About My Writing

            According to the FBI, the majority of child pornography shared on line involves three- and four-year-olds.  Children made into sexual objects, used for sexual purposes.

            Sexual abuse began for me at two years old.  Like the minds of all sexually abused toddlers and pre-schoolers, my mind dissociated, separated me from my own body to remove me from the horror.  Also erased the abuse from memory, each time, like a shaken Etch-a-Sketch.  The sexual abuse was happening, but I did not know, did not remember.  

            It remained, however, unseen—in my body, in my nervous system, in my deep subconscious.

            And it invisibly controlled everything that came after.

            It remained erased until I was 68 years old, seated in the front row of a movie theater, when the graphic rape scene in Boy Erased provoked a vivid body memory of being raped by someone much larger than me, of being small and powerless to stop it.

            Thus began the last phase of my life-long healing journey, including writing my way to deeper truths, which coalesced into a memoir.

            I originally wrote to heal myself, but now I want to share my writing to help others on their own healing journeys.

            And to bring the hidden epidemic of early childhood sexual abuse to light, to make society face an epidemic it refuses to acknowledge.

            We in the U.S. live in a culture that is profoundly uncomfortable with the body, and with sex—itself the prime exemplar of what is personal and private in our society. 

            Shame and abuse live precisely in this silence, in this darkness.

            I write frankly about sex because it is a central part of our human experience, of how we establish intimate connections, of how we express our desires and love.  In order to minimize shame, and maximize knowledge and understanding, I think sex should be discussed more openly, more matter-of-factly, in our society. 

          And, like the Ancient Greeks, I think the body should be celebrated as a source of beauty and pleasure— an integral part of ourselves—not condemned as the alien locus of sin, corruption and shame, a view many religions encourage.

            Like other contemporary writers—Garth Greenwell, Melissa Febos, Lydia Yuknavitch—I also believe there is an important place for sex in serious literature that is not erotica—a place for R-rated fine literature, if you will.  We are often at our most raw, most vulnerable in our sexual interactions, so sex scenes can be profoundly effective in revealing ourselves, and others, can be essential for moving a story forward.

            Finally, childhood sexual abuse is sexual.  And impacts adult intimate and sexual lives. To write about sexual abuse in full necessarily involves writing about sex.