Tag: feminism

Sexual Misconduct

Sexual Misconduct



“Sexual misconduct and sexual assault are not mistakes. Those are choices that hurt and harm women. A mistake is something that wasn’t intended to happen”.  A choice to act in a reprehensible, immoral or illegal way is something for which one should take responsibility, and make legal amends.



J.S.


Exactly.


One does not need to overcome ones biological aversion and natural emotional boundaries when one makes a mistake.


It is an extraordinary act of bad will to commit a violation against another person.


Thank you for your clarity on this



Martina Nicholson


We have to admit this has been going on for thousands of years. IT was tolerated, and hidden in secrecy. Women and children, and some men, were violated. It probably has happened to 1 in 3 people. It was part of the social fabric of life. But at some point in modern times, we began to see that women’s lives matter. We began to understand what rape does, psychologically. We have begun to understand PTSD and lasting trauma, which cripples people for life. Women are not cattle or sheep. Women have souls and deserve to be respected. Children too, deserve to be protected from violations. CONSENT is the main issue. We need to get these predatory men, who before were operating on instinct and acting like predators, to be willing to court the women, and get consent for intimate contact. When good men realize this is important, and do not put up with other men violating women and children, and acting without consent in relationships, we will finally have graduated to the next level of socially being human. Both rape and pedophilia are the biggest traumatic sources of psychological disturbance in people’s lives. Incest is even harder to overcome, because it is violation by a family member who should have been trustworthy. Many times it is also associated with alcoholism and/or drug use, and it destroys lives and families. The recidivism of pedophilia is staggering. The number of violations in an average lifespan of a pedophile is in the thousands. The average number of crimes is 117. We are lucky to have good support groups now for this. RAINN is one. And SAPREA is another, who are trying to help people get past the scarring psychological trauma.


Martina Nicholson


The good news is, from the RAINN data, that 95% of the behavior can be removed by education and training about consent, as part of communicating desire for intimacy. This is wonderful news. It means we can help people grow into mature human beings, who can learn to communicate, and to order their emotional lives in a healthier way. Please help teach, share, educate, inform, raise curiosity and willingness to learn. This is the most interesting thing that has happened in human behavior for thousands of years. We can become more mature human beings!


RAINN

is an excellent source of information about this problem. There are many resources now.

Discussing CONSENT with young people, especially parent-to-children conversations, but also in schools and churches, and in other groups, is very important.







Some thoughts on sex trafficking

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.  When someone ignores this, thinking you are just a body, detachable from spirit like a shadow, you demean the core sacred center of the life of this person, a multifaceted human being.  Making them into a thing.  Disposable, like kleenex.  To take  lovemaking and turn it into a crass use of someone’s body, often not even to give pleasure, and certainly not intending that this person receive tenderness, compassion, or love,  but simply to exercise power over them, ensnared like a trapped animal, is extremely destructive. Often it is exacerbated by even more  violence and cruelty.  For many of us, it would instinctively be better to be murdered than raped.  Rape incurs deep shame, feeling abased.  It never goes away.  The scars last for decades, even in healthy relationships; sexual abuse suddenly may rear its ugly roots of torment and emotional scarring.   The body remembers, and shrivels down into fear and wanting to find safety, even after successful therapy.   As a gynecologist, I have known this, I have seen it in women even into their 70s and 80s.  

To sell a person into slavery is a terrible thing.  To sell them to do manual labor, dangerous and unrecompensed work,  is hard enough;  but to make their body feel so abused and their personhood so corrupted, is soul-destroying. 

The Epstein sex-trafficking ring lasted for 30 years.  There were at least a thousand identified victims.  Many have told their stories in court, and won their cases.  The majority of women who were used by this ring came from Eastern European countries.  That is probably how the tracks got covered for so long.  The monetary value of that ring was 1.5 BILLION dollars.  In early reports, it was said that 1.1 billion came from Trump.  I don’t have the attribution to that, but maybe this week, when Congressman Ro Khanna allows the victims to tell their stories to Congress and  the public, we will get more details about the way the money was hidden.  But this is not just about money.  It is about a long-standing practice of abuse of children and women, and we need to have good men and women rise up and share OUTRAGE, and promise to tighten the laws, to not let it happen again.  And to bring the perpetrators to justice.  Certainly not to allow access to children;  girls and young women, but also young men.  Jesus had heavy words to say about those who hurt children (Matthew 18:6).  For those who want our country’s ethics to be based in Christian thinking, it is worth pondering that.  

Martina Nicholson, MD

retired gynecologist