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I am at least 18 years old and by continuing I understand that I will be exposed to sexually explicit material.
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This content is being shared for demonstration purposes only. Many people are willing to dismiss, overlook, and minimize the severity of the impact that these situations have without understanding the nuance of the details.
The explicit content the children were exposed to most notably included:
- Photos of their father's girlfriend naked in his bed, in what the kids called "the star position"
- My daughter shared that this particular photo made her feel uncomfortable to be around her father's girlfriend.
- Videos of their father's private parts penetrating his girlfriend's private parts
- Conversations like:
- Father: "Where's my %!@# right now?"
- Girlfriend: "In my @$$."
- Father: "In your @$$... daddy."
- Girlfriend: "In my @$$, daddy!!"
- With video footage that matched the dialogue
Our son (10), daughter (9), and their friend (10) at that time had never been exposed to explicit content prior to this experience. Being exposed to sexually explicit material with the adults in their lives at the center of it (adults who then took zero responsibility to amend the situation) made this issue exponentially problematic.
These details are not being shared to sensationalize trauma, but to demonstrate the level of exposure and harm that is so often minimized when mothers attempt to advocate for their children.
The hope is that by sharing these details, it becomes impossible to make excuses for behavior like this and, instead, make the same devastating connection that mothers have had to make between:
“This deeply harmed my child”
and
“Why is no one else reacting to this appropriately?”
By only sharing the concept of what happened, it would've left too much room to invalidate or dilute the severity of the situation with hypotheticals and "What ifs".
Instead, these details express the reality of the situation. It feels awful as a mother to have to ask the question:
- "Why does everyone suddenly understand only after I finally say the ugly parts out loud?”