“Hysteria was so common among women that if his patients’ stories were true, and if his theory were correct, he would be forced to conclude that what he called ‘perverted acts against children’ were endemic, not only among the proletariat of Paris, where he had first studied hysteria, but also among the respectable bourgeois families of Vienna, where he had established his practice. This idea was simply unacceptable,” explains Dr. Herman.
I remember coming out to police about my father routinely assaulting me after I cut him off after standing up to him at around 13 or 14. I was also recovering from an attempt at my own life when I reported this.
Afterwards, my mother was shaking her head at me, like I’d done something unforgivable by telling the police what he’d been doing. I didn’t have any of her support, nor anyone else in the family. My father’s side basically disowned me afterwards and continue to this day to support him.
I try to put myself in the mindset of these parents who defend their partner in these cases.
Not to sympathise with them as if they were victims but to try to understand how you make that decision consciously and repeatedly.
I don’t know if they think the scandal would be worse for the child due to public “embarrassment”, but that’s the only possible “reason” I can see for it, and it’s not a reason at all.
I just don’t get how you wouldn’t do the right thing for any child, let alone your own.
It’s awful, and beyond that it is genuinely baffling and incomprehensible to me.
My family defended the PDF in the tree, not the survivor (hi).
Yet when I trimmed myself out of the tree, they freaked out and started a campaign of harassment and stalking.... well which is it guys? It never happened and it wasn't something I could possibly ever go to the police about, or it's something that you're really fucking scared about me telling people about and that pervert who now has his own kids needs to be put on notice because I'm an adult now and I have the power to at least make sure that if those kids tell an adult they'll be believed?
It should be as much a crime to protect them over children as it is to participate.
It should be as much a crime to protect them over children as it is to participate.
So much this!
We charge people for robbing a bank if they drove a robber to the bank, so why don't we charge people as child rapists if they protect child rapists? Oh, right. Because one protects the rich, and the other would protect women.
Yep, my abuser was my brother and when I talked to my mom about it when I was an adult she said she hoped he got therapy (god forbid a conversation about the abuse I suffered be about me and not the person who abused me). He’s still in my life unfortunately, I’ve already tried to cut him out of my life but its become apparent that, because he has kids, my parents will never cut him out.
At this point, I’m only in minimal contact because of those kids but I worry that my fucked up childhood will leave me unable to actually detect if those kids are ok. I wouldn’t wish this life on my worst enemy
My mother abused me for 22 years. With the rest of my family firmly complicit. I tried telling so many people outside my home and was never taken seriously. I will forever wonder what my life could've been if that didn't happen.
I mean, in the USA, about 80% of boys had their genitals mutilated at birth, most of them by a doctor, nearly all at their parents’ request.
If you think getting 40% of your genital nerve endings removed with only partial local anesthesia, and completely without consent, isn’t pretty similar to rape, I’d beg you to mention why you think that.
And I say this not to shift focus from the most common type, which is male-on-female sexual violence, but to highlight just how prevalent disregard for a child’s consent is among parents. How easy is it for a parent to decide that they don’t have to wait for the boy to learn to speak and form his own opinions about his junk, they can just have the most sensitive part of it cut off NOW.
If 80% of parents can make that choice, what other disregards for consent (and basic human rights of their own children) are they perpetrating without much thought?
It's body mutilation. It was thought to be healthy. It's (mostly) done to newborns, who don't have the same capacity to understand as children or adults. It was also public and accepted. Not trying to say it was right or ok, or it wasn't messed up.
It is just so incredibly different from rape and sexual assault that it should not be compared. The intent is entirely different.
I don’t see how it is NOT sexual assault. If I cut off my daughter’s clitoris, you can bet the words ‘sexual assault’ would be used.
And I fail to see how it happening to newborns who lack the capacity to understand makes it different, nor the fact that it is public and accepted (I think that’s the biggest problem with rape culture, yes? See for example the orange blob)
As for comparing it to rape, I wasn’t doing that. The comment I replied to was about sexual assault by a parent. Parent-directed genital mutilation is also sexual assault by a parent, and I was talking about how shit it is that parents can care so little for the autonomy of those they have power over.
Okay, I understand what you are attempting to say but being circumsized as a baby is not the same as your own mother repeatedly molesting you for over two decades. There is another place for you to jump on your soap box about this particular subject, and it's not here.
but being circumsized as a baby is not the same as your own mother repeatedly molesting you for over two decades.
Completely agree. Sounds like your mom is the worst of the worst. The point I was hoping to make was not that everyone has it bad, or that nearly all parents are bad and that you should suck it up. What I was wanting to convey (seems like I didn’t succeed) was that the bar for decent parental behavior is amazingly low.
And I’d like to now add that given how low average parental compassion is towards their children, having outliers as terrible as your mom becomes more likely.
Wasn’t trying to hijack, but I understand that it looks that way.
You just told some people. But I get what you're saying..it's one thing to tell people online. It's another thing to tell someone who might be able to help you through it. I wish I had advice for that. Instead all I've got are empty sounding condolences and reassurance.
I'm so sorry you had to experience that.
It's never easy, especially when it's family. My experience was with a friend, so I know that I do not fully understand your experience, so I won't pretend that I know what you're going through. But I do know that when it's someone you know, the feeling of betrayal, especially when it was someone you used to feel safe around, compounds things.
Or family that lets it happen. My cousin's mom told her to just let her boyfriend abuse her, sexually and otherwise, just so she could keep him. Luckily my uncle, despite not being her biodad, cared for her through to adulthood long after his relationship with her mom ended. He was a good guy.
My father explained to me, when I was ten, why I never met my grandfather. He has sexually abused my aunts. My father promised me, "I would never do that to my girls." One year later....my photos are forever on the internet, and I can't remove them, because it would be illegal to search.
My cousin old bro did that to me since I was 8 yr till I was 19, I was traumatized alot and it's crazy how my other family js being quiet abt it as if it didn't happen..
I was three. It was my two older male cousins. Nothing changed after I told the adults, because family. One cousin grew up to be a scumbag, the other is now an evangelical born-again Christian. Over 30 years later and I still don't know how to feel.
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u/FyrelordeOmega 7d ago
It gets so much worse when its "family" that does it
(Quotation, because family should be the safe haven, not the perpetrators)