Tag Archives: Sexual Abuse

Why it’s hard to believe us

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Spend any time around those of us who are sexual trauma survivors, and you will hear account after account of how people — even our own families and loved ones — disbelieved us and sometimes went so far as to take up the side of the predators, rapists, pedophiles, and abusers who perpetrated against us. It is such a common occurrence that, when I encounter the opposite, I am deeply moved. Once when I met parents who stood by their daughter even when others insisted she was just “crying rape”, I was so touched by their family’s story that I hugged them, thanked them profusely, and started crying!

Today I read something that was linked to in the comments on one of my previous posts. It is an open letter from a pastor, a humble admission of his serious error, that says, among other things: “Though I never doubted that Jamin was guilty, I trusted his account of the circumstances more readily and longer than I should have, and conversely I disbelieved the victim’s parents.” He describes the sex offender as, “deceptive and highly manipulative”.

It’s hard to believe us when our perpetrators and predators are accomplished manipulators. After all, unless our abuser was a complete stranger who jumped out at us from the bushes, he first somehow gained entry into our lives, and usually managed to deceive enough people to gain a position of trust. Those who prey on children need to be somewhat accomplished con artists in order to deceive not only the child, but everyone around the child.

We, on the other hand, usually are not skilled liars and manipulators. Furthermore, we are traumatized, and traumatized people don’t always behave in a way that others might find credible, reasonable, understandable, or even likable. We are trying to piece together horrible events, trying to make sense of them, trying to sort them out in our minds, trying to deal with the horror of it all, or perhaps trying to escape thinking about our nightmarish ordeal at all. That’s bad enough, but then there are everyone else’s reactions to what happened to us, and not all of those reactions are helpful or healing. In fact, all too often, the reactions of others only adds to our trauma.

Our abusers, on the other hand, are not traumatized. They seem calm and rational, with a well thought out and plausible-sounding answer to every question. If they are serial predators, they have honed their “act”, and know just what to say or do in order to manipulate, and play on the sympathies of others.

In the immediate aftermath of trauma, we don’t always “make sense” to other people. Our stories don’t always sound believable. Usually we can’t bring ourselves to say much, and what comes out may be a chaotic jumble. We may get things out of order, remember things differently a few days or weeks later, only let a few details out in dribs and drabs, and be afraid to talk about major aspects of what happened to us. We may try to protect our abuser, if he is a family member or loved one. We may feel intimidated into silence. We may be too upset to admit the most shameful aspects of our abuse.

Years after my rape, when I finally told as complete an account of it as I could to my therapist, I halfway expected him to say that it sounded too unbelievable, too weird, too unlikely. I expected questions like, “How bad could it have been if you went to work the next day?” or “What do you mean, you have no idea of the extent of your injuries?” or “How convenient that there are those gaps in your memory!” or “What on earth is that nonsense that you supposedly ‘went away’?” I expected him to poke holes in my story, to cross-examine me as if I were on the witness stand, and to tell me that mine was the fishiest-sounding rape story he had ever heard. I was shocked that he believed me, shocked that he never cast one suspicious look in my direction, shocked that he didn’t try to blame me in the slightest for anything that happened that night.

Then again, he was a therapist. My anguished telling of what had happened to me wasn’t the first, or tenth, or even hundredth sexual trauma account he’d ever heard, and he knew all too well what trauma does to us, even years later.

Pastors don’t know these things, nor do they have the experience and training of my therapist. Ordinary people don’t either. But, unfortunately, many are arrogant and assume they know things that they don’t. They sit judge and jury over survivors and their families and judge us less than credible, because we cannot make them understand. Sometimes they are even joined by other survivors — who have not walked far enough in their healing to have enough empathy and wisdom to do otherwise — who help rub the salt of skepticism and disbelief into our wounds.

We understand that our predators seem believable and trustworthy. After all, they had to dupe us and set us up before they could betray us. But you will probably never understand how deeply you wound us when you believe them over us.

Please believe us. Please.

And, if you’re reading this, and you have any reason to think that you may have added to a survivor’s trauma by your lack of support, please — in the name of all that is good and holy — humble yourself and apologize. Let your words be a healing balm. You may never know how desperately that survivor has longed to hear you ask forgiveness.

Repentance 

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How do we know if someone is truly repentant? How do we know if we are? In light of some of my recent posts, I’ve been asking myself those questions, and doing some careful thinking and self-examination.

These are a few of my thoughts.

While researching the topic of repentance, I found this helpful quote from Church Discipline by Jonathan Leeman:

“A few verses before Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 18 about church discipline, he provides us with help for determining whether an individual is characteristically repentant: Would the person be willing to cut off a hand or tear out an eye rather than repeat the sin (Matt. 18:8-9)? That is to say, is he or she willing to do whatever it takes to fight against the sin? Repenting people, typically, are zealous about casting off their sin. That’s what God’s Spirit does inside of them. When this happens, one can expect to see a willingness to accept outside counsel. A willingness to inconvenience their schedules. A willingness to confess embarrassing things. A willingness to make financial sacrifices or lose friends or end relationships.” (p. 72)

I like the phrase describing repentant people as “zealous about casting off their sin”. Many of us already know this, whether through study, personal experience, or instinct. For example, something just doesn’t sit right with us about a supposedly repentant adulterer who still wants to keep his mistress on as his secretary and travel with her on business. We wonder how repentant someone is if they refuse to adjust their lives in any meaningful sort of way,  refuse to avoid further opportunity for sin, but expect us to take them at their word. (“I couldn’t resist my secretary before, but now I can. Trust me.”)

Some time back, I read the testimony of a marriage that healed after the wife’s affair. Her repentance came in stages; it was fully a year before she was willing to break off all contact with her affair partner. Needless to say, that year was agony for her husband, and painful evidence that she had not yet fully repented of her selfishness and lack of love. Her husband said he finally knew she was committed to faithfulness when she not only refused any further contact with the affair partner, but decided — unasked — to give up her professional career. She said she had destroyed her husband’s ability to trust her and didn’t want him to worry whenever she spent extended time with clients. That was her equivalent of cutting off her hand or gouging out her eye.

When we repent over sin, it’s rarely just the glaringly obvious sin that requires our repentance. If I lose my temper and yell harshly at my husband, the yelling may be just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to complex sins like adultery, there are a myriad of sinful actions, thoughts, and attitudes that lead up to the final deeds — and that’s why we should not be so quick to restore someone who is only repentant over acts of intercourse, rather than over the whole stinking rotten web of selfishness, deceit, and unholiness that brought him or her to that point. A wise Biblical counselor will work with the Holy Spirit, rather than abort the process. Covering up sin is never grace.

I’ve noticed, in myself, that I’m not truly repentant until I see the ugliness of my sin and am willing to take full responsibility for it. As long as I am attempting to minimize (“Well, at least I didn’t…”) or excuse (“Yeah, but…”) or explain (“You see, the reason…”) or garner sympathy (“I was in a bad place, and now I feel terrible!”) or demand anything (“You need to trust/forgive me!”) I am not truly repentant. As long as I am lacking in empathy for those I have offended and hurt (“What’s the big deal? Why can’t they get over it already?”) I am only repentant up to a point.

Again, a wise Biblical counselor will know these things, and — when necessary — will call the sinner out, restoring him gently in love or with a firm rebuke, whichever is most appropriate. That will, of course, require the counselor to possess compassion and tenderness along with wisdom and discernment. Unfortunately, at the risk of sounding sexist, I have to point out that male leaders often have a difficult time identifying with women in general, as well as with anyone they consider “weak”. I think that is the reason for the phenomena that distresses and confounds so many of us — that pastors far more readily sympathize with predators, pedophiles, and sex offenders than with those who have been wounded and violated.

Behind a lot of sin, but sexual sin in particular, is a sense of entitlement. The sinner thinks: I am entitled to sexual gratification…I am entitled to more than I am getting from my spouse…I am entitled to happiness…I am entitled to do whatever I want with that child…I am entitled to control others…she owes me…he has no right to refuse me…I am entitled to use others…I am entitled to take what I want…That sense of entitlement outweighs everything else until selfishness runs rampant. We don’t want to admit that when we sin. We don’t want to tell the horrible truth: “I did it because I wanted to and, at that moment, I cared more about myself than anyone else. I am without excuse.”

Even as I write those words, I am searching for loopholes in my mind: Come on, that doesn’t apply to every sin...when I was being a prodigal in my 20’s, I was reacting to trauma and pain…which is an explanation, but not an excuse. I chose how to react, sometimes in healthy ways and sometimes in unhealthy ways. No one dragged me kicking and screaming out of the church and forced me to be a prodigal. No one kept me from Jesus but myself.

We all sin out of our brokenness. What that means is that we need healing as well as forgiveness.

And now for a hypothetical situation…

Let’s say that there is a young man who sexually abused multiple children in two different churches (at least that we know of). He has repented, been convicted, and served time. He has also sought professional help, because he realizes that pedophilia, contrary to what some would claim, is not merely a sexual quirk or preference that can be replaced with another. (“Hey, I like blondes but I supposed I could learn to like brunettes.” “I prefer dudes but maybe I can try real hard to like girls.” “Well, I’m into two-year-olds but that’s probably only because I’ve never met an adult woman I liked!”) However, let’s assume that our hypothetical sex offender has gone through deep inner healing, and that the very thought of sexually abusing a child is now abhorrent to him.

A nice elder from his church decides to set him up with a young woman. “That’s very nice of you,” says the repentant young ex-pedophile, “but there is no way that I could ever marry. You see, because of the very serious nature of the crimes I committed, I am not allowed to be around children except under the supervision of a court-appointed, trained chaperone. I could never be alone with my own children. There is a very real possibility I wouldn’t be allowed to live in my own home with my own family. At best, my wife would have to become my trained chaperone, and would have to supervise me around the children, keeping us in her sight at all times. She could never leave them alone with me. She could never even go to the bathroom or take a shower by herself when I’m in the home. We could never have a normal family life. How could I possibly be so selfish as to inflict that on any wife or child?”

That would be true repentance.

A wise, compassionate pastor, noticing its absence, would say, “I cannot in good conscience stand by and allow you to sentence anyone to grow up in such dysfunction, or to place any woman in the awkward, stressful position of having to chaperone her own husband. What sort of husband or father could you possibly be, even if you could guarantee that you no longer pose a danger to children? No one is entitled to a wife and family, especially if they cannot properly fulfill the roles of husband and father. You lost the privilege of marriage when you committed your heinous crimes against innocent children. I’m disappointed that you would, once again, be willing to place others at risk because of your own selfishness and sense of entitlement.”

That would be common sense…and compassion.

Difficult to watch, difficult to face

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I recognize that abortion a difficult, difficult subject…a polarizing one…and a deeply personal one. But I can’t turn the other way and — no matter what your beliefs on the subject — I hope you can’t either.

That’s why I hope, if you haven’t watched this particular video already, that you watch the video I am embedding below.

Yes, I know that the Center for Medical Progress has come under fire from those who disagree with how they have edited the videos they are releasing about Planned Parenthood. But this latest one…is there really a context in which what is depicted and described could be seen as a good thing? Is there a context in which this is something that we as Americans should not even feel the slightest twinge of guilt or unease about? Is this really something we should all support?

If you are pro-choice and you were in the place of the Procurement Technician on the video, would your compassion for women seeking abortions and your desire not to thwart medical research make you react differently? Would you be less willing to walk away from her job? Would you be more comfortable with cutting open the face of a fetus whose heart you had just seen beating — all in the name of medical science, of course? Would you think it all right to be pulling the brains out of babies that might possibly still be alive?

I will be honest. I cannot imagine any context whatsoever that would make what I saw and heard in this video any less hideous or disturbing.

Holly O’Donnell admitted that she started crying when holding the fetus she describes on the video. She said, no matter what benefits there might come from the role she played in procuring the brain from this unborn baby, “I don’t want to be that person”.

Can we honestly say she is wrong, misguided, too sensitive, too sentimental, too squeamish? Is she not advanced enough in her thinking? Are we to conclude that she is anti-woman and anti-science?

Or could the practices these videos are exposing possibly be wrong and barbaric? Are we willing to admit that Planned Parenthood might not be the paragon of virtue, compassion, and morality so many believe this organization to be? Could our culture have gone too far in embracing any and all abortions? Could our medical ethics be flawed? Could it be time for us to face the truth of what we are allowing ourselves to become as a people — no matter how uncomfortable and disturbing that truth might be?

Over the years, I have read and heard many eloquent defenses of the pro-choice position. It is not my intention to turn the his blog post into argument or debate about whether to not abortion should be legal. However, I cannot help but wonder — does being pro-choice require one to embrace everything that is in the above video, and to defend even the most barbaric practices surrounding abortion? Are there no limits to the pro-choice position? Are there no abortions that are morally wrong?

I might as well admit it: I am pro-life. There was a time when, as a rape trauma survivor, I was unsure about whether or not abortion in the case of rape or incest was morally defensible. My position has become more firm as I’ve listened to the stories of those who have been conceived by rape and incest, as well as those who have conceived children under the same conditions. We extinguish the wrong life, in my opinion, when we abort the innocent child resulting from sexual trauma. While I know that nothing can undo the unspeakably damaging and painful trauma of rape or incest, I cannot dismiss the compelling stories of girls and women who view their children as redemptive…even life-saving…after the worst trauma of their lives.

Mine is not a popular position, to say the least. I have been reluctant to state it publicly, not wanting to offend people I care for and respect, some of whom who view the pro-life position as hateful, ignorant, backwards, intolerant, and anti-woman. To be honest, I fear being painted with that same brush by speaking up.

A dear friend of mine, who travels the world over on missions of mercy and compassion –because she has one of the biggest, most loving hearts of anyone I’ve ever met — insists that it is her love for women that has caused her to be even more strongly anti-abortion. Women from vastly different cultures and religious backgrounds have opened up to her when she requests, without a hint of coercion or condemnation, “Tell me about your abortion.” She has heard the stories most of us never hear, because — even if we ask — our agendas and opinions tend to get in the way of our compassion. (I’ve told her my deepest darkest secrets, so I know how gently she receives women’s experiences and truths, receiving them as a sacred trust.) She used to be pro-life because of the babies. Now it is the women, the mothers, who have convinced her even more. She wants to spare women from having to live out the abortion experiences, and their aftermaths, that she keeps hearing about, over and over and over again…

I should not read Christian blogs about marriage

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Note to my children: this blog post is about sex which, obviously, I know nothing about. After all, parents don’t do such things, and you were all conceived through the sharing of toothbrushes, which is gross enough to think about. So you can stop reading now.

Note to everyone else: that was a joke.

And now back to my actual post…

I should not read Christian blogs about marriage.

Especially the Protestant ones about sex.

At least not many of the ones that I unfortunately seem to keep encountering — specifically the ones telling me over and over again that I’m all wrong and need to change. My personality is wrong. My thoughts are wrong. My feelings are wrong. My desires are wrong. And I am sinning. Big time. Merely by being me.

Supposedly, if my husband says otherwise, he’s just being nice. Or cowardly. Or he’s lying. Because what he really wants is for me to be his porn star. That’s what all men want, but are too afraid to admit it to their sinfully inhibited wives, who have all sorts of wrong, immature, selfish hang-ups. If he doesn’t want me to be his porn star (perhaps possible if he has spent all his life locked in a room with no access to the outside world and thus has no idea what a porn star is) he does want me to be his fantasy lover. He wants me to blow his mind regularly. So the Christian sex blogs claim.

It’s all about the performance.

If I don’t enjoy sex on those terms, supposedly there is something wrong with me. And I’m in sin. Because God commands us to enjoy sex frequently, and He commands wives to be naked and unashamed, and He commands us to be sexually adventurous, and He commands us to do with wild abandon whatever it is that the blog author manages to conjure up out of Song of Solomon. Despite the sex bloggers’ enthusiasm for finding sex tips in that book of the Bible, I don’t recall it having anything to do with pretending you’re an actress engaging in humiliating and degrading — even violent — sex acts outside of the context of marriage with an actor in a movie that strangers on the internet watch while masturbating…but maybe I didn’t read it carefully enough the last time. Oh, and the “command” to be “naked and unashamed”? I guess I missed the part where God told Eve she was wrong to be ashamed and she didn’t need to wear clothes around Adam. (I don’t remember God saying, “I’m only making you this garment of animal skins for you to wear in the future, when there are other human beings around besides Adam. Because, since you are supposed to be naked and unashamed around him, you won’t be needing clothes for quite some time!”)

If a Christian woman says she wants her husband to act like a romantically suave and debonair movie star, completely out of character with his true nature and personality, people jump all over her for reading too many romance novels, tell her to repent and grow up, insist she adapt herself to her husband’s “love language”, and rebuke her for not appreciating and accepting her husband for who he is. As well they should. After all, if that sort of husband was so important to her, she should have held out for him, and not married the man she did.

And then the same people tell her to act like a prostituted woman providing masturbatory fodder in front of a camera, thus encouraging her husband to treat her in a way devoid of love, affection and respect — because actresses in porn receive nothing of the sort — all so that she can become his fantasy lover and blow his mind in bed. Now. Or she is sinning.

No matter what life is like outside the bedroom, what sort of personality the wife has, what ailments she might suffer from, what sexual trauma may lurk in her past, the worst thing she can possibly do to her husband and to her marriage is to be herself in the bedroom — unless, by nature, she doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, is incapable of embarrassment or humiliation, possesses no sense of boundaries or human dignity, has no desires of her own, needs neither love nor relationship, enjoys being the target of selfishness and disrespect, can put on a show of boundless enthusiasm and exuberance, is brimming with confidence, thinks she is hot and sexy, and is capable of acting like a born performer who loves to show off her body. If she’s not all that, she needs to repent. Now. Even if she is, that’s not enough, because she needs to be constantly eager for sex, skilled at every technique her husband desires, and creative in bed. (No, not procreative! Those little sex-conceived pests tempt us to lose our focus on sex, to use tiredness as an excuse for not being eager sex-performers, and to think our bodies may not be quite as sexy hot as they used to be — and that might interfere with our husband’s enjoyment of sex. Plus, we might worry about silly, inconsequential things like what the children are supposed to do while we keep having all this constant, mind-blowing, uninhibited sex. Because marriage is apparently mostly about sex, which is why I used the word so many times in this parenthetical remark.)

And somehow she is supposed to become this porn star almost immediately upon marriage, abruptly transforming herself from completely inexperienced and innocent young virgin to expertly skilled sex performer. If she is on the other end of the age spectrum, the sex bloggers have even less patience with her and less sympathy — if that is even possible — for the realities of her life.

Oh, the blogs may talk about intimacy (usually as a codeword for sex) and they may give lip service to things like communication and making love, but what they emphasize is that sex is about pleasure. In fact, it’s really all about orgasms, lots and lots of orgasms. As Christian wives, we should be giving and having them regularly, with great frequency and variety — because God invented sex.

He also invented fruit, but no one seems to be urging us to behave unrealistically while eating it. No one is telling us it is our duty to become exuberantly wild about plums, insisting that there is a special and uninhibited grape-eating demeanor that we need to adopt, preaching that we need to gorge ourselves on apples fixed 100 different ways whether we like them or not, or trying to make us feel guilty for not being over-the-top enthusiastic about our husbands’ fruit preferences.

OK, I might be exaggerating, but only a bit. And not every Christian sex blog places such demands on wives, but far too many do — and I’ve read enough to make me want to scream:

Inhibited women of the world, unite!!
(Quietly, in the privacy of your own homes. Don’t worry, no one is watching.)

I’m so sick of this bashing of shy, inhibited women, and this ridiculous notion that we need a personality transplant during sex. In fact, I’m weary of introvert-bashing and shy-bashing in general, but that’s a bigger rant.

Plus, I’m tired of the ridiculous advice uninhibited women give us to help us overcome our “hang-ups”, which usually boils down to attempting to have sex in the most anxiety-producing, nerve-wracking, and embarrassing way possible for people with inhibitions. If you feel self-conscious about your body, the sex bloggers insist that you should allow your husband to undress you with all the lights on, so that he cannot help but scrutinize your every flaw up close. Supposedly that will make you less inhibited! (It might very well make some trauma victims dissociate, but the sex bloggers have very little patience with us. We need to get therapy and get over ourselves ASAP. So do shy women. I don’t know what wives are supposed to do if their husbands would rather not have to confront the sight of their wives’ very un-porn-star-like, scarred and aging bodies up close under bright lights.)

The real problem goes much deeper and can’t be solved by certain wives getting personality transplants while shedding their inhibitions and senses of identity. It can’t be solved by certain husbands repenting of their longing for sexual experiences with the fantasy sex partners they wish their wives were, and instead learning to desire making love to their real-life wives. The problem goes even deeper than the shocking fact that most men — even in the church — get their sex education from porn, training themselves to desire, find erotic, and derive sexual pleasure from the filmed prostitution, abuse, and humiliation of women. The problem is much more serious than disappointment, unrealistic expectations, or even sinful desires.

The problem is that our theology of marriage and sex is extremely lacking, and falls so very, very short. You can’t baptize our porn-ified culture’s view of sex by slapping a “for married people only” sign on it and preaching sermons. Thinking you’ve gone the extra mile by carelessly throwing a few Bible verses around only makes things worse, not better.

No doubt at least a few readers will assume I’m some tight-lipped prude who is anti-pleasure. Whether I am or not is hardly the point, and such an assumption would only underscore what is really at issue: our view of sex is way too small. This amazing thing God designed is a grand mystery and, like all of His creation, it has His fingerprints all over it. Sin may dim our eyes to its beauty; it may even make sex appear so tawdry and ugly that we are incapable of seeing any evidence of God’s handiwork. But I believe there are profound truths in God’s plan, and I believe that there is no other act besides sex that has the potential to connect a married couple in such a deeply intimate way — physically, mentally, and spiritually. (I also believe the opposite is true: there is no other act besides sex that has the potential to divide and harm the marriage relationship in as deeply a wounding, destructive way.) The Biblical euphemism for making love — describing a husband as “knowing” his wife — is only rich with meaning when we discover that sex itself can be indescribably rich with meaning.

Sex is not a performance. It is about far more than pleasure. It is about intimacy, unity and life….and even more. It is a profound, beautiful mystery. Or at least it should be. And the true intimacy and oneness of sex is only possible if we cease to play a role, cease to put on a performance — and cease to demand that our spouses do so. Until we are willing to be our authentic selves with all the vulnerability and humanity that entails — and until we learn to fully love and fully embrace our spouse’s very real and authentic selves — we are incapable of true intimacy and unity. That is because true intimacy requires giving up our unrealistic expectations and fantasies. It requires creating a safe place, a haven, in which we and our spouses can receive encouragement to become more of who we truly are — not less — a safe place in which there is never a need to take on a role or to perform.

Within such a magnificent view of sex, there is no room for pretending to be a porn star, because that would only degrade sex and miss the point entirely. But there is room — there is in fact a grand and welcome invitation — for ordinary, shy, even supposedly inhibited, people like me.  What should be more important to those who claim to be Christians is that there is plenty of room for Jesus…and for holiness.

Holiness? Coming into agreement with God’s standards for purity? Yes, I know. Holiness and sex don’t seem to go together much these days, do they? (Holiness and porn certainly don’t, and never will.) But if we are uncomfortable with the idea of linking holiness and sex, it is probably because our ideas of both are terribly, terribly flawed.

And, in that case, we probably shouldn’t be writing supposedly Christian marriage blogs. At the very least, we should stop trying to baptize porn culture, stop trying to pretend that is what sex is supposed to be about, and stop trying to claim our misguided ideas are Christian.

Updated to add:

Whether you are are a man or a women, before defending or justifying your use of porn (as in, “It was only a few times”, “I didn’t watch any of the bad stuff”, “It was harmless”, “I think it helped my marriage”, “The stuff I watched was really loving and respectful to women”, “Don’t be such a prude”, “You Christians all hate sex”, or whatever) read this report from a researcher who is not a Christian.

Sexual abusers as “ambassadors”

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Redemption is not just one of my life themes; it’s something I consider the greatest theme through all of the Bible and all of history. It’s huge and sweeping…and deeply, intimately personal.  That’s why this article caught me eye in a sea of articles about the Duggar mess: Finding Redemption in the Josh Duggar Story. Up until now, I’ve avoided the temptation to add a blog post to the many words already out there on the internet about this tragic situation. But then this troubling statement in Michael Brown’s article popped out at me:

“Josh can be an ambassador on behalf of the abused…”

Here is the context:

Josh can be an ambassador on behalf of the abused, even helping the abusers as well. While it can feel like your life is over when your past, largely private sins become public (how many of us would like for that to happen?), the fact is that Josh’s future can be bright in the Lord.

He can call on others who are sinning to come clean and get help, using his own example redemptively. And he can encourage those who have been abused to realize that they are not guilty and should not feel shame, also encouraging churches to embrace those who come for help rather than making them feel as if there is something wrong with them.

Why should those who have suffered abuse be stigmatized? They should be our priority for healing and restoration.

I’m all for redemption, and I’m sure the author of this article means well, but this is not what redemption looks like. It does not consist of sexual abusers, no matter how repentant, being allowed to do anything that might even remotely further traumatize victims of abuse.

Just to be sure, I looked up definitions for “ambassador”. Let’s all assume Michael Brown means “unofficial representative” and not “a person who acts as a representative or promoter of a specified activity”. Even so, his word choice, and the idea behind it, is both troubling and problematic.

As a victim of rape and multiple instances of sexual abuse ranging in severity, I would like to emphasize the following:

  1. Sexual abusers do not and cannot represent me. I do not want them speaking on my behalf. The audacity behind such a statement is appalling to me. We don’t need people speaking for us or usurping our voice and our agency. We need people to encourage and empower us to speak for ourselves. Sexual abusers — no matter how repentant — are not the people to take on that role. They have not earned that right; in fact, they have disqualified themselves completely. Even if it turns out that a sexual abuser was previously victimized himself, he still does not speak for me, nor for most sexual trauma survivors, nor should he attempt to act as my “ally”.
  2. I don’t need sexual abusers telling me what I should or should not feel. The sexual abusers and rapists in my life already did exactly that. I don’t want or need another one presuming to tell me, yet again, how I should react to the crimes and sins perpetrated against me by people like him.
  3. I have no interest in anything an ambassador from the “sexual abuser community” might have to say to me as a sexual trauma survivor. By the grace of God, I have done the near impossible and have forgiven those who have perpetrated sexual sins and crimes against me. I do not want to hear any more excuses, justifications, pity parties, blame-shifting, minimizing, denial, or explanations. I’ve already heard far more than I ever wanted to hear. If you are a sexual abuser, I don’t want to understand how or why you did what you did. I’m sorry if that hurts anyone’s feelings, but I really do not want to comprehend the thinking and attitudes of the men who raped me, or the males who have wounded me sexually. There are things I never want to understand. I refuse to be dragged into such cesspools of evil thoughts and selfish, twisted desires. A truly repentant sexual abuser would not want to inflict that on survivors. We already had to deal with the abuse and trauma; don’t make things worse.
  4. Sexual abusers and sexual abuse survivors are not two “communities” that need to make peace with each other or bridge some gap of misunderstanding. Anyone who thinks that there is even a role for “ambassadors” is woefully ignorant of the very nature of sexual trauma. This isn’t a “but can’t we all just get along?” situation. As individual survivors, we may choose to forgive our abusers, but that doesn’t mean it would necessarily be wise to reconcile with them or to enter into relationships with other abusers, no matter how wholesome or contrite their “ambassadors” might appear to be.

Josh Duggar and others like him have nothing to say on my behalf, and little or nothing that I need to hear. They should never attempt to be ambassadors to or from survivors. Sexual abusers like him do not possess wonderful, compassionate insights that would aid me in walking out my healing. At this point, there is no need for apologies or forgiveness, because his sins and crimes were against his sisters and another unnamed victim, not me. However, should he take Michael Brown’s article to heart and try to usurp some sort of “ambassador” role that is not his to take, I think he will owe a major apology to many, if not all, survivors.