As Sexual Violence Awareness Month in Queensland draws to month’s end, so too does my incessant blogging on focused issues of a sexually abusive nature. Despite this culmination of focus, I urge you all to stay vigilant and conscious of predators and their sneaky ways of operating. You may recall in The Grooming Process of a Child Sexual Predator, I highlighted that “Darkness to Light suggests that an average serial perpetrator may abuse 400 children in a lifetime”. This equates to an extremely high number of children at risk of being abused in future. None of us can be lulled into dropping our guard. All of our children are at risk.
Have I managed to raise awareness at families.com? During October, I published 41 articles designed around Sexual Violence Awareness Month. These articles generated only 26 public responses. However, many other of you have contacted me through personal messaging to make private comments. Thank you for not suffering alone and thank you for recognizing the worth of talking about sexual violence. Many women on this site have been affected by sexual violence, and continue to suffer in silence because of fear of being judged, labeled or ostracized. Perhaps it’s time to focus on the misguided and erroneous beliefs around how society views families affected by sexual abuse. Next time you judge a woman whose children have been sexually abused, just remember that it could have just as easily been your children. No one is immune to the pandemic of sexual violence and no one but the predators are responsible for its occurrence.
The focus of sexual violence writing produced a degree of vicarious traumatization in me. Because it is an area I work in, I started to become resistant to also writing about it in my free time. I have longed for the freedom to write about other issues. I have longed for the normalcy of playful and joyous blogs. If it has affected me like this, I can only assume that it may well have impacted upon readers that way as well and this may well explain such a low level of reader comments on blogs. However, it has been my mission to ensure that we all have at least a basic understanding of what the daily life of a survivor is like.
Survivors of sexual abuse and assault are the ones who have no break from the oppressing, depressing and hidden affects of what has happened to them. To these men, women and children, I offer my heartfelt support and my deepest apology for what a fellow human being has done to you. May you find some comfort in knowing that not everybody sexually abuses and that some people have devoted their career to raising awareness, and protecting others. I sincerely hope that I have neither offended or re-abused you by focusing on the issues I have during October.
Should anyone wish to leave a comment on either of the emarches,
Reclaim the Night: An Electronic March for Women,
or, Calling Non-Violent Men to Reclaim the Knight,
you have until November the first, 2006, before the links are forwarded to the relevant political figures and legislators.
Was Sexual Violence Awareness Month successful at Families.com? I don’t know – has your awareness been heightened?
Wipe out sexual violence; don’t just cover it over.