sticks
Sticks and stones may break my bones
Sticks and stones may break my bones
The dominant narrative
Children are in great danger from strangers. Many from previous generations of children who are now adults suffered sexual abuse, traumatising them to the extent that they are now survivors, deserving of redress and compensation so that they may find closure. It took courage for most of them to come forward and make disclosures against the perpetuators of their abuse. Sometimes institutions, such as the Catholic Church, paid out hush money to keep them quiet,
Another version
Few old phrases can be as incorrect today as ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’. Names today can destroy us. The original authors of this phrase, and all its users, appeared blithely unaware of the power of the semantic environment to hurt and even to murder us.
Staying first within the semantic environment of the dominant narrative above, children are not in great danger from strangers as it is well established that the vast proportion of what we call ‘abuse’ takes place within the home or family, especially where the mother has taken on a new partner as the non-natural father of the children. This, however, is not accepted as a politically-correct observation.
Returning now to the whole of the narrative. First let us substitute the words ‘sexual activity’ for abuse and the scene shifts dramatically as most people who portray themselves as victims may now be seen as human beings who as children have experienced, whether it was wanted or not, some form of sexual activity. Now for some of the other labels which are loaded with a priori bias. The expression ‘to come forward and make a disclosure’ is also used to describe those who make false allegations and who exaggerate for compensation. A person described as a ‘perpetuator’ may be one destroyed by false allegations. While certain sums paid to keep accusers quiet may be seen as ‘hush money’, they can also be seen as blackmail. Blackmail is practised widely today between teenagers and older men they have entrapped. (The editor knows of a number of cases, which may be published here shortly.)
Trust has been destroyed between adults and children, while voluntary work with young people has been virtually eliminated. Many individuals seek refuge within the dominant abuse narrative to explain their own fears and failures.
Much of the hatred against ‘sex abusers’ and ‘paedophiles’ – that is, bogeymen - emanates from within the accuser as an expression of his or her own rejected and disavowed desires and is projected onto an invented scapegoat.
Continue to the next narrative:
When reality overtakes the dominant narrative