Thanks, Susan, Jim, and Michael. As Palm Sunday approached, there were so many recent news stories in a row, underscoring the ubiquity of childhood sexual abuse, that I thought I should give this topic another try.
Looking though the comments on Charles Spencer's announcement showed quite a few along the lines of "Everyone had something rotten happen to them in childhood, why can't these whiners just get over it and keep all this old unpleasantness to themselves, instead of making a public ruckus about it decades too late?"
Some of these critics said that they had been victims themselves, and if keeping it buried is how they've made peace with their own pasts, I'm happy for them. But they should recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this sort of trauma, and that what worked for them might not work for someone else.
And if the general public can be troubled to spend a little more time thinking about "this unpleasantness", perhaps victims will feel less stigmatized, and might receive more helpful help from other adults in their lives if and when they work up the courage to ask for it.
(That said, I remember all the false accusations of the "Satanic Panic" period of the 1980s and 1990s, so I don't think every child's accusations should be believed. But every child's accusations should at least be investigated, not automatically dismissed as slander against someone whom other adults want to believe is too good a person to do something like that.)
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