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by keernan
437 days ago
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My wife was raped by her grandfather repeatedly from age 8 until age 13. I learned this when she was 40 - she had never told anyone before. She then went into therapy for many years while I commenced years of research into sexual abuse. I learned there have been 100 years of studies all with consistent results confirming the same basic statistic: one of every three girls silently suffer with having been subjected to serious sexual abuse by the age of 18. I thought about that as I attended each of my four daughters high school graduations... looking at my daughter and their girlfriends as they stood on the stage, saddened by the realization that one third of them had been subjected to long term sexual rape. One third of them who would suffer silently for most of their life (that's the other thing I learned: these studies are forced to rely upon anonymous responses from women - who rarely tell anyone about their abuse - they are so full of shame). What outraged me then - and still outrages me today - is how such information could have been hidden from a highly educated trial attorney such as myself. As it continues to be to this current day. That is what I thought about as I read this article. A female author writing a story of female objectification and not once mentioning the widespread ongoing raping of female children right under our noses. As aside, one out of six boys is likewise subjected to serious sexual abuse. Unlike girls, whose sexual abusers are overwhelmingly (95+%) male, the abusers of boys are 'only' 66+% male. |
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And a point about the shame I mentioned. The abuse we are talking about is overwhelmingly not committed by a stranger. Rather we are talking about long term ongoing abuse by a father, grandfather, uncle, or close family friend. Males who are trusted by the entire family.
And the shame that arises later in life comes from the realization that a trusted loved one (father grandfather uncle) thought so little of you to do such things.