Maintaining the vigil ... and a new theory on assault

...So we take turns going to the hospital, sitting by my Grandmother-in-law's side, marveling at Her continued lucidity and humor in the face of the inevitable ...

...and life goes on, or some semblance of it.

I was looking for news on the Senate race in Mass., and stumbled somehow across a shocking interview on a very sensitive, very important subject: sexual abuse of children.

The interviewee has been made a pariah for Her controversial new theory, as are so many people who dare to confront the scientific/medical establishment. Her revelation is this: In the vast majority of cases, children who are abused are not traumatized by the incident, they are confused. There is in fact often physical pleasure in what takes place.

What occurred is still very, very, very wrong -- absolutely a loathsome, horrific crime, the author is quick to note -- because a child cannot give consent. But by insisting that a child who has been molested, is always traumatized and feels no pleasure in what is done, as if the scenario were always a violent rape by some stranger in an alley, we do an injustice to many victims of the crime. Namely, those victims who did not feel raped or terrorized. Who felt only confused at what their bodies told them during the molestation and who may have been well-acquainted with, and even cared for, their abuser.

What happened to them was still a crime and they need to know that, and that they were not wrong or abnormal or sick in how they felt about it at the time.

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2010/01/18/trauma_myth_interview/index.html?source=rss&aim=/books/int