(no subject)

[la_vie_noire]

Via ew_younerd, Female sexual abuse: The untold story of society's last taboo

It was at the age of 30, when she became pregnant with her own daughter, that Sharon finally summoned the courage to speak to her GP for the first time about what had happened to her. Her fear was that if she didn't seek help to overcome her issues, they could in turn have a damaging effect on her unborn child. But her doctor's response was: "Don't be silly, mothers don't sexually abuse children. You're understandably worried about becoming a parent yourself, but don't let your imagination run away with you."

[...]Sharon says that she might have learnt to cope better if she had been given the help she so desperately needed when she approached her doctor before her child was born. "You can't imagine how deflating it is after all those years of keeping your disgusting secret to finally get the courage to tell someone and then be told that you're making it up," she recalls.[...]

[...]In a large percentage of these cases, the abuse took place within the family home, which is one of the reasons why cases of female sexual abuse are so incredibly hard to spot. Yet, sadly, this doesn't mean that the abuse isn't happening. As Elliott points out: "Considering that I am just one woman working for one relatively small charity, and this many people have managed to get in touch with me, I dread to think of the true scale of the problem."

Extraordinarily, in the vast majority of cases involving female sexual abuse (of both boys and girls), the child's mother turns out to be involved in that abuse, whether offending alone or with another woman or a man. Almost all of the victims who have contacted Elliott to share their stories have mentioned being "brainwashed", and many have spoken of being made to believe that their abuse was what constituted parental love.

Very few have ever before felt able to talk about the abuse because they feared they would not be believed – and those who have already come forward, to a doctor or therapist, have usually had their worst fears realised. One man, now 60 years old, recalls: "When I tried to tell my therapist of my abuse when I was 35, I was told: 'You are having fantasies about your mother and you need more therapy to deal with that.' [...]

ETA: I think a big problem in this article is that it is cis-sexist and probably heterosexist. Trans-women are repeatedly accused of "being a threat to cis-women and children," and I have heard more than once people talking about outed cis-lesbian women and how "they shouldn't have children" (even if the article covers women-on-women abuse, it talks mostly how heterosexual-perceived cis-women aren't considered capable of rape).

It's still, I think, an extremely important article.

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I just spend my day suspecting my dog had Leishmaniasis. I made my sister cry (and myself). It turned to be fungus. God knows I'm relieved.