Reasons You Shouldn’t Fuck Kids

Last night I was watching that show “The Fosters” on ABC Family. It’s a really great show about a lesbian couple raising four foster children (most of whom they have adopted), and one bio kid. Anyway, on the show there is this one teenaged child – Callie – and she is a survivor of child sexual abuse from a foster brother in a previous foster home.

In last night’s episode, they showed her trying to navigate a relationship with her boyfriend Wyatt. She and Wyatt decided they wanted to try to have sex but after they got in bed and started kissing, she freaked out, pushed him away and then pretty much ran away. She didn’t want to talk about it or talk to him. Eventually she figured out that she had to talk about her rape history with him, and she dreaded it.

I found myself crying through the entire episode. The freaking out in bed thing was so true to life, as was the dreaded talking about it afterwards. I posted about this several times during my marriage, like when I freaked out before we even got into bed together, , when I described it to my therapist as ‘fucking it up’ for us, and when my voice became that of a little girl’s. Each and every one of these experiences was humiliating and embarrassing.

That’s why you shouldn’t fuck kids. All intimacy becomes a minefield that we have to navigate while injured.

And an innocent act like watching a tv show becomes something entirely different by the end of it. I thought about it this morning, and cried again. This is where I am. This is what it looks like to survive child sexual abuse. These are the parts that no one ever sees. That’s why I keep this blog, logging every detail about the hidden ways surviving has affected me.