It’s not “Sexual,” it’s Rape!

I was about half way finished writing a book about how to completely heal from sexual abuse when it hit me; one of the reasons why it’s so hard for abuse victims to recover is because what they experienced has been misnamed. We need to stop calling what was done to them “Sexual” abuse, because doing so implies that what was done to them was sexual, and many victims end up wrongly believing that they participated in acts of sex.

Calling what Jerry Sandusky did, “Sexual”, is about as accurate as calling it, “Showering”. Both mislabels confuse the issue. Sandusky’s “showering” was a minimization of his acts; an attempt on his part to make his monstrosities appear harmless. Referring to his acts as “Sexual” also minimizes and mainstreams the horror of his actions. “Sexual” is healthy, harmless, fun, natural, and consensual. What he did was rape.

Mike McQueary, he of the “I was just too shocked and confused” to save a raped child, testified in court that he saw Sandusky “having sex with a minor.” He said he witnessed Sandusky and the boy “in an extremely sexual position.” He also testified that he had no doubt that he was witnessing “anal sex”, and “absent of seeing a penis, yes I think they were having sex.”

Let me ask you this; if I put you up against a wall through threat, blackmail, intimidation, manipulation or whatever, and then put my penis in your butt, would you consider that we were having sex? Would we be “engaged in”, (oh how I despised the ongoing use of that phrase by the media), anal sex?

Later in the trial one of the victims said Sandusky “put his mouth on my privates.” That was a very accurate and healthy description. The press subsequently reported that he and Sandusky “engaged in oral sex repeatedly over a two year time span” and that the victim described “intimate details of sexual acts.” That description is nonsense and has the potential to do enormous harm to the victim. The victim’s testimony that Sandusky had “initiated numerous incidents of oral sex”, shows how easy it is for victims of rape and abuse to think that they engaged in sexual behaviour for which they often feel a life time of guilt and shame. (If I forced you to put any part of your body in my mouth or forced any part of my body into yours, would you think of that as oral sex?)

If you think this is just harmless semantics, consider the statement by Anthony Sassano, the police detective who investigated the case in 2009. He said, “It was a daunting task to get these young individuals to come forward-to get them to admit they’d been abused by a man, had performed sexual acts with that man.” So much is wrong and so much is telling about that statement. Most notably, those young individuals had nothing to “admit to” unless they somehow thought that they had done something wrong such as “perform sexual acts with that man!” Of course they were reluctant to talk!

Many of my clients come into therapy believing that their first sexual experience was with an adult who forced indignities upon them. How sad would that be for you? How horrible would it be for you to connect violations done to you with sex and your sexuality? How tainted might your sex life become?

Let’s call actions what they are so that they don’t get muddled up in the minds of the victims. Let’s look at what Sandusky did and name the acts appropriately. Sandusky did not “engage in” oral and anal sex. He raped boys orally and anally. His gross fondling was not a form of foreplay, it was molestation. Let’s stop calling it “Sexual”. There was nothing sexual about it.

We struggle a great deal in this culture to talk about sex. Sex is something private, all too often something to feel embarrassment and giggle nervously about. I can tell you from my experience providing Sex Therapy that all too often sex is associated with shame and morality infused messages invoking “dirtiness”. Sex is rarely talked openly about and perhaps this explains why it’s typical of rape victims to not come forward with their stories in order to bring their abusers to justice and to free themselves from their pain. Let’s help victims understand that they can talk about it, that it wasn’t sex, and that any and all shame associated with the violation belongs to the abuser, not to them.

We need to model for victims what to call it and how to talk openly about it. We need to do better than McQueary who said he told Paterno, but he did not describe what he saw explicitly “out of respect for the coach and his own embarrassment.” What he should have said was this: “Joe, I saw Sandusky behind a little boy and I think he was anally raping him.” No “sex”. No “compromising position”. Call it what it is. Call what Sandusky did, “rape, abuse, violation, molestation”, call it anything, just don’t call it “Sexual”.

U.S. links gun violence to maple syrup!

In the wake of the most recent tragic Colorado massacre, The United States Department for Homeland Security, with full approval from President Obama, announced immediate plans to upgrade and strengthen border security defenses between it and its violent northern neighbour, Canada.

Department Head, Janet Napolitano, disclosed that she and NRA President David Keene had “a soul searching heart-to-heart” meeting to uncover the cause of gun related violence and have determined it without question to be maple syrup. “Thousands of gallons of contraband maple syrup are being smuggled with impunity each year across our border. We must stop the flow of illegal maple syrup from Canada into our communities where it endangers the lives of our loved ones!” Asked to explain the link between maple syrup and violence, President Obama said it was self-explanatory but explained anyway: “One: It’s sticky. Two: Sugar gets us high. Three: We can’t read the instructions because they’re written in Canadian. All those things make us mad.”

When asked about the new American security measures, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared baffled but resigned. He noted that the right to bear maple syrup is enshrined in the Canadian Constitution and pointed to recent legislation that allowed Canadian mothers the freedom to feed their babies maple syrup in public. “I don’t get it, eh. But then, they’re Americans. They’re the experts on terrorism. We pretty much leave security measures to them. We just want to be friends.”

Harper flew directly to Washington to assure the President that he has Canada’s full cooperation, even to the drastic extent of establishing a maple syrup/gun violence committee. Head of the committee, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, declared “So-called Social Worker Smooch-a-Syrup measures” were no longer enough. “We’re gonna get rid of gun crime if it takes cutting down every friggin’ maple tree in Canada!” Napolitano warned “tough talk is not sufficient” and put Canadians on notice indicating that she has not ruled out preemptive napalm strikes on Canada’s “maple tree plantations.” “Did you know Canadians even have the gall to display a maple leaf on their flag?” she asked. “What do you think the world would think of us if we put a gun on ours!?”

Promises or Intension? Why people often do not keep their word.

Have you noticed that quite often people don’t keep their word? You know, they’ll say things like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to take out the garbage,” or “I’ll call you,” or “We’ll get together soon,” or “I’m going to do my homework.” But then often times they don’t. The interesting thing to me is that they generally don’t seem too bothered by it.

So I’ve spent some time thinking about why apparently good, caring people, would not care about keeping their word, and it came to me; these people don’t really think of what they said as promises or commitments, they think of them as intentions! In other words, they mean well, but they don’t really feel compelled to follow through, should following through become inconvenient. In fact, they may actually feel they should get some credit because of their good intentions.

One of the ways they justify reducing a promise to an intention is to place some kind of lessened value on it. “It’s no big deal,” they think, if they don’t follow through. “It’s not like it’s that important” and “I’ll get around to it when I have time.”

There are two very big problems with that kind of reasoning. First, it supposes that one person can determine what is or is not important to another person. Second, and more important, it erodes the integrity of the person not following through and subsequently reduces the likelihood of another person being able to trust them.

To live with integrity means you make no distinction between a promise and a vow. They are equal commitments. An intention is not a substitute for a commitment. An intention is your conscious desire to fulfill your commitment. And if your intention should change, you owe an explanation to the person to whom you made the commitment. If you forget or break a promise, you should make restitution with tangible behaviours, not further expressed intentions.

Living with integrity can be tough, but it’s worth it in the respect and trust you earn, both from yourself and others. One way to develop integrity is to hold yourself accountable to the promises you make. Think of them all as commitments. That way, no one will think your talk is cheap. Adapt what the wonderful Dr. Seuss said of the Whos in Whoville and remind yourself, “A promise is a promise, no matter how small.”