Abuse Voyeurism

When does it stop being a case of “getting the message out about child abuse” and start becoming “a cash cow for publishers”?

Typical child abuse books.

Go into any supermarket book section and you’ll see this: A wall of black vampire teenage romance smut novels, a wall of shite autobiographies by down and out celebrities and then the entirely white wall with tomes detailing the factual or fictional abuse of society’s most vulnerable.

When you don’t look deep enough – when you don’t think too hard about the whole concept then you could reasonably think that this was an important part of reading, that people need to know about the abuse that children have suffered at the hands of sick adults (At least for the factual accounts).

However, you only really need to think about it for that bit longer to realise that it’s not. Spending all your time reading these kinds of books indicates that there’s something wrong with you too. This is going to be a difficult argument for me to piece together, but I feel that it’s necessary so I’ll break it down into sections.

You, as the reader:
If these stories are so terribly harrowing, why do people want to read them? Because the entertainment value is good. From the very start of the novel, you know you’re going to be reading about an intense struggle. There’s going to be lots of cliffhangers and you’ll get to sit back and view the horror of a thrilling child abuse story without actually experiencing any real emotion attached to it. The reason these books sell so well too, is because they’re marked at the casual reader. The language is very basic so basically anyone can read them without much effort. They’re all easy to find as well. Same style of cover with white background, image of suitably broken child and some cursive handwriting with an emotive title, such as “Please don’t, mummy.”

The attraction to a certain novel seems to rely on exactly how terrible the story will be. A child abused by his parent will score highly. A child sexually abused by a parent will be very high, and the best seems to be children who are sexually abused by a female member of the family, preferably with no one else in their whole life to turn to. Unless you’re all wrong, you’ll be seeing how this is a very well wired marketing technique – and how realistically we shouldn’t be enjoying this. But people do enjoy it. Because largely, people’s lives are pretty boring and this is an easy way to get some excitement despite the fact that it’s wrong that these kind of experiences are being exploited.

Them, as the publisher:
I’ve already mentioned how these things draw in readers and publishers know what will draw attention to a book. This is why they read your manuscript before they grant you publishing with them. They want to know “Will people buy this book?” and as is clearly shown by the amount of child abuse books in supermarkets and book charts – yes they will. Puffin books doesn’t care how harrowing people’s childhoods were and how psychologically damaged they are. They want money. People sell their stories to the publishers in false hope that it will raise awareness of child abuse.

In this article by the Daily Mail, the focus is less on that a young girl was sickeningly abused by an evil man for many years of her life but that LIFE WITH A PAEDOPHILE CAN BE GOOD!! I can’t begin to explain how wrong and awful this is. The point is with this article is that it’s showing off this book “Tiger, Tiger” and the article expresses little about the wrongful actions of the criminal in question, but the selling points of the book. It is designed to draw in potential readers. “How can being abused be good? Ohhh I’ll buy the book and see!”

People are just pawns being played by the giant of capitalism, including victims of child abuse. Capitalism knows no morals. The way in which Primark uses sweatshops to make their clothes, the publishing industry uses child abuse victims to sell their books.

The thing about “Tiger, Tiger” that is so damaging is the lack of actual psychological analysis that has gone into the the concept of “the light side of child abuse” at least, in that article anyway. The victim claims that her abuser made her life “ecstatic”. Paedophiles get away with the abuse they commit for so long because they are clever and calculated people. They make children feel in a certain way that makes them dutifully loyal (very Stockholm Syndrom like). As a male may get an erection when suffering sexual assault, this does not make it any less of an assault. Our bodies respond in ways which we have no control over to certain aspects of life. As do our emotions. Children are especially susceptible to reward and special treatment and do not know the extent to which this kind of manipulation is wrong. They will also bend to the will of adults whom they see as authority figures. The hows and whys of abuse should not be treated as selling points for books.

Any sensible person can see that no matter what the response is of a child, any kind of sexual contact between an adult and a minor is completely wrong. This is apparently a difficult thing to comprehend for some of us, however.

Councillor thinks 9 year olds can ‘want to be raped’:
The Daily Record reports today that William O’Rourke, a councillor for Glasgow City Council claimed that a nine year old girl, raped by a care worker, WANTED to be raped. He then went on to say that nine year old girls have the ability to be provocative and their clothing suggestive. I’d like to make a statement that if you think young girls can dress provocatively then you already have the seeds of an inappropriate attitude towards children. He also claims the girl’s mother is a prostitute and therefore it is okay to rape the children of prostitutes. No one deserves rape, no matter how they act or how they dress, and much less a child.

The only way to stop child abuse is to say something when you see something.

O’Rourke is a disturbing man. If you can defend a rapist, you’re no better yourself. One must ask themselves why O’Rourke jumped so strongly to the defense of a man accused of raping a child. Especially the way in which he does it, blaming young children for wearing short skirts and essentially admitting that he can see how someone would be aroused by a child. Guilty conscience and a theme of empathy with the rapist jumps out at me.

Everything I’ve spoken about so far suggests a very flippant approach to the theme of child abuse, and it is. The world is becoming desensitised to the idea of children being manipulated and mistreated, so much so that it can actually be a form of sick entertainment, no unlike a freak show at a carnival. Because the psychological and physical terror is so far removed from immediate reality, it can be condoned to make money. This is unacceptable. It is essential that abuse does not become normalised and that people stop putting money into an industry which exploits the victims of rapists. If people need to tell their story, they do not need to sell it. Nowadays there are plenty of free platforms which are not in the interest of money to raise awareness of child abuse and raising awareness should be done by the NSPCC and Childline.