P.C.A. (Porn, Children & Abuse)

**Trigger Warning** to those who are struggling with this.

Last year, I was privileged to meet a fellow author & survivor Yvette Tatum. She wrote a book entitled I Didn’t Know: Identifying, Confronting & Overcoming Child Sexual Abuse (a recommended read). I read it while I was sitting at a vendor table in Daytona Beach around November 2013. When I reached one particular part of the book, I had to put it down because it made me think about what I went through during the course of my abuse (which is going to be the focus of this blog).

Yvette had this to say about child sexual abuse in her book of the same title (bold is my emphasis): Child sexual abuse – is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities (regardless of the outcome), indecent exposure of the genitals to a child, displaying pornography to a child, actual sexual contact against a child, physical contact with the child’s genitals (except in certain non-sexual contexts such as a medical exam), viewing of the child’s genitalia for the purpose of sexual gratification, or using a child to produce child pornography.

I’ll be honest; it took me a long time to write this blog (because of fear, and having the stomach to do this). I wanted to type this blog roughly since the beginning of this year. Yvette went further to say that sexual abuse comes in many forms: molestation, rape, incest, pornography (this includes forcing one to watch sexual acts), sodomy & indecent exposure.

Now many of you know of my story (or have read Deaf, Dumb, Blind & Stupid), but here’s something I share with very few people. I’m going to say it in such a way where it’s not directly in your face, but you’ll be able to get the point. When I was abused by two relatives (within my extended family) between August 1984 and July 1985 I would be exposed to pornography a month later. Now I wasn’t forced to watch it, but let’s understand how this all plays out. The two relatives who abused me were both 2 years older than me (and I was only 10/11 years old). My late father used to watch pornography, but he would always have the door closed (and I was always a child who tried to do the right thing – so I knew this was something I was not to watch). When the male relative (who was 13 at the time) was watching pornography, I was thinking to myself, “If he’s not allowed to watch it and he is, then I should have a right to.” So, he allowed me to watch for a brief moment with him. What I saw on the screen was no different than what my female relative did to me (I’m not bashing her by any means when I say that). But my thought on that was this, “been there, done that,” and initially thought nothing about it at that moment.

I would be so wrong with that thought because it would affect me for years down the road. So for Yvette to write that exposing pornography to a child is sexual abuse, it hit home really hard (in fact, I almost broke down and cried – part of me is trying not to cry now as I type this).

So why am I saying all of this: because when a child has been sexually abused, there are probably numerous layers that one has to peel in order to be fully healed. I encourage you to stay in the fight for your healing and peeling layers will be tough in some areas. Like I just said, peeling that layer off of me was tough. I hope this will help someone in the healing process.

Blessings:

The Mayne Man