Hoping to raise awareness....

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With a daughter who just turned twelve, whose body is already more mature than mine was at sixteen, I need to share my past, to save my daughter or someone else's some grief.

Alcohol must be discussed, and a girl should know, it will change her ability to fight off the advances of males. I was sixteen the first time the act of rape happened. I was out with my brother, and my cousin. I hadnt drank much before that night, and i could not sit up. Much less fight off the attacker. And i was so ashamed, i pretended it was ok. I bragged(this is what other girls did)about loosing my virginity to my older cousin(i was fitting in). But inside, part of me died.

Alcohol changes a person. And it changes the persons abilities. Your girls must understand this. They may like the way alcohol allows them for the first time to speak i a group, or not sweat while speaking. It will relieve some of their anxiety, of this i am almost sure.

But the cost....a naive girl, just shouldnt have to bear the cost. I have the alcoholic gene....and feel blessed to have broken free....although i lost some skills, in the process. The ten years of feeling like i wanted to die because of my constant inability to recognize abusers, was not worth the words it alcohol gave me. I'd rather not have to speak some of the things I learned.

If you have not talked with your daughter about sex, do it. Right now, my daughter thinks if a boy touches her vulva, she could get pregnant. That is what I mean....make it simple and direct. To the level of your child's understanding....even if she is grown.

She is too young to understand all of the intricacies of relationships and sex, but she doesnt want a crying baby.....that she KNOWS! No one is allowed to touch her breasts as well....or her butt.

She has my complete permission to fight anyone that does....bite kick scream. I'll handle the fall out if someone touched her inappropriately by mistake.

She also knows that she is past the age anyone but mom or her doctor can see her naked. I make her dad and her brother the male examples of no man sees you naked, and have for quite awhile. Once a girls naked, she's helpless.

Never underestimate any man. My husband agrees with me when i say, guys are run by one need. Everything else is gravy.
It's biological, and only a man who learns to control his biology with his mind will not operate out of the need to see something naked. Call me sexist.....i wont care.

If you dont know the word no yourself, then you know to teach it to your child.....No was my daughters second word, and she will yell it at any time.

May we all recognize and fight the abuse of women.

tyger

Recognize and fight the abuse of women: a hundred percent.

None of us should need anyone's permission to fight off unwanted physical advances.

Alcohol is certainly something to be careful about.

And I don't know how to stress this enough, but I don't think our society deals well at all with the incidence of rape, particularly in such circumstances as you have described.

I think this post is a step in the right direction.

However, I feel this post is a bit unfair to men. While most men have strong sexual drives, and most men don't realize or don't care (by choice or otherwise) how much harm is caused by, say, an involuntary drunken grope. . . there are also men out there who simply wouldn't, ever; there are even (a very few) men out there who recognize sexual pressuring and choose not to engage in it. Give them credit.

Be careful- very careful- but give credit where it's due. In a "non-compromising of safety" sort of way.

Quote:

"However, I feel this post is a bit unfair to men. While most men have strong sexual drives, and most men don't realize or don't care (by choice or otherwise) how much harm is caused by, say, an involuntary drunken grope. . . there are also men out there who simply wouldn't, ever; there are even (a very few) men out there who recognize sexual pressuring and choose not to engage in it. Give them credit."


Point taken. I know most MEN disapprove of rape. But, my post is more to mothers of girls and young women who may NOT be capable of saying no. I wasnt. I said it, a couple of times, and then quieted to a subdued stare into the sky.
This was not my only rape in life. So i've seen the face of the men who do it. They look just like every other guy until they cross the line.

I dont let my kids put their faces down in my dogs face. Not because my dog is bad, but because she is running on a mind different than my own. I dont feel bad warning young women about men's sexual abuse. I'd feel worse being quiet.

I'm married to a pretty good man. But, because he will share thoughts and experiences, and look at life toward his daughters side, he agrees it's ok to be a little sexist.

If you are a man, on this womens board, and you have never manipulated a woman into sex, forced her into sex, or made her feel bad because she didnt have sex, please forgive me. If you are one of the others.....karma baby.

tyger

I also wonder where the line is drawn between heavy pressuring and rape. I was taught by my parent to just say no but what happens when the guy doesn't directly ask? I guess that is where the rule "don't touch the breasts, or the bum" comes in. I think we can often be at a disadvantage when we are lied to because we think it is true and we find to our cost that it isn't. So it isn't just the worry about pregnancy at too young an age but also about emotional damage that is important.

That is not true... I'm sorry you've had to go through horrible experiences, but please don't try to project what happened to you onto every single member of the male gender.

Hmm, if a guy's been taught right he probably won't engage in sexual pressuring.
I admit, I was guilty of stuff of that nature when I was in elementary (!) and middle school for the simple reason that I didn't know any better. My first, last and only kick in the nuts came when I was ten when I nagged an eight year old girl to "help me find out how babies are made". I'm disgusted by what I did, and I never saw that girl again (for good reason), though sometimes I wish I could seriously apologize to her.
And I know I'm bringing up this argument again... and again... but sexual pressuring isn't just a guy thing. One time I refused a group of girls who gave me an offer to star in a homemade porno movie, and my refusal was immediately followed by a really sickening attempt at emotional guilt-tripping in which I was accused of being cruel, emotionally insensitive, and so on... I left as quickly as I could because I didn't want to have to put up with that. (maybe it was karma? but still...)
Something similar, but slightly worse, happened when a girl I knew requested sexual favors of me (and what's worse by my personal morals is that we weren't in a relationship), and I refused.
The girl in question then threatened to spread nasty rumors about me if I didn't have sex with her.
She never did, but I lived in fear for months upon months that she would accuse me of hurting her and get me in trouble for something I'd never do.
In fact, from my experiences, I'd say that many of the females I've known are just as dominated by that "one urge" as males, and that both genders need to be taught not to engage in sexual pressuring.

Fair point there - it's not just the guys who put on the heavy pressure and guilt trips and good on you for not giving in to these girls. I think it's important when kids are given sex education to teach them how to recognise when they are being coerced and give them strategies for saying "no" to unwanted sexual advances.

I think it's important when kids get sex ed- wherever they get it- that they learn how to identify coercive behaviors and change them. A tall order, I know. . .

Most states seem to have a required sex ed program in their schools, but in a lot of states the government is trying to limit the sex ed program to simply telling kids not to have unmarried sex, and in states where sex education is handled properly (usually in required classes such as Health/Life Management and Biology) the school system seems to have given into pressure from conservative parents and offer students forms that their parents must fill out if they don't wish their children to be educated about human sexuality.
In fact, I'd say that even though a lot of states appear to have instituted a successful sexual education program, young people still take much of their perceptions about human sexuality from peers and from films, books, etc.
I recall rewatching the film Name of the Rose with a friend of mine after he was raped by a female agressor, and there was one sex scene that absolutely sickened both him and me because I felt it bore too much of a resemblance to what my friend had gone through: However, in the film it was portrayed in a positive light: The woman came into the room and had sex with the male character (whom the female character in that scene didn't even know) without even so much as a word, and he is portrayed as automatically willing. In fact, I was even more sickened by the fact that in the movie the main character fell in love with her afterwards.
I recall reading an article on romance novels of yesteryear, and, while I'm not a particular fan of that genre (or knowledgeable about it), the article's points interested me, as they made a similar point about old romance novels in which the female main character fell in love with the male main character after he had kidnapped and raped her.
I agreed with that article and I think more should be said on that subject, taking into account not simply the media's false portrayal of female sexuality (a subject which has already been written about, though further writing about it will prove equally helpful to future generations), but the media's false portrayal of human sexuality in general based on antiquated and possibly dangerous stereotypes.

While manipulation and coersion are a serious and disgusting problem no matter who engages in them, it is a lot harder for a woman to physically force sex than for a man to, in a vast majority of cases.

I don't know what should be done about the whole sex ed scene. . . although I do think we can agree that "abstinence only" isn't the answer.

Maybe get some young parents in to talk to the kids.