Sexual Abuse: True Filth

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/filthy/

Sexual abuse is as good a definition of ‘filthy’ as I can think of. It is time society stopped brushing this particular dirt under the carpet of denial and into the closet of ‘S/he asked for it!’ – and got out the power hoover of truth faced in order to eradicate this vile filth once and for all.

Sexual abuse is fomented in the mind and played out in the bedroom – but, because it is often enacted under the false cuddle of ‘love’, the victim fights his or her own mind in order to call it healthy sex, and uses every justification to excuse the abuser.

More than this, however, it erodes that healthy line between things the victim feels safe and comfortable with – and acts which are, in reality, little more than rape turned into abuser-justified eroticism. Trained to respond in an overtly sexual way, to be alluring and suggestive, to dress up and use props and act and be convincing, the victim’s covert messages to the opposite (or their own) sex become confused, ambiguous and potentially dangerous.

Sexual predators often use emotional intimidation to get what they want. They will accuse their prey of being boring, frigid, overly cautious and conventional. They will use emotional blackmail – fury, back-turning, sobs, threats – if their prey attempt to say no or to derail the train of predictable lust.

Abusers of all kinds find it almost impossible to take ‘No’ for an answer – and the sexual variety is no exception to this rule. They overturn the fragile tables of unease and fear and use rhetoric to persuade the other that the act in question is not just normal – but, in some way, psychologically essential for their well-being (and the sexual liberation of their victim). Gaslighting is used. The victims often ends up feeling as if they barely count as individuals; that they exist simply to fulfil any fantasy, no matter how twisted.

As a consequence of this, sexually abused people are often very anxious about their own sexuality. They often fear that they have some kind of problem which stops them from being aroused sexually; that they are not good enough, sexy enough, to satisfy another – because, if they were, their abuser would not need to go to such extremes to get turned on.

They feel they have to be speedily aroused, highly responsive at all times and inventive in an often dark, even demeaning, way. They feel obliged to flirt, to try it on,  keep sex high on the agenda even when they have no desire to do so. It has become part of the training, the moulding, the breaking of their sexual spirits.

The tragic thing is this: Something of self-esteem and self-respect and the hallowed sanctity of the abused person’s own body has been ripped and torn and shredded. The boundary which allows a human being to feel he/she has the right to refuse sex, and still be loved and respected, has worn away.

Sexual abuse makes people feel that they have to prove their love through ever-more outrageous acts; it means that their abusers are never satisfied with their performance because it is not about lust; it is about control – the abuser’s. It is about the dark extremes of human sexuality – and is, in fact, the very opposite of true arousal. It is a cold and frightening universe full of unstated threat and despair.

Sexual abuse is real. It is out there. It is hidden behind closed bedroom doors. It is not always committed by bogeymen or anonymous perverts. It can be committed under the pretence of love and within the sanctity of apparently trusted partnerships.

Sexual abuse starts with a sense of absolute sexual entitlement in the abuser: He or she has the RIGHT to do whatever it takes to get satisfaction – and the age or status of the victim is no bar; is, in the true sense, irrelevant. After all, you don’t consider the feelings of a dildo or blow-up doll, do you? And, to the hardened abuser, the abused has no more life and right to a voice than that.

The grim reality of sexual abuse needs to be faced, by those who would deny such matters, faced – and STOPPED.

Sexual predators are worse than the most disgusting filth we find on the bottom of our shoes. Scrape them off and bung them in the dog mess bin now!