Sexual Assault Survivors Support

One of the really hard things about sexual abuse that when it isn't physically violent, isn't traditional heterosexual penetration, wasn't at the hands of a stranger, that involved our becoming sexually aroused, or that it was at the hands of someone we loved (and may still love) then we compare ourselves to the spectre that we have been told (as recently as this past election cycle) is "real" rape - and we fall short. So what happened to us wasn't real rape; what we experienced wasn't "real" sexual abuse - for one of any number of reasons. And that is why it is so important to tell our stories.

Sexual abuse is very much a continuum. As women, it pervades our lives from the day we were born - men are socialized to see women as objects available for their sexual pleasure, and women. The pornography you were exposed to is an extreme end of that socialization, but if you look at everyday ads you will find nearly identical imagery - except that the models are little girls, or fully clothed, or disguised in other ways that prevent us from consciously recognizing what we are seeing.

Just because the sexual abuse you were subjected to didn't involve being grabbed by a stranger with a gun penetrated by a penis does not diminish the scars you carry with you from years of being subjected to unwanted imagery, touching, and more, and it doesn't make it not sexual abuse just because it doesn't fit the lines we've been fed forever about what is or is not real rape.