Although Eve Ensler is presenting the section as the story of a survivor, I found pages 77-82 to be quite disturbing. Ensler says that this interview is related by a woman she met in a shelter for homeless women. This woman met another homeless woman at the shelter and they fell in love. They now are out of the homeless system and have created a good life for themselves. However, in these pages Ensler is relating stories of horrific sexual abuse bestowed upon this poor woman when she was just a child.
The first sexual assault took place when she was just a mere ten years old. The man that abused her was her father’s best friend. He was an invited guest into her father’s home. Home is where every person should feel the safest. She goes on to say that her father caught his friend in the act of abusing this poor child. What did the father do? He shot his friend (adding to this child’s trauma); blood spattered on all of them (more excruciating trauma); the friend was paralyzed for life; and, her mother didn’t allow her to see her father for seven years! This message is delivered as though not seeing her father is her punishment for doing something wrong.
What did she do wrong? Here she is a ten-year-old child being raped by a grown man. This man shattered her safety in her home and certainly betrayed her father’s friendship. It sounds as though this child’s rendition as an adult still feels some guilt for the disgusting behavior of an adult.
At the age of 13, this same young child is again sexually assaulted. This time it is by a trusted female neighbor. This 24-year-old woman takes this young and impressionable girl into her car, kisses her and invites her to her home. When this young girl arrives at this woman’s home, she is scantily dressed. She proceeds to undress and redress this young girl into a sexy teddy. She plows alcohol into her and then sexually abuses her for hours.
Now one might say that this 13-year-old girl did not object to the sexual advances and maybe she even enjoyed them. A 24-year-old male or female having sexual relations with a
13-year-old child is rape. There is no “gray area” here. It is abuse.
How can this youngster trust anyone? She has been stripped of the warmth and safety she felt in her father’s home. Then she was sexually assaulted. She witnessed the shooting of the abuser by her father. And then, to top it all off, she was made to feel that somehow it was her fault. No one seemed to ever address with her that it was never her fault – it was the abuser’s fault. She was the child-victim of a pedophile.
Three short years later, she was once again the victim of a pedophile. This time the abuser was a woman. This now 13-year-old girl knew what was happening was wrong and she was afraid of getting “caught.” In light of the fact that it came up so readily in these interviews, she still feels the guilt of this assault. I guess it is no wonder that this child grew to be a woman found in a homeless shelter. Where else could her shattered self-esteem have taken her. Ensler says that this woman has found love and is making a good life for herself. I hope that is true.
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