had a habit of kidnapping precious young women and keeping them in a dungeon-like room until he grew tired of them and replaced them with fresh ones. He bitterly wept upon hearing his sentence and looked at the judge in disbelief. “Didn’t you realize that you would be sent to prison once you were caught?”

“No! I thought I would probably get community service or something like that!” He was apparently overwhelmed at the ‘cruel injustice’ of what was happening to him.

How could reasonably intelligent men believe that sexual abuse of minors is insignificant? It stems from a past that we still cling to where sexual abuse was a rigidly forbidden topic.

Men have held almost all the power for thousands of years. That power included the prerogative of unsavory men to sexually assault women and children. Because they controlled nearly all of the resources, men were necessary for survival. Tipping the boat could cause a loss of shelter, food, clothing, protection, and maybe even something that looked a lot like love. Women traditionally learned to deny or conceal the knowledge that their own children or the children of others had been preyed upon in order to preserve lifestyle and dignity.

Things were further complicated with the fact that a loss of virginity made a girl unmarriageable. If she caused a fuss, everyone would know she was no longer pure. I listened to a neighbor bragging to his friend about me when I was around fourteen. “She done been ‘spoilt’! No man gonna want her now!”

My parents had been trading me out to him for sacks of oranges over the course of a summer with the probability of marriage in the near future. I was thirteen. He was retired. Oranges were hard to come by in Montana in the ’60s, and I was like the “portable property” that John Wemmick coveted in Great Expectations. It was just part of the pattern of things.

Children have too often been looked upon as burdens to provide and care for, and men were a magical well that produced wonderful stuff. After my mother found out that my father had raped me, she viewed me for the longest time as the competition, asking me questions about breast size and other creepy things. He had told her that I seduced him when I was nine years old, and she believed him. The confession only came after I suffered such extreme pain that it kept me up crying at night. They worked together to cover it up and keep it, and me, quiet. Over the years she changed how she felt about it all, but she would never leave him. She had young children to care for.

Even though the world has turned around with courageous women protecting their children and finally being able to access resources to provide for themselves and their families, old beliefs don’t change easily. Speaking about it is still a social taboo with people squirming in their seats in irritation, distress, and discomfort. “I don’t like to hear about things like that!”

Not wanting to hear about it holds the abuse in place. It’s as if all of those screams and gasps of pain, and years of confusion for a victim are meaningless because they create discomfort for those who quite often were kept safe and protected from it. That act of pushing away the truth results in additional weak spots that enable predators to engage in even more deviant behavior without fear of ever being confronted.

The innocent survivors are forced into isolation and silence.

Having free access to assault the vulnerable at random is not going away without a fight, and those perpetrators will continue to hold their ‘rights’ of power in a clenched fist. The sickest part of their self-preservation is to almost always undermine the credibility of their victims and continually revictimize them. They will ridicule, humiliate, threaten, and provide smokescreens worthy of Hollywood.

I have a family member who also raped me when I was nine years old, and he still defames my character. You can’t damage something worthless. My mother repeatedly referred to me as a “two-bit whore”, and” bitch dog” when I was a child. He uses that to justify his opinion of me, after all, how can a mother be wrong?

In today’s world, access to internet pornography has made sexual abuse of children a modern-day plague that will not go away until people address it with unrelenting openness. Educating others on the damage and suffering that comes with abuse can only be birthed out of the courage to speak our souls. Women and children have traditionally felt shame and humiliation over their abuse because of those centuries of hiding abuse in the darkness.

It might be hard to let go of those old ways in order to begin a new walk with dignity and pride and power. But maybe now is the time to overturn those centuries that the shadowy side of humanity reigned and provide light and comfort and hope to those who hurt so desperately today.

By releasing the guilt and shame maybe we can also be a light to the tens of thousands of amazingly good men who simply don’t know what to do.