#YesAllWomen

September 21, 2015

Again, late at night an straddling days. I’ve been sad today. Tomorrow I plan on calling my therapist.

Working on this blog is a challenge. In many ways it’s a positive thing. It gives me a voice to reclaim my survivor status and to possibly help others. It holds predators accountable for their actions and shines a light on a terrible epidemic throughout the world.

In others it reopens old wounds and can have the effect of bringing on nightmares or triggering depressive episodes where my bipolar disorder is concerned.

Today I have been sad. I’ve been productive. But struggling to come up with a proper topic to cover. So I thought would touch a scourge. Child pornography.

Pictures and videos of children in sexually violent poses. That they were victimized to begin with is heinous enough. The men who download and trade these things online are disgusting, sad, pathetic and vile human beings. Is it not enough that children in these pictures have been violated once, but then repeatedly by each monster that views said pictures.

To say what these men do ‘isn’t as bad as’ what the person who initially violated the child in said pictures is endemic of a much larger problem in society.

These men are just as guilty as the rapist who conjured up these images. They derive sexual pleasure or a sense of power from viewing said pictures. I’ve heard men like these defended the ‘isn’t as bad as’ phrase and it sickens me to my core.

These men are rarely given any real prison time. A veritable slap on the wrist that says because you have money and you’re a so-called pillar of the community you won’t be held to the same standard as say someone with no money who stole from grocery store to feed his family. Both are crimes but only one is truly repulsive and deserves damnation from society as a whole.

I am not a victim of said brand of sexual violence. I, however, know a victim and two predators. One who went unpunished entirely and another because he had money and standing managed to wiggle his way out of it.

These men, if you can really call them that, need to be thrown into prison and locked away without the key. The ultimate irony in all of this is that once imprisoned child predators are protected from general population. Their rights are protected while the child they harmed is living with the consequences of these men’s crimes.

I suppose knowing someone directly affected by this sort of thing just makes blood boil. This person did nothing to precipitate her crime. She was a child.

Often in society it part of rape culture to blame the victim.

She shouldn’t have been dressed like that.

She was a tease.

She looked eighteen.

She said yes to begin with.

Any woman, or man for that matter has a right to say no. And since a child is by definition NOT an adult they have no ability to give consent.

No boy or girl should have to endure being forced into sexual situations they have no business being a part of.

A child should be worried about when his math homework is due. Whether or not they’re going to make the team. Dreaming about what they’ll be when they grow up.

They shouldn’t be worrying if Uncle so and so or Father whatever is going to rape them, snap photos and share it with a global internet population.

These children, should they grow into adults shouldn’t have to worry about that monster and his photos and people re-victimizing them as they try to heal from a horrible experience.

They say you can tell a lot about society by how they treat their children and animals. If you ask me our world has a lot to learn about that.

Until Next Time,

Amy