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TigerNINTails -> RE: Abused into submission (4/12/2007 7:09:44 PM)
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Well, much like the implication you 'read into' her quote, which to others, wasn't there in any sense, I read into "failed" the same stigma that one experiences when they attempt at something and fail, and some people take this harder than they should.
In this case, if you're telling a woman that as a "child" she failed, that implies there was something she could have done about it in the first place, which is blatantly not true. I wasn't seeing that someone should be blamed if the fail... I was seeing that you've outright created a situation where the victim should be blaming themselves for their own failure... I don't know how else to describe that, and I'm also sorry if you're not seeing it.
In so far as 'expressing that no victim should be blamed', that wasn't stated by me at all. I understand the difference between adults and children and the accompanying application of the common sense in personal responsibility.
And your next statement of recurring offenders doesn't apply at all, and in my mind, now you're reaching and twisting things to sound the Top here...
I know for a fact, that those abused have a 50-70% more likely chance of becoming recurring offenders, should they not receive the help they so desperately need. Especially as children, growing into adult hood. However I also know, that if they simply understand that what happened to them is wrong, and accept that they shouldn't do something of that nature EVER to another, and accept personal responsibility for themselves, then it wouldn't happen.
Of course we should place the blame where it belongs. Stating failure can occur for many reasons is rather feable when you're referring to victims of sexual abuse. However you yourself also stated that those that don't attempt to protect their wellbeing could well not know how...
Which is the case of all childhood sexual abuse. If the child doesn't know what's happening is wrong, they can't even bring it to light to other adults... If they don't know how to defend themselves, they can't even attempt to protect their own well being, and in that sense...
IF there is no attempt made, there can be no failure. Plain and simple. To fail, indicates they attempted... So in her case, she was abused, didn't have the tools, and being submissive (this is a coupling here, not stand alone), she was totally incapable of defending her own well being.
Therefore, with no tools, no capacity for understanding it at the time as being right or wrong (perchance, just surmising here, from the conversation), she couldn't even attempt at protection of well being, therefore, there was no failure, and you're revised quote was off base.
I do understand where you're coming from, with all of this... And I agree... It's about personal responsibility, but my point is thus...
If that is a realization, brought from childhood... Then as a child, she had no such mechanism for even achieving the "result" of "failure" as there was no "action" to achieve that "result" as you put it. As an adult, she should be looking to eliminate her feelings of victimization, that would allow her to be abused in the future, for certain.
But that realization was a realization which though it was short, and could have been developed further, was right on the money for a lot of victims of any sort of child hood abuse.
I agree it's only a result, but you must have a definitive action in order to glean a result from. Some would argue that "inaction is as powerful as action to achieve results" but when we're talking about children here, that are still developing and so forth, that's a totally different situation.
We aren't referring to adults that are all responsible for themselves, victims and predators alike. We're talking about innocent children, that have been abused in one way or another in their childhood, when they had no tools available with which to even attempt a stoppage to the situation in the first place, and how this applies to their submission in the BDSM sense.
And I agree, that it's very powerful for someone to decide not to be a victim, and for someone else stepping up to state that they have been and commit abuse...
In the sense that it was spoken I wasn't necessarily trying to state that failure in and of itself is a negative. I was however pointing out that many do see failure as a negative, and this has much to do with how we're raised. I'll wager that if you talk to 100,000 people, there will only be a few that will actually tell you that failure is only a result, that you can learn from to not continue to fail.
Benjamin Franklin had horrible results inventing the lightbulb, initially... But his take was not that he had "failed"...
His take was that "I learned 350,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb." Not once did he say he failed... In fact, he said that every one of his failures was a success in NOT creating a proper lightbulb.
While failure is indeed a result, it carries with it, like it or not, a stigma of negativity. Keep in mind please, I understand this wasn't your intent. But the fact remains, I wasn't the only one that saw that... And read it differently than your intent.
For all the greatest intentions, sometimes the greatest evil is done.
Peace.
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