The Movie "Precious" And Incest

Here is a recent comment that I left on the website Bossip.com . You can find the article that I commented to at the following link: [Warning: the language of the comments may be offensive to some. The video could also be a trigger for some incest survivors.]

http://bossip.com/224627/damn-gabourey-sidibes-precious-audition-tape-is-powerful-video/ .

"Incest is a very big problem in our society. I have never heard Oprah or anyone else say that it only happens in the black community. Believe me, it doesn't.

Those of us who are incest survivors know just how big this problem is. I am an incest survivor and my skin color is white. Black or white, skin color doesn't matter if you are an incest survivor.

This problem has been hidden for so very long. I think we are blessed that Oprah and other celebrities are bringing the secret of incest out into the open. As long as it is hidden, we will never stop it from happening to our children. The children are important. They are our future.

If you don't like Oprah's choice of movies or her topics on her show, don't watch them. Tell [should have been "turn"] the TV off. Don't buy tickets to the movie. You have a simple choice not to go there.

As an incest survivor, I can't turn off my life. My past has molded me into who I am today. Today I am a survivor. "Get over it" as some other commenter said isn't as easy as you would like to believe. Today incest doesn't rule my life like it once did.

If "getting over it" was an easy option, don't you think we would do that. It isn't easy. Incest affects every area of my life. Shame, low-self worth, self-hatred, rage, a hurt so deep that it seems like you will never recover from it---I have dealt with all of these. People who tell you to just "get over it" don't know what the hell they are talking about and I hope that they never learn about incest first hand. Don't let your ignorance make you heartless.

What you want is for me to go back into denial of my incest issues. That isn't healthy and helps no one, lest of all me. Pretending that I am not affected by incest just makes me more of a victim which I refuse to ever be again. How about you stop pretending that incest isn't a part of our world?"

In the video audition, Miss Sidibe say two things that jumped out at me. She said, "I'm tired." and she said, "I've had enough of love."

For most of my life since I was a very small child, I have lived with a bone weary tiredness that never seemed to leave. I think that I still carry some of that feeling in my body. I learned to live with that tiredness a long time ago if I wanted to achieve anything in my life. I have been reading about doing body work on several other blogs over the past few months. Maybe it is time for me to find out if I can trust enough to do body work.

I think that many incest survivors have decided that they have had enough of love. Love to an incest survivor often has the sexual abuse so tied up in the concept of love that it is hard to trust anyone else to be intimate enough to give healthy love a chance to grow. Trust is so much involved with loving another person, letting that person get close enough for love to grow. Some of us have been so abused that trust in another person is almost impossible to even imagine. Having someone abuse you sexually while they are saying that they love you really messes up your concept of trust and love. Having someone tell you, like my dad did, that if you love me you will let me do this makes you not even trust yourself, much less someone else. Only by the grace of God did I take a chance and let myself learn to love my husband when he came into my life back in 1972. He is worth loving and so am I. I don't know where I got the courage to even try. Some incest survivors don't.

Incest and violence neither one are confined to just one race. Neither cares about the color of your skin or what language you speak or if you are even old enough to speak. Sometimes they don't even care if you are male or female. They don't care how much money your family has and they don't care what educational level your family comes from. They don't discriminate like some people would like you to believe.
Patricia

Protecting Our Children From Sexual Abuse

As a follow-up on my article entitled "Internet Porn Targets Our Children" found at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/internet-porn-targets-our-children.html , I did some more research on The Oprah Winfrey Show website found at http://www.oprah.com and found some articles on how to protect our children. Awareness is what these articles provide you with so here they are:

Online Predators: A New York Times Investigation
http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahdotcom/safety_eichenwald

Traits of a Sex Offender
http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahdotcom/safety_traits

Warning Signs of Abuse In Children
http://www.oprah.com/article/relationships/parenting/safety_signs

Be an Informed Parent
http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/safety_informed

What to Do If Your Child Was Abused
http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahdotcom/safety_abuse


These are just those articles that I found that www.oprah.com has provided online. There are many others that you can find online if you do a Search. If you are a parent, please take the time to check out these articles. They are a valuable resource for helping us to protect our children from sexual predators online and off.

I want to say my own Thank You to Oprah Winfrey for the valuable service that she provides through The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Patricia

Internet Porn Targets Our Children

WARNING: Reading this article may be harmful to your peace of mind. I intend it to be. I haven't written one of these articles in awhile.

On Thursday, July 17, 2008, I saw a rerun of The Oprah Windfrey Show which was called "Seduced in Cyberspace."

Did you know that if your child has a computer and a webcam in their bedrooms that you may be inviting cyberspace predators into your home and into the lives of your children? Most teenagers know this. As parents, did you know this? I didn't.

Oprah's guests for this show were a New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald and a 19-year-old named Justin Berry. Justin started his journey into the world of Internet Porn at the age of 13 with just a computer and a webcam that he talked his mother into letting him buy so that he could talk to his friends on the internet.

Shortly after Justin started using his webcam online, he was approached online by "a friend" and offered fifty dollars if he would take off his shirt. What 13-year-old would turn down an offer like that? He wasn't doing anything wrong. Being a kid, he took off his shirt. The seduction started. Within a short time, he was removing all of his clothes in his bedroom in front his webcam. Maybe by this time, he was starting to wonder but the money and the gifts were nice additions to his world. Nobody had to know. He wasn't doing anything wrong. Right? He knew these guys. They were his "friends" after all. Justin's mother had no idea what was going on behind the closed doors of her son's bedroom.

Justin was a good kid. He lived in a nice, safe neighborhood. He was an honor student and class president. He ran a small internet business creating websites for other people.

A few years later, a classmate found Justin's website and threatened to expose Justin. Because he didn't want his mother to find out, Justin decided to move to Mexico to live with his father. His parents were divorced.

Justin told his father about his internet porn business. His father asked how he could help. Justin told his father that he needed some girls to participate in the camweb videos. His father went out and found the girls. Justin's business escalated to a new depth. His clientelle grew to 1500 strong.

Justin started using drugs. Things were getting out of control. Then Justin met a man who changed his life. Kurt Eichenwald is an investigative reporter working for The New York Times. Kurt was working on an article on fraud when he found Justin's site. With Kurt's help, Justin has become a witness in an FBI investigation into Online Child Pornography. Justin has been in hiding because of death threats made against him. Kurt's article was published on the front page of The New York Times on December 19, 2005.

Some of Justin's online clients were pediatricians, lawyers working with children, counselors, and teachers. These people are in contact with kids every day. They are likable and pay attention to our kids when we may be too busy to listen to what is going on in their lives.

Justin was offered a book deal if he would not go on The Oprah Show. He turned it down. He wanted to tell people about what is going on in their children's bedrooms. Justin said that he wants to help protect other children and keep them away from the kind of life that he lead.

Why did I write this article? Because some of you might not have seen the show. Unless this is your first time to visit my blog, you know that my childhood was filled with incest. This article is another step in spreading awareness of what is going on in our world.

If your child has a computer and a webcam in their bedrooms, get them out now. Talk to your children. Be involved in their lives. Know their friends. Read my next article about this topic when it comes out.
Patricia