CONTENT WARNING: This article discussses in depth sexual abuse and sex trafficking. If you are under 16, please get your parents’ permission before reading this article. While I strive to deal with all topics I write about sensitively, I also understand that there is a time and a place for dealing with said topics. Thank you and I hope you have a lovely day.
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Many people do not know this, but April is actually Sexual Assault Awareness Month (teal is the theme color, which I don’t really get because that’s already the theme color for a couple cancers… but whatever). There are several various events related to this throughout the year, but as now is when I finally finished rewriting my new short story, “Memories of Tucson“, I figured it would be a good time to actually sit down and explain in a short article why I deal with one of the stickiest sensitive topics: sexual abuse, and sex trafficking.
If most of what you’ve read from me is related to my old Wings of Equinox series and The Color of a Horse’s Song, you might be surprised to learn that I actually write about these topics in most of my upper YA and NA books. I doubt I will put them in my lower YA and MG fiction, since I’m a firm believer in not exposing kids to subjects too early in their life, but off the top of my head, I have at least five or six to-publish projects that do tackle either sex trafficking or sexual abuse. Several of my characters in my larger universe are also connected to this: Bay from my dystopian fantasy projects was sexually abused by her father for years, Brieltas’s economy runs on sex trafficking, Monty was born out of rape. And in Dust of the Arena, if you’ve seen the list of content warnings, I deal with a lot of sexual-abuse related issues– and the victims are not all female.
And when people hear that I write about this, I get stared at and they choke out a baffled, “Why?”
Why write about these topics? Don’t we need more clean, whimsical, happy stories? Why would you write so much about such a dark and depressing and heavy topic? You’re a Christian! Doesn’t the Bible say to only dwell on good and beautiful things?
I get asked this a lot, and for good reason. When I do research on how to write these topics, I most often come across Reddit threads talking about how this is an overdone topic and most people hurt more than than help their readers. About how authors use rape trauma as a tool to just make their female characters sympathetic.
I’m not doing this to make my characters more sympathetic, or make some feminist political statement, or use my books to fund some cause (although I would like to use some of the profits to donate to organizations that assist sex trafficking victims).
I write these because I know people with these stories, and I have a personal investment in these stories. I know people who have been sexually abused, and there’s generations of sexual abuse trauma in my family– in my deeply Christian family. I do my research and stay on top of sex trafficking issues, whether in person, or sextortion online (online sex abuse is the main reason I will never use Instagram or Discord for my own platforms).
Which is better: to have no stories that you feel seen in, or to feel seen in a story with a toxic message or without hope?
There’s two extremes on either side. On the secular side, I see the promotion and lust over toxic men that leads more women to get ensnared in toxic relationships and sets poor precedents and expectations on men. On the Christian side, I see “forgive and forget” stories that actually lead to more abuse in churches that don’t believe in prosecuting abusers and just want to “forgive” them and move on.
Most cutting of all to me, I see the stories of male victims brushed off. We live in such a feminist-saturated environment that most male survivors never report their abuse, because we’ve set up a cultural precendent that men are supposed to “want” that. And it makes me sick, because the numbers become so skewed. In sex trafficking, 48% of the victims are male (Homeland Security stat there)– and somehow, I get reported that 91% of sexual assault victims are female? I can’t tell you how many times people have told me “well remember most victims ARE female” when I’m asking about resources on writing male sex abuse victims– what? Why is that important? I frankly don’t care which statistic is greater: why is it less important when a boy gets raped versus a girl? Spoiler alert: it’s not. The whole system absolutely sucks in prosecuting abuse victims, male or female, men just get more cultural shame because we’re told that they’re the predators.
*huffs*
And before some people turn their noses up because “you have no room to talk about this”– guess what, I do. I’ve got a sexual abuse story. And yes, a man was my predator. A Christian was my predator. And I was blessed to have parents who did the right thing– even though he was a family member– and reported it. He’s in prison on three life sentences, and growing up I was shocked to see that it wasn’t always the case.
But— oh, feminists, you’re gonna hate me– not all men are like that. There’s female predators just like there are male predators. Evil exists, and it twists both girls and guys. My heart hurts for the stories that go unsaid as well as the stories on the news, because it is painful and it is evil and no one, male, female, adult, child, should have to go through that.
But people do.
And that’s why I write about sexual abuse.
I want to write hope-filled stories, yes, but I’m not afraid to sit in the darkness with my readers. Growing up, I needed stories that made me feel seen without cutting into the wounds, and I want to write stories like that. Stories that talk to the victims too afraid to speak up. Stories that comfort the survivors who still find new scars. Stories that sit in the dirt with you, but pull you up in the end.
Girls, and guys.
Adults and children.
Because guess what?
Being forced to sexually interact with someone when you don’t want to is. Not. Okay.
I don’t care if you’re a guy and you’re suppose to “want it”, or if you’re a girl who “started it”.
It’s not okay.
And you deserve better.
That’s why I write those topics.
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“Memories of Tucson” started out as an experiment of sorts. I wanted another standalone piece that I could use to fairly represent the spectrum of my writing, but when I’m in drafting mode, it’s hard to bounce between story worlds.
So I decided to write about how Dust of the Arena’s FMC, Chaya, met her horse Cinco– and how memories of abuse are often triggered without “cause”, even from something like a freezebrand relating to the location where it happened.
And yes, the victim is female, but not because I don’t have male victims. I have another short story in the works for male sexual abuse awareness day in October, but I wanted to spend more time researching the topic before writing specifically on that character’s story.
If you’re on my email list, you should be getting a link to it soon. If not, head on over there to sign up and get it for free. It’s available in PDF and EPUB. You can click on the cover below to go there.
I know this was a difficult article to get through. Thanks for scrolling to the end <3 and I hope you have a lovely week.