Breaking Social Taboos About Female/Female Child Sexual Abuse

One of my readers asked why I feel it is worse when a woman sexually abuses children, especially when a woman abuses a female child. I thought I would answer this question in an entire post because it is a vital topic.

I know this post is going to create a tremendous amount of anger and controversy, but I don’t care. I must be true to myself.

Over the past decade, I have made huge steps to heal my fear of self-expression and of breaking social taboos. It takes a very long time to expel what family secrets and death threats with a knife do to a child, and I almost didn’t post this article because of fear. But after personal reflection, I discovered how liberating it is to post it without worrying if I will lose readers, or if I anger a certain group of people. I simply don’t care. To quote the great Janis Joplin, “Freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

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There is no question that there are serious after-effects from same-sex child sexual abuse.  Not only does this violation create more profound shame in the victim, but it does so to the point of most victims remaining silent; often forever. The level of rage, sexual dysfunction, physical problems, psychological disorders, eating disorders, and anti-social behavioral problems is much higher among those who were sexually abused by an adult of the same-sex.  In particular, victims of mother/daughter incest also struggle terribly with their sense of self, and experience worthlessness to the lowest level possible.

Some of the female survivors of child sexual abuse that I interviewed for my book, were sexually abused by their mother. These abuse survivors were the more seriously affected. Their symptoms were far worse, and their ability to function in life was significantly lower than the women who were abused by their fathers or other men.

Stronger Degree of Sexual Dysfunction

The issue of sexual arousal, and victim or perpetrator orgasms (especially if the abuser is the child’s mother, or sister), is the predominant factor in the level of sexual dysfunction, physical illness, and mental health disorders in many victims of female/female child sexual abuse.

One of the most disturbing psychological problems for females, who were abused by a woman, is confusion about their sexual orientation. The majority of the victims are inherently heterosexual. They were not born with a tendency towards homosexual desires. This means there is a high probability that the sexual abuse will cause them to become a very sexually confused person. They might not experience the confusion, or even be aware of it until later in adulthood, but at some point, serious problems can arise.

The adult survivor of female/female child sexual abuse might find themselves stimulated by images of women, or attracted to women, but know that they want to be with men. This can cause a person to have serious problems inside themselves; including unwarranted guilt, self-hatred, and rage towards the depiction of homosexuality as being normal, or about seeing homosexuals kiss in public. The person might have an extreme hatred of women, or engage in same-sex affairs, or they might develop an inability to form and maintain close relationships with female friends.

In The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers, Bobbie Rosencrans writes that “the homophobia” in our culture creates additional suffering in children who have been sexually abused by an adult of the same-sex. This is not true. What is labeled as “homophobia” is not inherent in children, so any negative feelings experienced  by the victim during same-sex child abuse is not due to any social ideas held by the child. Children are pure. Unlike most adults, children are highly intuitive. Prior to sexual abuse, they are uncontaminated in their mind and body. They know that an act —which is contrary to nature— is being forced upon them.

In addition, what has been labeled as “homophobia” is oftentimes, a person who harbors hatred, or who reacts negatively to homosexuality and homosexual acts, because they were sexually abused as children by an adult of the same-sex. They may still be carrying deep anger over their experience. I don’t judge heterosexuals who appear to be “intolerant” of homosexuality. It might just be someone, violated as a child by an adult of the same-sex, who has not dealt with it yet. In some cases, they might still be dissociating from the abuse and have amnesia about it.

Let me be clear in stating that some heterosexuals violate children of the same-sex, and I am certainly not saying that every homosexual person sexually abuses a child, nor that homosexuality causes child sexual abuse. My recent article about the heterosexual women, who sexually abused their children (of both sexes), shows that heterosexuals do indeed sexually molest children of the same-sex. But one cannot ignore the fact that homosexual feelings in a sexually deviant person, can lead them to only sexually abuse a child of the same-sex. Nor can we ignore the fact that child sexual abuse can cause homosexuality.

Depending on which statistic is used, anywhere between one and ten percent of Americans consider themselves to be homosexual. In the Rosecrans study, which looked at 93 women sexually abused as children by their mothers, it was found that 36% of the women considered themselves lesbian. While some people still continue to try and normalize homosexuality, this study demonstrates that being sexually molested as a child by an adult of the same-sex, can create sexual confusion, causing a person to think they are homosexual when they are intrinsically heterosexual.

Let me also be clear in saying that there are also cases of people who have become gay or lesbian because of a non-sexual experience with a parent or significant authority figure in their childhood. Others were born with a strong propensity towards homosexuality.

If a child’s first experience with sex, is abuse by an adult or teenager of the same-sex, and especially if the child experienced any kind of pleasurable sexual response (or if her abuser had a sexual response), the child can later develop feelings of sexual arousal by a person of the same-sex. She then might become a lesbian when she mistakenly assumes she must be homosexual.

There are also those who swing to the other end of the pendulum with extremely negative reactions to women or to images of female anatomy. Inherently heterosexual women, abused as a child by a woman, might feel disgust at naked women, be repulsed by female anatomy, and hate women. They can reject any kind of female affection, or to being physically close to a woman friend —however healthy and normal the friendship is.

Another extremely complex dynamic, is that the female survivor might be repulsed by images of women, or by women themselves, because somewhere deep inside herself, the survivor is sexually stimulated by them. But because child sexual abuse caused her to feel stimulated, not that she is truly a homosexual; she will deny the feelings with extreme hatred of women or images of women. The reaction of each person is going to depend on many varying factors from childhood.

Most of the literature I have read on mother-daughter incest, and due to a recent discussion I had with a lesbian, it seems to be taboo to dare suggest that a woman, who has lesbian or bi-sexual tendencies, may have become that way because of sexual abuse she suffered from her mother or another woman. I am breaking that taboo. Intellectually speaking, it is clear that many lesbians and gays have had personal experiences with abuse or trauma which created their sexual feelings, and not that they were predisposed to have an attraction to the same-sex.

Sometimes, rape and sexual abuse by a man can cause a woman to become a lesbian. Many female abuse survivors totally reject the idea of men because of trauma and abuse with a man. But women who have pushed aside, or repressed, the fact that their homosexuality is rooted in an adult female forcing them into an unnatural and confusing situation, are cheating their true nature, or their true self.

A woman, who becomes a lesbian because she was primordially or continuously stimulated by a woman as a child, has reacted psychologically and physiologically to an unnatural occurrence. Those conflicting and confusing feelings need to be addressed at a deeper level. If a woman merely aligns herself with what her body responds to, then she will always be negatively affected; because the person knows the truth within themselves.

Furthermore, in cases of mother/daughter incest, the child frequently retains a deep need for a real mother, as well as shame and guilt. The victim of mother/daughter incest can find great difficulty individuating from the offending mother, and thus, might find it very hard to be independent or to feel whole. The cruel, negative role model given to the child by the offending woman, is a distorted representation of what a woman and mother is. One day, the adult survivor might feel deep confusion, rejection, and even shame concerning her own sexual development as a woman. The survivor might not even be able to look at her own breasts, much less the breasts of another woman.

The stigma, the lack of information about female to female child sexual abuse, and the extreme and oppressive lack of validation about female sexual abusers can result in a woman being uncertain about even becoming a mother, and how to appropriately rear and respond to a female child; if she has one.

Women Who Sexually Abuse Children Are Often More Degenerate Than Men

When a man sexually abuses a child, it is more often about sex, but when a woman sexually abuses a child, it is often about punishment, a warped idea of the mother/daughter relationship, because of an emotional need, or her acting out her own experience with having been sexually abused. In many ways, it is more abnormal when a woman sexually abuses a child. I am referring to the deviancy in the mind of the woman —her twisted reasons for the abuse.

Unlike men, women who sexually violate children, often do it without having been sexually aroused, and some female perpetrators might be abusing the child as a response to a hatred of their own body or their own femininity. In the recent case of the women who abused their children after online contact with a pedophile, some of the women molested their children because they wanted a man in their life, a date, or approval from a man. Most men, who sexually abuse children, do not abuse the child to get a woman, to get a date, or to seek approval. But please do not write me and tell me that I am supporting men who sexually abuse children. I am merely stating facts about the deviancy of the mind of women who abuse children.

Some people feel that if a mother sexually abuses her daughter then she must have been “gentle” or subtle about it. However, a four year study on maternal incest revealed that 65 percent of the mothers had been violent with their victims. It has been suggested by those who work with female survivors that female perpetrators are often more brutal and more “creative” in their attacks on children.~ Lisa Lipshires

Karen K., a survivor of mother/daughter incest has received almost 500 letters from women sexually abused by a woman as a child. She says that, “women are more creative and more brutal in their abuse.”

Female children are more often the victims of female sex offenders than male children are. In addition, victims tend to be children known to the offender, and many of the victims are the offender’s own children.

Female violence against children is nothing shocking. The majority of child homicides in the United States are committed by women. Most prison inmates have been abused by men and women, but men who commit domestic violence were more often abused in childhood by a woman than a man.

Repressed Rage and Silence

There are reports of a link between mother/daughter sexual abuse and cancer of the uterus, and or, breast cancer. My belief, and personal experience, is that most illness and disease is caused by repressed emotional pain, resentment, and fear. The breasts and uterus are solely related to being female. The mind has the power to create illness and disease. It is highly probable that some cases of female to female child sexual abuse is the direct cause of breast, cervical, or uterine cancer, as well as other disease and illness.

The issue of not being believed is another powerful part of sexual abuse perpetrated by a woman. When a female child or young teen is sexually abused by an adult woman, you can bet your life they don’t want to admit to it feeling good or having willingly taken part in it to receive affection, pleasure, or some kind of love from the abuser.

The victim needs to understand that the child’s body responding to being touched, orally copulated, penetrated, or kissed is merely a physiological issue. If the perpetrator sexually abuses a child’s body with a pencil, then the adult survivor could become sexually stimulated at the sight or touch of pencils. The body’s response has nothing to do with what the mind of the child truly desires, which is love, protection and human kindness, not sex, and certainly not sex with an adult of the same-sex.

In most cases, the fear that female survivors of female-perpetrated sex abuse have about telling their stories, is connected to admitting to having been with someone of the same-sex, and thus, to profound shame.

It is no different for male survivors of child sexual abuse perpetrated by a man, or teenage boy. Most men, who were sexually abused by a man, will tell you that any deep-seated shame is rooted in the same/sex aspect of the abuse. It is no different for a woman, or teenage girl. Why should it be? It seems as though men are allowed to feel shame, embarrassment, or hatred of how their body responded to being raped by a man, or forced into oral sex with a man, but females who were forced into sex acts with a woman, are sometimes vilified if they dare to point out their rejection of women, feminism, or anger about lesbianism.

Society excuses women right and left for their acts against children. They are socially excused by being called “victims.” They are excused by family members who call them “lonely and vulnerable,” they are often defended by the feminist community, and frequently exonerated in the court system by prosecutors, and by judges.

Not only does a child or adult survivor of sexual abuse by a woman have to fear not being believed, but they bear the burden of shame, and have the incredibly difficult road of trying to find the courage to speak of the abuse without fear of being considered gay when they are heterosexual, and, if they dare to express that fear, they are often labeled as a “homophobe” or “insensitive” to gays.

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This article is based on research and my own personal experience with having been sexually abused by a female family member and how that abuse has affected my entire existence.

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Sources:

Female Sexual Abuse: The Untold Story of Society’s Last Taboo, Report by Charlotte Philby, Saturday, 8 August 2009

Mathews et al., 1989, Faller 1987, Brown et al., 1984).

Wakefield & Underwager, 1991; Knopp & Lackey, 1987; Brown et al., 1984; Elliot, 1993

Lukianowicz, 1972; Faller, 1987; Allen, 1990

Lipshires, Lisa, (1994). “Female perpetration of child sexual abuse: An overview of the problem.” Moving Forward, Vol. 2, No. 6, Retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://movingforward.org/v2n6-cover.html

Hastings, 2000

Rosencrans, 1997; Fitzroy, 1997

Pearson, 1997

The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers, Bobbie Rosencrans M.S.W, The Safer Society Press, page 24, page 132, page 205

Finkelhor and Araji (1986)

Explore posts in the same categories: Child Abuse, child molestation, child sexual abuse, Crime, Denial, dissociative amnesia, evil, false memory syndrome, female sexual offenders, rape and abuse, repressed memory

Tags: CFIDS, CFS, Child Abuse, child molestation, child sexual abuse, Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Crime, Denial, Dissociation, dissociative amnesia, female sexual offenders, Parenting, Psychology, Psychotherapy, rape and trauma, repressed memory

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