Top 90 Child Sexual Abuse Quotes
#1. I'm certainly not suggesting legalization of polyamory. But it's also unfairly judgmental of you to compare such relationships to the criminal acts of bestiality or child sexual abuse.
Emily Yoffe
#2. Some of your childhood traumas may be remembered with incredible clarity, while others are so frightening or incomprehensible that your conscious mind buries the memory in your unconscious.
Renee Fredrickson
#3. Incest is almost always a devastating experience for
the victim.
Susan Forward
#4. ...there is a particular focus of the problem faced only by men. It arises from our culture providing no room for a man as victim.
Mike Lew
#5. Don't put your child at risk. Limit unsupervised one-on-one time between your child & another adult or another child.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#6. Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation.
Judith Lewis Herman
#7. When I felt as though I had reached land, it was like I was on a deserted sandy beach, feeling isolated and afraid to share with anyone the memories that haunted me.
Erin Merryn
#8. Not even Carol knows firsthand how it feels to be hurt in such a way by someone who's supposed to protect you
Ellen Hopkins
#9. I always thought of myself as being the unluckiest girl I knew. I was, I believed, a 'jinx' and I was 'jinxed', or so I thought!
Stephen Richards
#10. It is a myth that rape is an inevitable part of conflict ... There is nothing inevitable about it. It is a weapon of war aimed at civilians. It has nothing to do with sex - everything to do with power. It is done to torture and humiliate innocent people and often very young children.
Angelina Jolie
#11. I thought when the abuse stopped I could move on with my life. Instead I am still running from Brian. The only difference is now I am running from him in my dreams.
Erin Merryn
#12. Because the child does not have the power to withhold consent, she does not have the power to grant it.
Judith Lewis Herman
#13. Religion to me was only something to be used and abused, as it had done nothing for me other than give me pain. Religion for me was a method used to gain an extra bottle of wine or a nice meal.
Stephen Richards
#14. As a child, I was attractive to paedophiles. I suppose being indecently assaulted when I was 13 years old should have warned me that there were some weird and dangerous men out there, but I had got over that episode in my life.
Stephen Richards
#15. A child has a greater chance of being sexually abused than burned in a fire. Along with stop, drop, and roll we must teach them to yell, run, and tell.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#16. Women need total life support services for the mother as she and the family move through the crisis following disclosure.
Janis Tyler Johnson
#17. Maternal absence, in one form or another, is always found in the background of the incest romance. Womens literature on incest generally treats the theme of maternal absence tragically. Mens literature trivializes it or treats it comically. And clinical literature tends to treat it judgmentally.
Judith Lewis Herman
#18. The entrance into the family of an outside professional with legal authority is always a crisis-ridden event, but it may be the best insurance that the incest will not continue.
Janis Tyler Johnson
#19. Just as much as the media portray child sexual exploitation as being a 'hidden' crime, then that is no less of a case with child physical abuse.
Stephen Richards
#20. From a young boy's viewpoint this could not get any worse, especially when you were told that you belonged to the devil, and this bullying of me went on for a long time.
Stephen Richards
#21. The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4
Judith Lewis Herman
#22. You might think the Bangkok Hilton (the nickname of a fictional prison in Bangkok) was tough, well that was paradise compared to this place!
Stephen Richards
#23. Protestant congregations. These surveys found that, out of about one thousand churches who had been asked about sexual abuse since 1993, allegations of child abuse averaged 70 per week.
Joe Klest
#24. As recently as 1975, a basic American psychiatry textbook estimated that the frequency of all forms of incest as one case per million. [James Henderson, "Incest", in A. M. Freedman, H.I. Kaplan and B.J. Sadock, eds., Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 2nd ed. 1975 p. 1532.]
Judith Lewis Herman
#25. I was becoming a product of society, a hardened juvenile! Now I was becoming rebellious and hateful.
Stephen Richards
#26. Sadomasochiasm - which we know very well doesn't exist in societies that don't have child abuse - is regarded some sort of natural sexual expression.
Gloria Steinem
#27. I sometimes continue to see myself in split ways; it causes me trouble and contributes to a lack of satisfaction with myself.
Maureen Brady
#28. A man or a woman can't be defined by the pain inflicted in them by others or by someone else's issues, but by their own character and actions.
Linda Alfiori
#29. The police still found this earlier omission in my statement hard to understand, but they weren't the ones who had been the victim of the Wests, how could they have understood?
Stephen Richards
#30. I had forgotten the fact that I had been raped, something no one would understand, how could anyone forget something as traumatic as being raped?
Stephen Richards
#31. With regards pedophilia I have always looked on it as that ... pedophilia. I thought that one religion is no different to the other and I am now truthfully beginning to think that.
Stephen Richards
#32. From spending ten years in hell and coming to this regime of kindness was a shock. It was so much of a shock, it was unbelievable. I was like an untamed animal, I couldn't accept it and I just wouldn't accept it.
Stephen Richards
#33. During sexual abuse, children feel and incorporate the rage, pain, shame, and sense of perversion that the perpetrator is projecting. They take these feelings into the very core of themselves, and they are badly traumatized by the emotions surrounding the assault, as well as by the assault itself.
Renee Fredrickson
#34. Regarding the accusations of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, deplorable and disgusting as those abuses are, they are not so harmful to the children as the grievous mental harm in bringing up the child Catholic in the first place.
Richard Dawkins
#35. When someone forces you - he unkindly borrows- he does not, can not own you- Remember your body, spirit and heart are yours and only yours, and when you start to process your sexual abuse you will get it all back.
Patti Feuereisen
#36. By opening the door to my life, it is my hope and mission to shed light on the hidden wounds of abuse, to end the stigma and shame associated with abuse, and to show survivors true courage, strength, inspiration, and determination.
Erin Merryn
#37. All what stuck in my mind was what the judge had said, and that was during the assault there must have been some passive co-operation on my part. Added to the fact that the Wests had only been fined £25 each for each of the charges against them, a total of £100 was all that I was worth.
Stephen Richards
#38. If you were sexually abused & could not go to your family for support, you deserve to realize that your family failed you fundamentally. Your parents did not provide a safe atmosphere of support & protection for their children, which is a parent's first responsibility. It was not your fault.
Patti Feuereisen
#39. When we first begin to take power more directly, after long having kept our relationship to it underground...it is natural that we experience anxiety, even guilt, at putting ourselves first. These feeling let us know we are taking action; they do not need to stop us.
Maureen Brady
#40. While my sister and I were reminded we did not cause this pain, it was knowing that because we broke our silence about what had been done to us, our parents were hurting. That knowledge was hard on us.
Erin Merryn
#41. Because the perpetrators typically have little understanding as to why they are sexually assaulting children, they usually are unable to stop after the first assault. Abusive behavior continues until a crisis of some kind prevents further abuse.
Tony Martens
#42. Healing isn't just about pain. It's about learning to love yourself. As you move from feeling like a victim to being a proud survivor, you will have glimmers of hope, pride and satisfaction. Those are natural by-products of healing.
Ellen Bass
#43. Rose West was starting 10 life sentences with no prospect of ever being released, Fred West had gone to hell, I had got my life back and the media circus had moved on to the next big scoop.
Stephen Richards
#44. Sexual abuse of children now presents society with the ultimate crisis of patriarchy, when children refuse to protect their fathers by keeping secrets.
Beatrix Campbell
#45. Most of our informants [incest survivors] remembered their mothers as weak and powerless, finding their only dignity in martyrdom.
Judith Lewis Herman
#46. Without realizing it, I fought to keep my two worlds separated. Without ever knowing why, I made sure, whenever possible that nothing passed between the compartmentalization I had created between the day child and the night child.
p26
Marilyn Van Derbur
#47. You may experience waves of disbelief after each memory you retrieve. Whether as a phase or waves, the disbelief is usually accompanied by massive self-hate and guilt. 'How can I even think such a thing? I must really be warped,' you tell yourself.
Renee Fredrickson
#48. There is comfort in knowing that you don't have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.
Ellen Bass
#49. I have to find a place to hide
An island in the sea
Surrounded by a racing tide
Where I can live with me
Laurie Matthew
#50. Incest, rape and abuse is rampant everywhere, even in our churches, but society is silent. It is a silent epidemic. One in three women will experience a sexual assault in her lifetime and one in six males, yet we don't speak of it, even in our churches!
Diane Chamberlain
#51. The initial trauma of a young child may go underground but it will return to haunt us.
James Garbarino
#52. I look upon the gift of my life as a wondrous journey.
Maureen Brady
#53. And let's stop calling them "sex offenders," as if their crimes had anything to do with sex. (Perhaps Jeffry Dahmer was a "food offender.")
Mike Lew
#55. I am filled with truth at my center where I once held shame.
Maureen Brady
#56. [The incestuous father...] may be unconsciously seeking revenge against either his wife or his mother for what he considers a variety of emotional crimes against him.
Susan Forward
#57. My goal in going public was not to put my extended family to shame, or to get back at Brian for abusing my sister and me; rather, my mission was to give a face and voice to an epidemic that society stays hushed about.
Erin Merryn
#58. I have beaten people into the ground and the more they cry the more of a beating I gave them. If they don't cry, I come off, if they cry then I will beat them and beat them and beat them.
Stephen Richards
#59. When I was 14-15
There was nothing to my life
but dancing and sex
I'd go to night clubs and dance
Then I'd meet someone and have sex
it was Fine and easy
nothing to do
BUT Think with my body
like a bird
I Thought I was Free
TrAcey Emin
Tracey Emin
#60. So often parents of abused children feel helpless. When a child falls, and scrapes her knees parents can erase the hurt by kissing it and putting a Band-Aid on it, but not so with the pain of sexual abuse.
Erin Merryn
#61. Though no longer living in silence, I continued to carry pain and memories.
Erin Merryn
#62. If someone would have talked in school about safe touch and unsafe touch, I believe I would have spoken up as a child and not been victimized over and over again for years, but that day never came, which is why my mission now is to protect children from the childhood I could not be protected from.
Erin Merryn
#63. Mind Your Language in the Presence of Patriachs
Q. When is rape not rape?
A. When it is your father or stepfather.
S. Caroline Taylor
#64. The horror of incest is not in the sexual act. but in the exploitation of children and the corruption of parental love. p4
Judith Lewis Herman
#65. Though all the daughters eventually succeeded in escaping from their families, they felt, even at this time of the interview (while in their 20s and 30s) that they would never be safe with their fathers, and that they would have to defend themselves as long as their fathers lived.
Judith Lewis Herman
#66. Preliminary research-most of it published outside the medical literature-indicates that a significant number of our patients have experienced some form of violence and abuse during their lifetime, including elder abuse, child abuse, gang-related violence, sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
David Schneider
#67. Fifty three per cent children in India face sexual abuse - both boys and girls - but we still feel uncomfortable talking about it. We are still hypocrites when it comes to issues like child abuse, sex or for that matter homosexuality. It is high time that we brought the issue from under the carpet.
Rahul Bose
#68. Girls are genius at getting through sexual abuse. Often the only way to get through is not to feel. And that is exactly what these fantasy worlds allow: They give girls a place to go so they don't have to be present in their violated bodies. Brilliant.
Patti Feuereisen
#69. No matter what tight corner I was in, I was capable of getting myself out of it ... not God!
Stephen Richards
#70. Not only do I believe children can be reliable in sexual abuse cases, I believe the vast majority of them are reliable in those cases.
Nightline: When to believe a child's word (1996)
Stephen J. Ceci
#71. I left the court feeling sure that Rose West would never walk free again. That thought made me happy.
Stephen Richards
#72. Until we accept that our children have much more of a risk of being sexually abused than drowning in a pool, being struck by a car, stricken with cancer, hurt by a vaccination, or diagnosed with ebola, we contribute to a culture of panic and ignorance.
Ann Brasco
#73. Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.
Judith Lewis Herman
#74. As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail.
Judith Lewis Herman
#75. It is regarded as axiomatic that parents have more power then children. This is an inescapable biological fact; young children are completely dependent on their parents or other caring adults for survival.
Judith Lewis Herman
#76. Denial is commonly found among persons with dissociative disorders. My favorite quotation from such a client is, "We are not multiple, we made it all up." I have heard this from several different clients. When I hear it, I politely inquire, "And who is we?
Alison Miller
#77. A lot of attention has been given over to the Catholic Churches sexual abuse of children in their care, but this attention seems to have been hijacked by the media and has overshadowed the many thousands of victims that endured physical abuse.
Stephen Richards
#78. I dived out of the office and I was gone ... hitting these fields like a mad March hare. This wasn't Born Free, it was RUN FREE!
Stephen Richards
#79. At 31 years of age, Fred West was a big man trapped in a little man's body. He thought himself to be a gynecologist and Warren Beatty look-a-like all rolled into one ... the surgeon and the stud.
Stephen Richards
#80. I knew I hadn't been the most innocent of victims, but I didn't deserve this. DC Smith stood and grinned at me as he thanked me and left the room, leaving me to cry and to ponder on his not very adept handling of the situation.
Stephen Richards
#81. That high pitch scream emitted by Rose made me wince! Her ear bursting howls would stun me into silence as much as it silenced the eldest child in their home, eight-year-old Anna-Marie.
Stephen Richards
#82. Many survivors insist they're not courageous: 'If I were courageous I would have stopped the abuse.' 'If I were courageous, I wouldn't be scared'... Most of us have it mixed up. You don't start with courage and then face fear. You become courageous because you face your fear.
Laura Davis
#83. Victim-stancing - whereby the offender claims and believes that s/he is the real victim (one of the most prevalent sophistries in the false memory controversies)
Harvey L. Schwartz
#84. All these do-gooders make it sound like you just have to repent and off you go to heaven, but what about all the atrocities the Catholic religion did to us? Who pays for that! They just took over our lives!!
Stephen Richards
#85. I can't get myself to say what happened next. I cannot cope with even thinking about this let alone living with it."
"It is so degrading and I try to forget, it hurts so much because she is my mother."
- Graham talks about being sexually abused by his mother
Carolyn Ainscough
#86. The abuser's desire to abuse is not created by the child - it is there before the child appears
Carolyn Ainscough
#87. Who said 'please' that made you hate the word so much?"
Andrew gazed at him in silence for a minute. "I did.
Nora Sakavic
#88. Hiding my pain and acting strong, afraid to cry and show my tears, I struggle with all this years later.
Erin Merryn
#89. My mom called Grandma today and told her we would no longer be attending family parties. My mom told her we have had enough of being blamed for something Brian did and everyone brushing it off like it was no big deal.
Erin Merryn
#90. Once you'd been with Freddie, you wouldn't go anywhere else.' (How true this was to prove.) This incessant bragging by Fred West was at best, annoying and at worst, sickening. According to him, he was God's gift to women.
Stephen Richards
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