queerbychoice | Dear Author

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Dear Author

Dear author of the novel I just finished reading,

It's true that I've heard people tell me that for years they repressed the memories of being molested as children and that the memories caused them to behave in ways that got them locked up in mental hospitals even though it wasn't until later that they actually remembered having been molested at all. I completely believe that this can happen, because I have heard people tell me it happened to them. Now, the idea that a person can not only repress the memory itself but also repress all feelings about it so completely that the person retains no sense of discomfort with the molester whatsoever and speaks of the molester with utter worshipful devotion and calls the molester his very favorite relative is rather more difficult to believe, because I've never yet heard anyone tell me that they adored and worshipped the person who molested them; but really I'm pretty good at believing anything can happen at least once in the history of the world, so I think if you put some effort into explaining exactly how your fictional character who was apparently so internally tormented by repressed memories of this relative's actions that he ended up locked in a mental hospital could somehow apparently still remember this same relative with nothing but the very fondest feelings, you could manage to convince me of it.

However, convincing me would require you to provide at least a few details beyond the mere word "molestation." You didn't tell me how the boy felt about her before she molested him. You didn't tell me what exactly she did to him in the first place. You didn't tell me what the boy said, whether he protested aloud, whether he thought it safer to just put up with it, whether she bribed him or beat him or simply intimidated him. You didn't tell me how else she treated him when she wasn't molesting him. You didn't tell me how old the boy was. You didn't tell me how many times it happened, how frequently, how long a period of his life it continued for. You didn't tell me whether the boy ever had sufficient hope to try to plan an escape. You didn't tell me a single line of dialogue that either one of them ever said to the other nor a single thought the boy ever had on the entire subject. All you did was announce suddenly at the very end of the book that oh! - the boy was molested, well then, that magically completely explains why he's crazy! No more questions left in the readers' minds now! Sure, naturally every time an adult hand touches a boy's penis the boy's brain just magically explodes into disfunction instantly upon contact and he'll be doomed to get locked up in mental hospitals and also he'll inexplicably just magically worship and adore for the rest of his life the woman who molested him! Of course no social context whatsoever would ever be required to explain this effect upon him!

The fact is, my dear author, I think you are an idiot with absolutely no knowledge or understanding much less experience of child molestation ~~unless of course you were the one doing the molesting~~ who just randomly decided hey, I bet it would be really cool to write a book about some kid going crazy because he got molested, and then everyone will applaud me for what a great service I'm doing to child molestation victims everywhere - because of course, everybody knows that the best way to help any group of people is to impugn their sanity and imply that they all (yes, every single child molestation victim ever, no further details apparently required) need to be locked up in mental hospitals.

Your non-fan,
Gayle

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The line you crossed out I think is why the story was written. :)

But I didn't read the book, don't care to read the book, so I'm not one to really comment.

so... haha, any books you care to warn us against?
not that it makes the lack of context better, but wasn't the adoration-of-molestor-thing the case with Anais Nin?

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One of her books is called "Incest", it's an excerpt from "A Journal of Love"
www.incest.com (you can find anything on the internet, I swear. esp. when you aren't looking for it.) review:
"The book is a biography of the life of Anais Nin. She tells us of the sexual relationship and the abuse she endured throughout her childhood at the hand of her father. The books explains her later relationships with men and how the abuse suffered as a child reflects on all her loves to come." (grammar fixed to protect the english-impaired)

this one was by stephen chbosky. part of what makes it all the more annoying is that i really don't want to have to warn you against reading it, because i actually very much enjoyed the book right up until the sudden glaringly simplistic ending. unfortunately that ending rendered all the good things about the book terribly superficial by comparison to the deep flaw at the core. *sigh*

alrighty then, any particular page number we should just stop at? ;)

Precisely six pages before the end. ;)

i agree. that whole part was totally insane and inconsequential to the rest of the book. that was my biggest problem with the whole thing. that and the main character enjoying ayn rand.

but yeah. after i read about the whole molestation thing i was kind of surprised at how little detail he put into it. the ending seemed entirely tacked on. it was in poor taste. and there didn't need to be some huge specific horrible event in order to trigger this feeling of isolation in groups.

other than that i completely identified with the main character.

except for the ayn rand affinity. good lord.

Yes, I agree that in this case the whole molestation thing sounds like a writerly crutch tossed in with little thought or research. However, I do know someone who was molested as a child and continued to worship and idolize the molester. Even after he remembered the repressed memories, he continued to idealize her in some ways.

But yes, implying that childhood molestation is the single impetus needed to drive someone completely insane with no other context is a bit of a stretch. There's always more than that.

"Even after he remembered the repressed memories, he continued to idealize her in some ways."

Well, frankly, even rapists and child molesters usually have a few occasional good points; trying to paint them as being 100% pure evil with no remotely human qualities whatsoever is just as delusional as painting them the opposite way. I fell in love with a rapist once; he was one of the most intelligent people I ever met, though certainly not anywhere near the sanest nor the nicest. And I still don't really know exactly what to think of him or how to feel about him myself. If I'd been a little kid at the time I expect that would probably have made it all the harder to sort out.

Besides which, in the lives of some kids, everyone else they know is beating them up and insulting them nonstop whereas at least a molester might say occasional nice words to them once in a while: I don't find it that hard to imagine that a molester might in fact have really truly been the nicest person some kids really did have in their lives, so perhaps some molesters even honestly deserve some sort of love for that.

I'm really just trying to acknowledge that any situation at all is possible, and I don't want to deny the possibility of a single one of them.

yeah... the guy heronblue is talking about is a mutual friend of ours. In his case the molester was apparently alternatively cruel and very loving-seeming. So that adoration sort of cropped up.

However I do believe you that it's sort of unbelievable for someone to go insane due to molestation (thus implying that the experience was traumatic) and not have at least slightly mixed feelings about the molester. Even the guy that Claire and I know has mixed feelings. And it's usually better to fully flesh out a character's feelings if you're going to make that character react to things in a way that's sort of unexpected.

perhaps its just an opening for a Part Two?

I think society as a whole is .. well.. slight proof that those who are molested/abused don't turn into mental hospital patients - though heh.. quite a few do return fucked up in many ways.. yet still wander the world without a care of their ills..

The more I think about it - although I wouldn't go to the extremes of insanity - theres a realization that society has almost in a way forced us to believe that having errors in our ways and in our life is actually normal.. when in fact.. I don't believe it is.. its just an excuse to not work towards the answer of fixing ourselves. There are many problems that people who are molested (in any way whether one time occurance, many times, from someone they loved or hated, etc etc) .. live with without even awareness - whether it be loving people who have the same traits - or even opposite traits (that aren't necassarily good) of the person who molested them.. or even so far as to not loving someone of the same gender of the person who molested them..

I'll have to read the book (title?) in order to give a full accurate opinion of where the author is wrong or right.. but as I said before.. perhaps the author left it simple in the ending just so they could produce a second book - this does often happen..

The title is The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

"There are many problems that people who are molested (in any way whether one time occurance, many times, from someone they loved or hated, etc etc) .. live with without even awareness"

I think many people live with such problems, but some get over those problems in time, and for others the problems of being molested are just not anywhere near the biggest problems they have to live with in their lives . . . there are many possible problems people can be burdened with in this world, and for some people (not all, of course) the forces that seek to exploit them in the present day end up bothering them so much more than the forces that sought to exploit them in their childhood that the issue of being molested becomes no longer that significant, comparatively speaking.

oh.. I meant problems that were results of being molested - not the molestation itself ... for example.. many of my family members were molested by my grandfather - we're all pretty much over that fact.. but lots of my family members are still extremely perverse - beyond what I would consider average.. many of my family members also seek older men for sex.. and some of them even fear sex..
I have a slight phobia towards men with beards - its very hard for me to be comfortable with them or trust them - as well for "santa clause" figures.. I have a major problem with trusting adults period.. to a point where I'm considered a "rebellious teen" when in actuality I just don't trust adults to be understanding or caring which leads me to do the opposite of what they ask of me - all of these may or may not be a result of the molestation.. and through research I believe its quite common for these types of characteristics to be in victims of molestors..

which is what I meant anyway.. that molestation does often seem to result in larger problems with personality traits or phobias etc - that in a more scrutinizing society would seem also perhaps "insane"

Yes, okay. I'm just saying I don't think these effects should be considered necessarily permanent and inevitable in all cases . . . I believe there's hope of some people getting over such things.

oh of course there is :) .. there is hope for everyone in my beliefs.. its just an amount of mind power thats needed.. that so little people have.

I'm going to check out that book though, definitely.

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