Passivity and Plausible Deniability

janedouherty
Journey Through Shadows



“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

-Approximately 92 to 98% of child sexual abuse cases reported are proven to be true. The large majority of false reports occur in parental custody disputes.

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Please be forewarned that content might include
details of abuse and potentially triggering language.
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Have you ever experienced being at the movies when a collective groan rises as the lights do because the denouement crashed into an abyss of implausibility or simply lacked resolution?  Patrons file out positing how they would have finished the script.  Sometimes, a website might accompany a feature film, listing “alternate endings” within the outtakes, character bios, and tie-in promotions.   

While driving the other day, “I got to thinking,” as they say.  I contemplated, what if I were able to write an alternate ending to my life’s story?  Often, I feel like an observer waiting for a film of my life to come to an end.  What if I could interrupt the projector’s reel, depositing frames with completely different storylines at some point, changing the trajectory?  What if . . .

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Measuring Words

janedouherty

-At what age can a child be considered as “consenting” to an adult sexual act?

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Please be forewarned that content might include
details of abuse and potentially triggering language.
______________________________________________________________________________

Language and context can be life-altering–making or breaking a relationship, sales pitch, or political campaign.  “He said what?” one might hear about a vocal faux pas committed by an otherwise viable candidate.  In a moment, his career, or the hope of having one, is over.  Fortunately, with the advent of smartphones and the instancy of social media in the last decade, hot-mic moments — including behind-the-scenes banter of a demeaning or objectifying manner — can be picked up on and called out.  And Twitter?  A minefield of grenades thrown out by those with a toxic combination of impulsiveness, strong opinions, and no filter. 

Since Spotlight, the 2015 film about The Boston Globe’s report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, media increasingly covers news of that genre.  Although I’m grateful that the topic is being addressed, I believe that some journalists might need to tweak the terminology that they employ.   For example, I recoil when I see a headline stating that a teacher and a child — be he or she a ten, twelve, or sixteen-year old student — “had sex”.  The teacher possesses an inherent position of power and ultimately is violating and victimizing a weaker party.  When people “have lunch” together, it isn’t one person manipulating the other to go to a restaurant or force feeding that other person once they get there.  “Having lunch” and “having sex” both imply something that people willing do together.

Spotlight


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