possible (sex abuse) triggering-ness

[rkt]

i've been back on a personal-writing-journal-roll. who knew that all i had to do was (start to) fire the damnable therapist? [tuesday's my last day, even though i don't officially have anyone new lined up. i had one hopeful prospect, but at $100 discounted bucks per session . . . i don't know. yes, i can get reimbursed eventually from the insurance, but that means involving the insurance.]

anyway...



a friend of mine has made the statement (i'm paraphrasing) that (virtually) all women will experience sexual abuse/misuse at some point in their lives.
i want to not believe this.
but experiences and knowledge tell me otherwise.

dear friends of livejournal,

[Poll #534407]

Comments

[xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on how one defines misuse/abuse. I may consider something to be misuse/abuse that the person themselves doesn't see that way, etc. You know, like how things like verbal harrassment/namecalling/etc. might not be thought of as abuse by some. I do know that since I've been learning about feminism and talking to other people interested (I've always held the same ideas, just didn't know what to call it or know others who really felt the same until a few years ago), I've found more people who have been personally affected who are feminists (which is why I think it's really common to find feminist comms and so on with trigger warnings and safe space rules, although you might not find that in other communities even if they are female-dominated).

[rkt.livejournal.com]

good point on the acknowledgment/knowing.

but i think it's still abuse, even if the survivor doesn't/can't acknowledge/admit it.

it's taken me years, even after claiming feminism, to admit some of my own experiences ever happened, let alone what they were. it was still what it was.

for a long time, anyone else could describe the situation in application to hirself/hir friend, just *those* "labels" didn't apply to me.

personally, i don't know if i'd say i've necessarily found more people affected who are feminists. but there is a difference in the way affected feminists discuss/respond to the abuses.

[xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com]

Oh I agree that it's still abuse, I just think that if a bunch of people were sitting around discussing such things, one person who doesn't think of what happened to themselves as abuse may not bring it up, even though everyone else in the group may have defined it that way.

I understand what you mean, it's like putting that label on it means admitting to it rather than just framing it as something maybe not so traumatic or serious in your own mind. For me, it was like, "well I don't know what to call it...I don't think it was this...but it wasn't that either..." so I guess that was one way of just not talking about it or admitting it and dealing with it.

good point in re: to how feminists discuss/respond to such things. I think maybe in feminist circles it's maybe just more accepted to be open about such things, whereas in my group of HS/college friends, it just wasn't things we talked about...or if we did, it was never anything said face-to-face without a feeling of shame or guilt or whatever (ie. a friend wrote and mailed me a letter telling me how she was raped when we were 14 or 15-ish, and didn't want to discuss it after that so it wasn't brought up again). I guess it goes back to the safe space thing for me...if people don't feel they're going to get blamed or whatever for it, they're gonna be more comfortable in talking about it.

[brienf.livejournal.com]

The poll made good use of the term "experience" - you technically asked whether we think all men and women are involved in sex abuse as victims or perpetrators.

Am I the friend you're talking about? This sounds like something I might have said.

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

I said "somewhere in between yes/no" because I think that while not every woman will experience abuse, I suspect we all know at least one woman who has.

I also said that I don't think the same goes for men, but now that I'm thinking about it...I think it's less acceptable for men to acknowledge abuse they've experienced, so it's entirely possible that the problem is far more "in the closet" than I, or we, realize. I guess for men I just sort of don't know...but I don't think the numbers are as high as for women, even if they are higher than we realize.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

I would say the majority of my friends have experienced sexual abuse of one form or another, but I don't know where "virtually all" is.

Note that the vast majority of my friends are women.

One of the questions I have is where does sexual abuse lie? Does it count when a 12 year old exposed himself when I was 5? Even though what disturbed me that day was not him waving his penis (I just thought it was weird), but that he caught a fish and killed it and didn't eat it?

How about consensual sex play among 10-year-olds?

How about if a male's female sex partner is deceitful about not using birth control because she wants to get pregnant, but he doesn't want (another) kid?

[goodlookinout.livejournal.com]

I said somewhere in between yes and no for the first question.

I find it hard to define sexual misuse I guess... Although I have never been raped or sexually assulted (thank god!) I have been "sexually misused" in my mind... I would never lump it in the same category as the afformentioned things... but that being said, something about the fact that when I was 15 I was totally used and misled by a 21 year old who I had convinced myself I was in love with and totally treated me like shit and basically convinced me to do things sexually with him. So yes, I guess I was "sexually misused" in some way. I still dont know if every single women has some kind of experience like this (or much much worse). probably yes... but then again, I definitely have some friends who havent (whether because they have dated few people or just by luck) and probably wont. who knows :/

In terms of the second question... while I dont think it is true... again, i really cant know for sure, which is why I put what I did.