Let's define the word "Choice"

 An addendum to the last 2 posts:

When a person makes a choice, the ability to choose something with any safety or wisdom, depends on how informed they are.  When deciding which insulation to use for a home remodeling project, my safety and health depends on what information I am given.  If I see a product advertised as safe, if I see a list of the substances used to create a product and every substance listed is considered safe, I am making as informed a choice as I am capable of making.  If the information I received from ads and product labels is false, I am not able to make an informed choice at all.  If I purchase an insulating product I have been led to believe is safe, and it contains a known carcinogen that causes me or my family to develop cancer, the blame lies with the product creator, and the ad company that did not confirm the safety of the product that was marketed.  We are all responsible for every informed choice we make.  But making a choice based on misinformation is not a true choice.  Part of maturity is the ability to learn how to spot snake oil salespeople.  Such maturity does not arrive when we turn eighteen.   It takes time to develop.  Years.  When lives are not endangered, such uninformed choices can be chalked up to experience, and no one's existence was left hanging in the balance.  

Teaching children to make healthier food choices starts with the adults raising such children.  Children's future eating habits are first reliant on those introducing such children to food, and as that child grows, advertisers and school lunch menus become part of the equation.  Our country has suffered the health crises created by processed foods and outrageous food portions being pushed by ad campaigns, and parents far too busy to make sure their convenient meal decisions are not harming the future health of their children.  Other factors, like affordability, access to healthier choices, and adverse side effects by commonly used medications, also add to this mix.  Life expectancy has decreased recently because of the misinformation and other factors that contributed to this rise in health issues across the US these past few decades.

The issue of child sexual abuse had seemingly been ignored, in the overall recorded history of humans, at least until Freud entered the picture.  Freud himself seemed to add to the problem in a number of ways, according to the information currently available.  There were quite a few members of my paternal family for the past few generations who exhibited signs of having experienced childhood sexual exploitation, a number of whom chose to abuse the newest members born into the family.  My childhood was a direct result of the hidden epidemic of child sexual abuse.  By the time I was born, sexual abuse was starting to become a topic seen as important.  Shows like "Something About Amelia," after-school specials meant to provide children with information that was supposed to be helpful, appeared on TV.  Dear Abby responded to a child's letter in the '70's, by telling that child to "talk to a trusted adult" about the abuse they were going thru.  It was those very words that went thru my mind, as the sda principal had me sit next to him when I was thirteen.  I thought I was making the right choice by trusting a person my church held up as "safe."  I had nothing else to go on. That was the only information I had.  I was not making any kind of choice at all.  I was being groomed by a lying predator, who knew exactly what to say to a damaged child like me.  And society encouraged my "choice."  And then, later, blamed me for making that man "sin."  As more time passed, in trying to overcome the original sexual exploitation, as well as the addition of my principal's re-exploitation, I was once again told to go to somebody paid to help people like me, who once again said new things that made me finally decide to trust, and once more re-exploited me.  At this point, I just assumed I would eventually be re-exploited by someone who would actually care about me, and that was why society kept telling me to try yet again.  This cycle created all kinds of issues for me, and eventually for my children.   The cycle only got worse.  After this last round, I finally decided continuing this fucked up cycle was bullshit.  I will no longer speak to any human educated and paid to help people like me.  It is the only way to keep myself safe.  I am done choosing to believe anything I have been told by society.   I am never safe, because no one has ever once been held responsible for re-exploiting me.  Since I was 13, I have been held responsible for everything others have been choosing to do to me and to other survivors of child sexual abuse.  That is what society does to survivors of child sexual abuse.  Believing anything else would, to me, be the definition of insanity. 

My choice now is to publicly call out the behavior of predators that causes the awful cycle of re-exploitation sexual abuse survivors overwhelmingly face.  An abused child has no way of knowing the other abuse victims being re-exploited by the lying predator this abuse victim is choosing to trust.  These predators tell abuse victims cruel lies meant to draw such victims in.  Private, deeply personal lies.  These predators make the abuse victims think they are finally cared about.  These predators are held up as safe.  How the hell is a sexualized child supposed to know that society is purposely letting a predator be viewed by them as safe?  They are decades away from the awful realization that adults were always aware these old predators were fucking broken children as soon as they hit 18, and the adults simply grinned and said, "Hey, that sexualized teen girl is choosing to be sexually exploited by that predator.   It's her own fault for not knowing the truth about a man we market to kids as safe, a man who has been doing this for decades longer than this girl has been alive.  It's her own fault when she wants to kill herself.  She should have known not to trust a man held up as trustworthy. "

If our society is going to continue allowing sexually abused children to be re-exploited by old-ass predators, it is time for every single child at the hospital who has just had a rape kit done, every child sitting in a squad car or the office of a CPS worker who has just been removed from a sexually abusive situation,  every child anywhere who is found to have been sexually abused, to be sat down in a chair and told firmly that they will now be sexually harmed by every adult who comes near them.  This is the only thing that might protect such children.  Sound extreme?  Well, sitting back grinning as men like Maron groom teen girls suffering from sexual abuse and BPD seems pretty fuckin extreme to me.

Sexual abuse victims are incapable of making any informed choice, when it comes to them being handed off to those society allows to prey on sexual abuse victims.  This cycle sets victims up to fail, and sets predators up to get off. 

There's no informed choice for broken sexual abuse victims at all.