This book is for people who want to understand child sexual abuse in new ways. Based on interviews, the book shows what child sexual abuse means to child and adult survivors, perpetrators, and mothers of survivors. These first person stories make this book different from most others on child sexual abuse.
Because of the first person stories, this book can be difficult to read. Yet, these stories show what children experience when they have been sexually abused. Adults are helpful to children when they can handle the harsh experiences that children have had. Effective responses to child sexual abuse require understanding the experiences of children who have been abused.While not backing away from the harshness of child sexual abuse, the book also offers hope. It describes how survivors recover from child sex-ual abuse, describes treatment and prevention programs, and makes recommendations for policies and education programs.
Above all, this book is for survivors and their families so that they can understand the harsh realities in their own lives, find goodness and hope within them-selves and in trustworthy other people, and move on to rich and fulfilling lives.
Millions of children are hurt by child sexual abuse in the United States every year. We must do all we can to keep perpetrators from sexually abusing children, but we no longer can concentrate on punishment and overlook the children and their families.
Children who have been abused rarely get the professional care they require and often are blamed. Prevention efforts are half-hearted and underfunded. Much of it focuses on what children can do to protect themselves when the problem is perpetrators. They alone are responsible. Public opinion and policy must shift if we are to keep children safe. The place to start is to understand what child sexual abuse means to child survivors.
What children and perpetrators say is far different from common assumptions. Much of the available information on child sexual abuse provides dry statistics and lists dire of outcomes for survivors without pointing out that most children have personal and family resources to cope with, adapt to, and overcome the effects of child sexual abuse.
The book includes descriptions of how children recover from child sexual abuse and answers questions about why some people develop sexually abusive behaviors and others do not. Most children, both girls and boys, who have been sexually abused do not go on to abuse children themselves. Most live with the hurt and have meaningful, fulfilling lives.
Family members, friends of families, and other people children know and trust account for all but a small percentage of perpetrators of child sexual abuse. Kindly neighbor Ken and Joe Wonder Dad are not the exceptions but the rule.
Until now, many people refused to believe that seemingly respectable and loved members of families and communities sexually abuse children. With clear proof that outwardly respectable and even holy and revered men sexually abuse children, the myth of dirty old men in overcoats as abusers may now be shattered. Seemingly respectable people sexually abuse children. There is no longer dispute about this.
The book ends with guidelines for policy, prevention, treatment, and education. For policy and programs to be responsive to the issues that child sexual abuse creates, we need an informed public. This book provides a foundation for policy and for prevention, education, and treatment programs.
Above all, this book is for survivors and their families so that they can understand the harsh realities in their own lives, find goodness and hope within themselves and in trustworthy other people, and go on to rich and fulfilling lives.
