Sexual Abuse: Childhood and Adolescence

There is a kind of violence which children and adolescents can be victims of and that, in a certain way, is worse than the explicit violence of battery or rape. The manifested violence leaves marks on the body. The offender can be reported, people notice. Rape can be diagnosed by a gynecologist. However there are those intelligent abusers who leave no marks, leave no clues behind or any proof against them in the case of being reported. Lawsuits and prosecutions can end up amounting to nothing.

I’ve heard many accounts over the years of my professional career from adults who begin to talk about what they suffered 10 or 20 years ago. A lot of times the people close to them never knew, or only find out years after the events have long passed. It’s not that difficult to keep a small child silent. An eight to nine year old generally has very little self defense.

1. Two sisters, between the age of 7 and 9 are taken to visit their grandparents. The grandfather strips the girl, puts her in his lap and fondles her all over. The grandmother knows about it but keeps quiet. The visits repeat themselves more frequently. Until one day when the child is a little more grown and sums up the courage and the sternness to say no, to refuse the visits. The girls’ parents are never the wiser. Who would suspect their own parents? Now adults, the young women confide in themselves to discover that they were both victims at the same point in time.

2. A young girl is taken to visit her uncle who is beloved by the whole family, a good man and above all suspicion. He gets acquainted with the girl, takes close care of her, takes her hiking, then suddenly strips her down and gropes her entire body, including the genitals. The child lives with the painful tension of feeling aversion and pleasure. The visits continue many times over until the child is able to refuse the visits. No one in the family ever knew. Only after adulthood does she share the events with her husband.

3. A stepfather, late at night, visits the bedroom of his 13 year-old stepdaughter. The mother doesn’t allow her to sleep with the door locked. Everyone in the house sleeps with the doors unlocked. He fondles her body and genitals from underneath her clothing. The young girl is incapable of saying no, can’t speak to anyone. Her relationship with her mother is not a good one. The stepfather is a man of excellent standing, no addictions, regarded as honest by everyone, responsible, intelligent, has integrity. The visits go on for years. The girl confronts him one day, in broad daylight, now a young adult. He justifies: “I’m sick”. In the end, she moves to another town and lives alone, far away.

4. A 9 year-old boy becomes friends with a very kind grown up man together with some other young boys. The man makes toys for them, takes them for walks, finally earning the parents’ trust, he takes them on small trips to nearby farms. After one of these outings, at night in the back of a moving truck, he caresses the boy’s bare thighs. The boy gets startled and the man explains: ‘Why not? I’m your best friend.’ The child manages to distance himself and doesn’t go out with him anymore. No one ever found out about the event.

5. A mother who needs to take time away leaves her 6 to 9 year-old daughter in the care of her favorite nephew, whom she trusts. In the confines of a big, empty house, in absolute silence, in pitch black, the child is raped many times over along the years. Anal relations. No one ever knew. Time goes by until the child is finally able to refuse staying at that place anymore. She continues to live in the vicinity of the criminal, but never reports him, even after grown up. He continues to enjoy an outstanding reputation inside and outside of the family circle.

The reaction of each child or adult to traumatic experiences, being of a sexual origin or other, is always an individual one. There are women who after having suffered childhood or adolescent abuse, even victims of rape, are able to pull themselves together and have the freedom of leading healthy, natural sex lives. Others, although fully capable of having wholesome sexual relationships, carry a permanent scar within their memory of the rape or other abuse which burns in solitude, throbs and pangs from time to time, devitalizing, poisoning the soul with sadness. There are some women who never really recover. Who remain afraid of men in general. They do seek a sex life and do not want to be alone, but the fear invades any real involvement. They never totally relax. They frequently remember the sufferings of past traumas while together with the person whom they love and care for. They develop an unhealthy, painful pattern, an open wound in which the past invades the present life in their every erotic and sexual involvement.