What Is Sexual Abuse?

Find a therapist to heal from sexual abuse

The Epstein Files reveal widespread sexual abuse.

Sex education looks at sexual mechanics.

Many leading figures denigrate compassion, kindness, and character.

The root of the problem is cultural and political.

If you grew up on a farm with animals, odds are that no one needed to teach you about procreation. With your own eyes, you observed the mechanics of reproduction.

But I grew up in the far reaches of Brooklyn where the only animals I observed, other than pets, were feral dogs. They roamed from nearby wetlands and copulated wherever they wandered. So my sex education was seeing a dog mount another, then walk on their legs as if glued to their mate’s rear, a hilarious sight in an eight-year-old’s eyes.

My friend, a little older than me and, of course, infinitely more worldly, explained with great assurance that the same thing could happen to people. He said that if ever I found myself in a similar situation, I needed to slap the woman’s left breast.

Today, sex education has moved from the schoolyard to the schoolroom. Comprehensive approaches that include schools, community programs, and professionals “reduce rates of sexual activity, sexual risk behavior (e.g. number of partners and unprotected intercourse), sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancy.”

The mechanics of procreation, however, don’t address the concerning part of my sex education, namely, what to do when things go wrong. And they do go badly with alarming frequency. For example, nearly half of women experience sexual violence in their lifetimes. Men, too, experience sexual violence, with nearly a quarter of the men surveyed reporting unwanted sexual contact. Domestic and dating violence, known as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), includes slapping and kicking.

There are many causes of IPV. I can’t help but think back to the one mentioned by my boyhood friend—the solution to a sexual problem is violence.

After decades of formal sex education, it’s clear that sexual misconduct isn’t countered by more information. This is what makes the Epstein files, which indicate that perhaps as many as 1,000 women and children were sexual victims, and continued reports of sexual abuse in religious settings, schools, business settings, and homes, so distressing. It wasn’t a lack of sexual knowledge that plagued so many who control money, politics, religion, entertainment, and education, but an overweening sense of entitlement.

Attitudes and behavior are influenced by those who implicitly set the cultural ground rules. Teaching care, tenderness, and respect is tough going in a society where public figures exhibit coarseness, cruelty, and a contempt for compassion. It's no wonder that sexual abuse is so widespread.

What Is Sexual Abuse?

Find a therapist to heal from sexual abuse

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