Top 100 Quotes About Sexual Abuse
#1. 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
#2. 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
#3. 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
#4. 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
#5. Though it isn't obvious from the bowdlerized versions in Walt Disney , the tales are filled with murder,infanticide,cannibalism, mutilation, and sexual abuse - grimm fairy tales indeed.
Steven Pinker
#6. My philosophy is, "murder the rapist in your mind so you stop killing yourself." I've seen, in my lifetime, that sexual abuse has turned into self-abuse. When I kill the rapist inside of me, I will stop killing myself.
Margaret Cho
#7. It's not easy to be optimistic and hopeful after you come to know and love some of the young victims of sexual abuse, violence, poverty, neglect, drugs, and rape. It's taking me a while to climb out of this hatred, this noxious cynicism. I'm doing my best.
M.T. Johnson
#8. Being a mother of two little girls, it was an absolute nightmare for me to teach them about sexual abuse.
Deepa Kumar
#9. Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?
Richard Dawkins
#10. Children's bodies aren't like automobiles with the assailant's fingerprints lingering on the wheel. The world of sexual abuse is quintessentiall y secret. It is the perfect crime.
Beatrix Campbell
#11. [Sexual abuse] is such a sharp, potent topic that we really should have discussions about more openly and more often.
Rachael Taylor
#12. 'I wish for a better life. I wish for food for my children. I wish that sexual abuse and exploitation in schools would stop.' This is the dream of the African girl.
Leymah Gbowee
#13. I would like to say that what Mel Phillips was doing was not sexual harassment but more sexual abuse of children, because he was doing it in a sexual manner now that I look back on it.
Tom Cole
#14. I think the issue of clergy sexual abuse sparked people to look at their faith in a different way.
William P. Leahy
#15. Milk is for babies. Human beings are the only species that drinks milk into adulthood and besides that we prefer to drink the milk of another species (enslaved cows and goats), and we have come to consider it normal when, it is actually a pretty perverse form of sexual abuse!
Sharon Gannon
#16. I am concerned about the growing problem of sexual abuse and exploitation of our children.
Jim Ryun
#17. Between 60 and 80 percent of strippers come from a background of sexual abuse.
Caitlin Moran
#18. Sexual abuse injects poisonous lies into its victims' hearts and minds. "You're not worthy" is one of them.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#19. Build a bridge over shame by teaching kids about sexual abuse. Give them a chance to run to us should they encounter it. Be their hero.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#20. When abstinence curricula contain information about sexual abuse or assault (though they often don't), the message is similar: The onus of preventing sexual assault is on girls, not on men.
Jessica Valenti
#21. Homosexuals are rarely monogamous and have as many as 300 to 1,000 sexual partners over the course of a lifetime. ... [T]he risk of sexual abuse in a homosexual household is much greater than in a heterosexual household.
Bryan Fischer
#22. 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
#23. The purpose of the book is to break the silence and stigma surrounding sexual abuse and to educate the public on how they can be greater advocates for victims. As a people, a nation and a society, we all have a part to play in curbing this issue.
Michelle Alexander
#24. 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
#25. The photographs of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment by their captors, and the reports of acts of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other acts of maltreatment shock the conscience.
Ed Markey
#26. As in so many cases of sexual abuse within the family, it is much more complicated than had it been done by a stranger.
Erin Merryn
#27. We have come far, but there is an ongoing battle to be fought. Many of the issues the Suffragettes were dealing with are still issues today across the globe: equal pay, parental rights, sexual abuse, etc.
Sarah Gavron
#28. Adults need to teach the children they love about sexual abuse so they know what to do if they encounter it. We need to prepare them so they know who to tell, should a violation occur, so they don't have to live with a painful secret, long into adulthood.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#29. 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
#30. Some people think it's demeaning to victims if you ever say anything out-loud about sexual abuse of children. I don't know if that's true.
Louis C.K.
#31. Sometimes I hesitate to use the term sexual abuse. It conjures up worst-case scenarios in our minds, and we think, "That will never happen to my kids." And we never begin the conversation regarding sexual abuse with our children. But one violation left in secret can cause significant pain.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#32. You're too sensitive' victims of sexual abuse are told over and over by those whose reality depends on being insensitive. Most adults who have been in the victim role cringe when anyone tells them they are sensitive. In fact, sensitivity is a lovely trait and one to be cherished in any human being.
Renee Fredrickson
#33. When we talk with our children about sexual abuse, we are not only taking a proactive step toward protecting them, we are building our relationship with them
grounded in honesty and trust. It's a win-win situation.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#34. We constantly encounter themes that arouse sexual desire, often coupled with themes of violence. If our collective consciousness is filled with violent sexual seeds, why should we be surprised when there is sexual abuse of children, rape, and other violent acts?
Thich Nhat Hanh
#35. The sexual abuse and exploitation of children is one of the most vicious crimes conceivable, a violation of mankind's most basic duty to protect the innocent.
James T. Walsh
#36. Well, I guess the sexual abuse by Mel Phillips in a sense, he had a fetish for feet. He used to play with my feet and other kids' feet, and that was his thing.
Tom Cole
#37. I was survivor of childhood sexual abuse in therapy for dissociated trauma memories.
Jeanne McElvaney
#38. What makes Jessica Jones series so unique is that it really is an allegory for many different types of abuse, whether it be sexual abuse, physical abuse, or psychological abuse. That's what makes this such an incredibly bold show.
Rachael Taylor
#39. Protecting our kids from sexual abuse is not accomplished in a single conversation, but in ongoing conversations grounded in honesty and trust.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#40. But before I left," Rider continued, "I learned enough to know that most often sexual abuse of children comes from inside the family, relatives or close friends. The boogey monsters who climb through the window and abduct are few and far between.
Michael Connelly
#41. You invite a time in the near future when you are no longer building your life on the unknown influences of your childhood sexual abuse.
Jeanne McElvaney
#42. When the Catholic Church insists that it is more sinful to use condoms in the midst of a sexually transmitted epidemic that it is for the same Church to withhold approbation of the use of condoms, it is less suprising that the sexual abuse of minors was handled unethically.
Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea
#43. Everyone would tell me they couldn't identify with sexual abuse. No one says they can't identify with the tales of the Greek gods and goddesses because they don't live on Mt. Olympus.
Alexander Chee
#44. I don't belive Oprah's sexual abuse stories, I mean who would take a black girl when there are plenty of white?
Zach Braff
#45. 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
#46. Pornography incarnates male supremacy. It is the DNA of male dominance. Every rule of sexual abuse, every nuance of sexual sadism, every highway and byway of sexual exploitation, is encoded in it.
Andrea Dworkin
#47. Of course, without God, there is no value to life. That leads to immorality, that leads to sexual abuse, and there is no hope.
Ted Cruz
#48. 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
#49. It feels as if childhood sexual abuse or domestic abuse of women in the home has increased but actually if you ask women of 60 or 70 years old, the incidence is about the same. We just didn't know it.
Gloria Steinem
#50. 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
#51. The greatest scandal of the century in American psychiatry ... is the growing mania among thousands of inept therapists, family counselors, and social workers for arousing false memories of childhoood sexual abuse.
Martin Gardner
#52. 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
#53. The more you face the truth, the angrier you will probably become. You have a right to be angry about being sexually abused. You have a right to be angry with the perpetrator, regardless of who it was, how long ago the sexual abuse occurred, or how much he/she has changed.
Beverly Engel
#54. 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
#55. Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness.
Pope Francis
#56. He feels excited. He feels ashamed. He wants to talk to her, but he is afraid. Maybe he imagined it all. Maybe she will call him a bad name if he asks her what happened.
Naomi Alderman
#57. Marriage,love and commitment does not give a man permission to act like Julius Caesar by pushing his partner into sexual promiscuity like a concubine for his own sexual pleasures.
Sheree' Griffin
#58. 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
#59. 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
#60. 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
#61. 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
#62. Abuse is a parasite that feeds off hate and shame, growing in size and strength with silence.
Nikki Sex
#63. Though no longer living in silence, I continued to carry pain and memories.
Erin Merryn
#64. 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
#65. 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
#66. Imagine, pretend, and play so you can become anyone you want to be. You don't need to be afraid.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#67. Religion has the capacity to silence critical thinking and create blindness in entire groups of people. It can infect the minds of followers so completely as to allow the most egregious sexual acts against children and others to go unchallenged for centuries.
Darrel Ray
#68. 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
#69. [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
#70. Always know there are friends somewhere rooting for you. There are people you don't know, always praying for you and lifting you before God. - Jenee, from "To the Survivors".
Robert Uttaro
#71. I am filled with truth at my center where I once held shame.
Maureen Brady
#72. One is that if women's sexuality in Africa wasn't under assault, if women were able to say no, if women weren't subject to predatory attacks by men, or predatory behavior generally, then you would have a disease in Africa called AIDS. But you wouldn't have a pandemic.
Stephen Lewis
#73. If I were free, as a physician, to say what I pleased, I would tell every abused person I see that there is an entire world out there that is nothing like the one you're living. Go discover it.
C. Kennedy
#75. 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
#76. I look upon the gift of my life as a wondrous journey.
Maureen Brady
#77. The initial trauma of a young child may go underground but it will return to haunt us.
James Garbarino
#78. 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
#79. Worldview is often confused with perception; rather, it is our perception that influences our worldview.
Asa Don Brown
#80. Don't judge yourself by what others did to you.
C. Kennedy
#81. 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
#82. Feminism is built on believing women's accounts of sexual use and abuse by men.
Catharine MacKinnon
#83. The meaning of our lives is to justify where our bosses spent their budget.
Lisa Schaefer
#84. The silence was killing me.
And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out.
J. Lynn
#85. 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
#86. Thank goodness it wasn't real sex.
Lana Cox
#87. 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
#88. 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
#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. The only secrets that are good are the ones with an ending. Keep surprises instead of secrets in your home.
Carolyn Byers Ruch
#91. Hiding my pain and acting strong, afraid to cry and show my tears, I struggle with all this years later.
Erin Merryn
#92. There are a substantial number of actual victims - of slavery's aftermath, gay bashing, criminal assault, sexual discrimination, physical abuse - whose genuine grievances are trivialized by victim chic. That is the real tragedy. Van
Ken Wilber
#93. Who said 'please' that made you hate the word so much?"
Andrew gazed at him in silence for a minute. "I did.
Nora Sakavic
#94. The abuser's desire to abuse is not created by the child - it is there before the child appears
Carolyn Ainscough
#95. The only sexual act that is sinful is the one that uses or abuses.
Pat Buckley
#96. 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
#97. Out of all the piles of dirt, garbage, and shit we have been handed, we can grow a patch of daisies.
Patti Feuereisen
#98. 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
#99. Some of the most effective segments are interviews with various staff members, including Aila, who works for the center's legal department. She explains the difficulties of rape prosecution, concluding that "only the survivor" can truly define justice. - Kirkus Review
Robert Uttaro
#100. 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
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