On 2005-03-31 15:55:00, Anonymous wrote:
I don't know - making a girl describe every detail of her sexual experience when she was abused seems abusive in itself to me.
Yeah, it is. It's humiliating. And it's especially sadistic when they use that info against you later. (unless, of course, you saw them coming, told them a lot of fake crap. Then you have a two in one private joke/spontanious reality check to help get you through) :razz:
But, when I was in Straight, I took part in doing that to other kids. Many of them, I'm sure, didn't see what was coming. To some degree, I was forced. And, as kids, we didn't fully comprehend the harm we were doing to each other. In fact, a good many of us believed (eventually) that what we were doing was not wrong. In fact, some people seem to believe to this day that it was the rightest, purest, most holy thing ever.
In asmuch as some of us believed it and others did our level best to give that impression, it's no wonder the parents sucked it up. What else were they supposed to think? It's what they wanted to believe anyway, which makes the desception even easier.
Not long after I and my dad got out and started talking again, he asked me why, if things had been so bad, I'd never told him before. I just looked at him like that was a dumb question and said "Well, you would have turned me in." He didn't argue.
My point in all this is that I'm not trying to place blame on everyone involved, at least not in a vindictive, retribution seeking way. But I do think it's important to understand the nature of the beast.
To paraphrase Michael Rivero, Everyone likes to say "John Mercer did this" and "John Mercer did that". But the truth is John Mercer did very little. It's the people who follow his orders w/o criticizm that actually did most everything wrong. And it's not like Mercer is unique. There's a whole long list of similar characters discussed in various forums on this site. So it's not just the employees and kids unfortunate enough to land up under their control. These people have the blessing and protection of our government.
My question is, how did we get into this mess and how to we get out of it?
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
--Winston Churchill
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity AnonymousSome days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.