Cross-posted at Scientopia.
fds sent us a link to a set of “extreme” ads. One of them was an Italian ad designed to draw attention to the seriousness of child sexual abuse. I’ve placed it after the jump because it is VERY disconcerting. My comments may be quite provocative as well.
Text: “CERTAIN THINGS HANG ON FOREVER: Set the kids free from abuse and violence.”
With the comments below, I do not mean to trivialize the trauma that many people suffer from child sexual abuse. That said, I want to problematize the message of this ad. The message, I believe, is two-pronged.
On the one hand, it says “Don’t sexually abuse children/protect children from sexual abuse… because it is very serious and can affect a child for his or her whole life.” This seems like a reasonable message.
On the other hand, it says “If you have been sexually abused, you will be broken for the rest of your life.” This is the message that I find problematic. I know sexual abuse survivors who resent this message. I have students who, when I question this claim in class, thank me. Sometimes they tell me that I am the first person who ever gave them permission to fully recover from their experience. Or, they say, they’ve never felt particularly traumatized and, so, always felt like there was something terribly wrong with them… because there wasn’t something terribly wrong with them.
Of course reactions to sexual abuse are going to vary along many different dimensions and, in many cases, it causes quite severe trauma. But I don’t like how these ads disallow the possibility that one can be sexually abused as a child and grow up to be an emotionally healthy adult.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
