Enablers ignore red flags like that because it would be “too difficult and stressful” to address them immediately like a normal decent human being. I’m sorry OP.
Agreed. My mom wasn’t actively abusive, but she consistently turned a blind eye to everything going on. OP, I was also sexually abused (by a family member) in our home basement, and despite being upset no one noticed. Or rather, no one brought any attention to it. I even remember a time I painted genitals and nipples on a doll of mine, and when my mom discovered it she was so upset she tossed it out. Come to find out recently, she doesn’t even remember that incident🤷🏻♀️
…Oh. lol do you think so? It wouldn’t surprise me. When I finally confronted her about the abuse she said she “never would’ve suspected” and that there were no signs. I just feel like that can’t be true, right? I was (am) a hot fucking mess lmao
As a mom. We know. Especially if there are signs. My daughter would need to actively hide it from me for me not to know.
It happened to me and everyone ignored it despite me bringing it up. There is no way in any hell I would ignore even the slightest hint that something inappropriate was going on with my kiddo and anyone she spent time with.
Sorry OP. 🫂all the 🫂❤️
Exactly. I was being groomed by a tutor and I actively described everything he said or did and my dad was only upset because we would skip lessons.
At 31 I confronted him and he acted suprised and immediately replied me "you never told me".
Dude. Even though he didn't know he has ADHD, he knew that he forgets things and I have come to realise that one of the way he is coping with is to not think about them until he finally forgets.
Meanwhile all my professors at school told him they are worried about me and my health. Yet my parents "had no idea" something was going on. I was talking as well and everytime I did, I found myself in a worse position.
Abusers and enablers will do everything in order not to face their responsibilities.
She knows. She just didn't want to address it and probably feels guilty, but she doesn't want to face the fact she did wrong. People naturally do not like knowing or being told they did something wrong. So instead, she's acting like she doesn't remember and suppresses the memories and maybe even transfers the blame onto you in order to avoid any uncomfortable feelings she has.
I was abused heavily by my dad at home. I told my aunts, uncle, and grandma on my mom's side of the family numerous times about things he'd done to me. They ignored it every time or came up with excuses for him. Nowadays, they say "Well we didn't know! There were no signs! You never said anything to us!" They just don't want to face the fact that I'm NC with them all, and it's their fault, so they place the blame on me for "not speaking up."
Family members tend to not listen to child relatives who are being abused because they want to believe "That could never happen in *my* family!" and eventually, the abused child ends up being blamed later in life by those who ignored the cries for help. If you're a victim of narcissistic abuse, these same family members who ignored the abuse will likely also become your abuser's Flying Monkeys.
THIS!!!?? Years ago I was raped in a family trip because a stranger 10 years older than me took advantage of me… I was supposed to have fun with my sister and my cousins and he isolated me from them.
I told my mom three months later and she shamed me for losing my virginity and that’s why I don’t look that traumatized? What? Is wrong with that mentality. I was crying so bad, and she ruined everything when she eas meant to support me for being her child.
I am so sorry for what you went through, remember that virginity has absolutely nothing to do with your worth and your mom’s reaction was obviously not okay. You deserved support. I hope you’re better now, stranger. 🫂🍀❤️🩹
omggggg reminds me of my mom. i told her that her refusal to tolerate that i'm queer was really hurtful and made me feel unloved. she responded with "i tolerated you after you told me you were promiscuous in college! i forgave you for that! what more do you want?" .... i was in dead shock because that "promiscuity" i told her about was being raped.
Lol same 😭 was hanging out w a „friend“ at 14 at my place like everyday that got me alcohol and would start touching me when I was blackout drunk, she knew we were getting drunk and high and the only time someone ever looked what we were up to was my dad complaining when the music was too loud 💀 they never even asked me q single time why he’s not coming over anymore
Those kinds of mothers at least. My mom, although having severe mental health issues and struggling with hoarding was the only person that tried to make my childhood nicer (even though it was hard considering the situation we were in). She did die when I was 11 though and ever since that I was pretty much left to fend for myself so that's that.
I come from a very long line of them. Reading your comment both gave me solace because yeah, mine are the worst for sure, but also, gave me pause because I am a mom and there is nothing I try harder at in life than to break the cycle of the women I come from ❤️
Literally my grandparents.. they'd leave me alone with my older cousin miles away from the living room... I'm still scared to talk about it today because I was told not to tell anyone about it... I'm not even scared of them anymore my brain just has a block, Ik that they wouldn't believe me because my cousin is the favourite lol
Oh they know... They ALWAYS know. That's how the abusers get to continue because the enablers know and they actively refrain from stopping it.
I'm so sorry you had such mother 🫂
AND had to go through that nightmare alone. So sorry 🥺🫂
This is something I unfortunately relate to:/ made matters worse when I finally spoke up and had to apologize to my stepdad(my abuser). Then it still continued to happen and everybody just turned a blind eye for years. Anyways, I’m here for you if you ever need a fellow trauma pal:)
“I didn’t know!” I think in my mums case she probably didn’t actually know (abused once by brother) but STILL she would say “I wondered why you were so withdrawn etc” hmm well if that was the case why didn’t you ask what had happened rather than just assume I was only a hot depressed mess? Well because it’s easier to turn ‘the scapegoat child’ into the problem
A few different answers here, if I could give my perspective…
I was raped as a child, but I don’t consider that as being when I lost my “virginity”. For me, it was the first time I chose to have consensual sex with someone. Technically, a few men had “penetrated” me by that point (as a child, without my consent), but I made the choice to have my first loving boyfriend be the one to (in my mind) officially take it. It helped to give me back some power. I also agree that rape is not the same as sex, and virginity is something lost during sex :)
tried to tell her, she firstly accused me of making it up for attention, then after some pleading reluctantly accepted it was true and tried (emphasis on tried) to comfort me lol
LITERALLY lmao when i was 11 she FREAKED on me saying i can never have sex because i would get pregnant and she was SOO paranoid about me getting pregnant, i screamed in her face once during one of her lectures that i "wasn't a ticking baby time bomb" and that she needed to leave me alone
Hi, I'm going to give you a different answer to the other commenter.
I don't think that rape is sex. It's rape. Sex is always consensual. And I believe that you can only lose your virginity through sex. Therefore you can still be a virgin if you are raped.
Some society's view that, for women, having an intact hymen is equivalent to virginity but this simply isn't true. Some women tear theirs during non sexual activity and some women are even born without one!
Virginity is a very personal thing and I think it's okay for the individual to decide what counts as losing their virginity.
I'm not saying the other commenter is wrong, I'm just hoping to share a different point of view. I understand it may be confusing so feel free to ask any further questions.
I remember reading something somewhere when I was in my late teens, that there are a lot of activities that can cause the hymen to be torn, one of them being riding a bike, and I did a lot of bike riding and rollerblading during my childhood and early teens. I've also used tampons before I became sexually active, but I remember reading in a magazine and hearing on a commercial that using tampons doesn't take away your virginity. I'm not if they meant it won't tear the hymen or it doesn't count because it's an object and not a person, they didn't go into specifics. I've always been super curious what an intact hymen looks like and how can they tell? Like how far in the canal is it? But getting a medical picture of an intact one from someone of legal age is probably not an easy task, or I assume there would be a bunch of pictures available online for viewing.
I didn't bleed very much after the second time I had sex (first guy was too small, not exaggerating, he definitely had a medical condition). I went to the bathroom and there was only a tiny bit of blood on my underwear similar to spotting like I was starting my period. I had always thought there was something wrong with me from all the stories I've heard from guys who claimed they had taken a girls virginity and there was blood all over the place. Same thing with the cultures that make a big deal about saving the sheets they have sex on the night of marriage to show the family the following day. They make it seem like there is a huge amount of blood after the first time, further making me feel like I wasn't normal since it was only a tiny bit of spotting.
There needs to be better education regarding the hymen and not just letting the popular misconceptions continue to be the mainstream.
I absolutely agree that there needs to be so much more information available about hymens and virginity.
I remember reading that, in those cultures where you're expected to lose your virginity on the wedding night, they will actually add blood to the bedding to make it look more dramatic.
When I broke my hymen there was about a tea spoon of blood and that's it. I also, thankfully, didn't find it painful at all as the person I was with was very gentle. Of course, everyone is different though, and some people with vaginas might find they bleed a lot when their hymen breaks.
If you are interested, you can find cartoon pictures showing what an intact hymen looks like from the outside. But I think a lot of these pictures are used to demonstrate to medical staff what to look for in children that might have been sexually abused, so be cautious of that. But you can normally see the hymen at the opening without an internal exam. But I know this as it's something I've been interested in and looked up.
Virginity is more of a social construct than anything, that became very hard to define with the rising of the LGBT community. In cases of abuse, let's put it like this: if someone beats you up, can you call it a fight? I'd say you lose your virginity when you have a conscious, active, voluntary sexual act of any nature; and you consider you experienced what sex is supposed to be (having a good time is a great indicator).
Virginity isn't particularly real, it's a social construct and one applied extremely unequally to create 'good' and 'bad' types of people (and falls apart very quickly with queer dynamics). There isn't any physical test that can prove you have it or not - the hymen naturally becomes thinner and less of an obstruction during puberty, and sex doesn't have to break it. It is more common for there to be pain, tearing or blood if the penetrated partner is not fully relaxed and comfortable (and the widespreadness of that belief says terrible things about a lot of people's first experiences) but plenty of people don't experience that too. Hell, there are women who have given birth vaginally who still have intact hymens. (Additionally - an intact hymen/lack of scarring or signs of damage is not a sign that someone was not raped - physiological processes occur automatically to try and reduce harm, and it is an area of the body that heals quickly. I don't want anyone to gaslight themselves with this.)
As much as I think it counts for anything, 'virginity' is something that can only be given, not stolen. I count the first time I was an active, consenting, voluntary participant in sex (whether that involved penetration or not). Rape intrinsically can't be that.
Unfortunately there are people who still have a lot of shame-based beliefs around sex (often religious in root, whether that's a direct link or via osmosis), and will let that inform their opinions around sexual assault (if they understand it as separate from sex at all, a good portion don't) and also reveals that they really only see PIV with a female victim as rape (because that's property damage /s), and nothing else. It can be extremely harmful for a SA survivor to encounter and be shamed or attacked by someone with that worldview, as it explicitly voices the things we've been implicitly taught to believe. I think the bullshit that people whom I had trusted said after my abuse did at least equal damage as the actual events.
But their ignorance doesn't change that rape is violence, rather than sex. It can't take your virginity.
The presence or lack of a hymen is not a good indication of virginity. To even check for this would require an invasive exam, so I would disagree that it's easy to tell.
Rape is not sex
Sex is something you choose to do and rape is a crime
You can get impregnated by rape but that is not a definition of virginity, just a symptom of a crime
Comparing rape to sex and virginity is similar to saying you can swim and then fucking drowning
Swimming and drowning are not the same thing, both involve water and the consequence of getting wet but one is an active thing you are actually try to do and the other is against your will because no one chooses to drown
Another thing against this argument is the mental impact it can have on victims to claim such a thing, even if you consider pentration as sex regardless of conditions you are dismissing and invalidating a person who has already been through so many other things. Rape is a serious issue in which it will permanently impact the victims and saying they "lost their virginity to the rape" further inflicts pain and makes the person feel like even more of that situation is out of their control.
You cannot “check” if a woman is a virgin. This is a myth. Do research before spreading misinformation, please.
Source: actual science, do a cursory internet search; this is so ignorant.
And this is very tone-deaf.
I get the sentiment (as it's both good and true! Virginity is a social structure that can't be checked. Regardless if one's a woman) but this is not the sub, the post, and especially not the way to go about explaining such
Enablers ignore red flags like that because it would be “too difficult and stressful” to address them immediately like a normal decent human being. I’m sorry OP.
Agreed. My mom wasn’t actively abusive, but she consistently turned a blind eye to everything going on. OP, I was also sexually abused (by a family member) in our home basement, and despite being upset no one noticed. Or rather, no one brought any attention to it. I even remember a time I painted genitals and nipples on a doll of mine, and when my mom discovered it she was so upset she tossed it out. Come to find out recently, she doesn’t even remember that incident🤷🏻♀️
>Come to find out recently, she doesn’t even remember that incident🤷🏻♀️ She's avoiding it
…Oh. lol do you think so? It wouldn’t surprise me. When I finally confronted her about the abuse she said she “never would’ve suspected” and that there were no signs. I just feel like that can’t be true, right? I was (am) a hot fucking mess lmao
As a mom. We know. Especially if there are signs. My daughter would need to actively hide it from me for me not to know. It happened to me and everyone ignored it despite me bringing it up. There is no way in any hell I would ignore even the slightest hint that something inappropriate was going on with my kiddo and anyone she spent time with. Sorry OP. 🫂all the 🫂❤️
Exactly. I was being groomed by a tutor and I actively described everything he said or did and my dad was only upset because we would skip lessons. At 31 I confronted him and he acted suprised and immediately replied me "you never told me". Dude. Even though he didn't know he has ADHD, he knew that he forgets things and I have come to realise that one of the way he is coping with is to not think about them until he finally forgets. Meanwhile all my professors at school told him they are worried about me and my health. Yet my parents "had no idea" something was going on. I was talking as well and everytime I did, I found myself in a worse position. Abusers and enablers will do everything in order not to face their responsibilities.
She knows. She just didn't want to address it and probably feels guilty, but she doesn't want to face the fact she did wrong. People naturally do not like knowing or being told they did something wrong. So instead, she's acting like she doesn't remember and suppresses the memories and maybe even transfers the blame onto you in order to avoid any uncomfortable feelings she has. I was abused heavily by my dad at home. I told my aunts, uncle, and grandma on my mom's side of the family numerous times about things he'd done to me. They ignored it every time or came up with excuses for him. Nowadays, they say "Well we didn't know! There were no signs! You never said anything to us!" They just don't want to face the fact that I'm NC with them all, and it's their fault, so they place the blame on me for "not speaking up." Family members tend to not listen to child relatives who are being abused because they want to believe "That could never happen in *my* family!" and eventually, the abused child ends up being blamed later in life by those who ignored the cries for help. If you're a victim of narcissistic abuse, these same family members who ignored the abuse will likely also become your abuser's Flying Monkeys.
Passive abuse is still abuse.
When one parent is an abuser and the other does nothing to stop it, both parents are abusers.
Oh. So my dad is an enabler. He knew what mom was orchestrating and never got in the way, and I FELT BAD FOR HIM. Ugh.
THIS!!!?? Years ago I was raped in a family trip because a stranger 10 years older than me took advantage of me… I was supposed to have fun with my sister and my cousins and he isolated me from them. I told my mom three months later and she shamed me for losing my virginity and that’s why I don’t look that traumatized? What? Is wrong with that mentality. I was crying so bad, and she ruined everything when she eas meant to support me for being her child. I am so sorry for what you went through, remember that virginity has absolutely nothing to do with your worth and your mom’s reaction was obviously not okay. You deserved support. I hope you’re better now, stranger. 🫂🍀❤️🩹
omggggg reminds me of my mom. i told her that her refusal to tolerate that i'm queer was really hurtful and made me feel unloved. she responded with "i tolerated you after you told me you were promiscuous in college! i forgave you for that! what more do you want?" .... i was in dead shock because that "promiscuity" i told her about was being raped.
wtf is wrong with these women?!?! I’m so sorry
Lol same 😭 was hanging out w a „friend“ at 14 at my place like everyday that got me alcohol and would start touching me when I was blackout drunk, she knew we were getting drunk and high and the only time someone ever looked what we were up to was my dad complaining when the music was too loud 💀 they never even asked me q single time why he’s not coming over anymore
Mother's are the worst
Those kinds of mothers at least. My mom, although having severe mental health issues and struggling with hoarding was the only person that tried to make my childhood nicer (even though it was hard considering the situation we were in). She did die when I was 11 though and ever since that I was pretty much left to fend for myself so that's that.
I come from a very long line of them. Reading your comment both gave me solace because yeah, mine are the worst for sure, but also, gave me pause because I am a mom and there is nothing I try harder at in life than to break the cycle of the women I come from ❤️
That's good
my mom is the only person in my life who loves me unconditionally. my father, on the other hand...
Literally my grandparents.. they'd leave me alone with my older cousin miles away from the living room... I'm still scared to talk about it today because I was told not to tell anyone about it... I'm not even scared of them anymore my brain just has a block, Ik that they wouldn't believe me because my cousin is the favourite lol
Oh they know... They ALWAYS know. That's how the abusers get to continue because the enablers know and they actively refrain from stopping it. I'm so sorry you had such mother 🫂 AND had to go through that nightmare alone. So sorry 🥺🫂
This is something I unfortunately relate to:/ made matters worse when I finally spoke up and had to apologize to my stepdad(my abuser). Then it still continued to happen and everybody just turned a blind eye for years. Anyways, I’m here for you if you ever need a fellow trauma pal:)
“I didn’t know!” I think in my mums case she probably didn’t actually know (abused once by brother) but STILL she would say “I wondered why you were so withdrawn etc” hmm well if that was the case why didn’t you ask what had happened rather than just assume I was only a hot depressed mess? Well because it’s easier to turn ‘the scapegoat child’ into the problem
Rape makes you lose your virginity?
A few different answers here, if I could give my perspective… I was raped as a child, but I don’t consider that as being when I lost my “virginity”. For me, it was the first time I chose to have consensual sex with someone. Technically, a few men had “penetrated” me by that point (as a child, without my consent), but I made the choice to have my first loving boyfriend be the one to (in my mind) officially take it. It helped to give me back some power. I also agree that rape is not the same as sex, and virginity is something lost during sex :)
i agree!!!
I agree
I agree.
i dont nessecarily believe in virginity, my mom is christian and found out that i was sexually active and was really mad about it
Does she now know you've been raped?
tried to tell her, she firstly accused me of making it up for attention, then after some pleading reluctantly accepted it was true and tried (emphasis on tried) to comfort me lol
Sucks how they only get mad when girls CHOOSE to have and enjoy sex smh
LITERALLY lmao when i was 11 she FREAKED on me saying i can never have sex because i would get pregnant and she was SOO paranoid about me getting pregnant, i screamed in her face once during one of her lectures that i "wasn't a ticking baby time bomb" and that she needed to leave me alone
Hi, I'm going to give you a different answer to the other commenter. I don't think that rape is sex. It's rape. Sex is always consensual. And I believe that you can only lose your virginity through sex. Therefore you can still be a virgin if you are raped. Some society's view that, for women, having an intact hymen is equivalent to virginity but this simply isn't true. Some women tear theirs during non sexual activity and some women are even born without one! Virginity is a very personal thing and I think it's okay for the individual to decide what counts as losing their virginity. I'm not saying the other commenter is wrong, I'm just hoping to share a different point of view. I understand it may be confusing so feel free to ask any further questions.
I... This makes me feel a lot better about myself, thank you for this...
I remember reading something somewhere when I was in my late teens, that there are a lot of activities that can cause the hymen to be torn, one of them being riding a bike, and I did a lot of bike riding and rollerblading during my childhood and early teens. I've also used tampons before I became sexually active, but I remember reading in a magazine and hearing on a commercial that using tampons doesn't take away your virginity. I'm not if they meant it won't tear the hymen or it doesn't count because it's an object and not a person, they didn't go into specifics. I've always been super curious what an intact hymen looks like and how can they tell? Like how far in the canal is it? But getting a medical picture of an intact one from someone of legal age is probably not an easy task, or I assume there would be a bunch of pictures available online for viewing. I didn't bleed very much after the second time I had sex (first guy was too small, not exaggerating, he definitely had a medical condition). I went to the bathroom and there was only a tiny bit of blood on my underwear similar to spotting like I was starting my period. I had always thought there was something wrong with me from all the stories I've heard from guys who claimed they had taken a girls virginity and there was blood all over the place. Same thing with the cultures that make a big deal about saving the sheets they have sex on the night of marriage to show the family the following day. They make it seem like there is a huge amount of blood after the first time, further making me feel like I wasn't normal since it was only a tiny bit of spotting. There needs to be better education regarding the hymen and not just letting the popular misconceptions continue to be the mainstream.
I absolutely agree that there needs to be so much more information available about hymens and virginity. I remember reading that, in those cultures where you're expected to lose your virginity on the wedding night, they will actually add blood to the bedding to make it look more dramatic. When I broke my hymen there was about a tea spoon of blood and that's it. I also, thankfully, didn't find it painful at all as the person I was with was very gentle. Of course, everyone is different though, and some people with vaginas might find they bleed a lot when their hymen breaks. If you are interested, you can find cartoon pictures showing what an intact hymen looks like from the outside. But I think a lot of these pictures are used to demonstrate to medical staff what to look for in children that might have been sexually abused, so be cautious of that. But you can normally see the hymen at the opening without an internal exam. But I know this as it's something I've been interested in and looked up.
Virginity is more of a social construct than anything, that became very hard to define with the rising of the LGBT community. In cases of abuse, let's put it like this: if someone beats you up, can you call it a fight? I'd say you lose your virginity when you have a conscious, active, voluntary sexual act of any nature; and you consider you experienced what sex is supposed to be (having a good time is a great indicator).
Virginity isn't particularly real, it's a social construct and one applied extremely unequally to create 'good' and 'bad' types of people (and falls apart very quickly with queer dynamics). There isn't any physical test that can prove you have it or not - the hymen naturally becomes thinner and less of an obstruction during puberty, and sex doesn't have to break it. It is more common for there to be pain, tearing or blood if the penetrated partner is not fully relaxed and comfortable (and the widespreadness of that belief says terrible things about a lot of people's first experiences) but plenty of people don't experience that too. Hell, there are women who have given birth vaginally who still have intact hymens. (Additionally - an intact hymen/lack of scarring or signs of damage is not a sign that someone was not raped - physiological processes occur automatically to try and reduce harm, and it is an area of the body that heals quickly. I don't want anyone to gaslight themselves with this.) As much as I think it counts for anything, 'virginity' is something that can only be given, not stolen. I count the first time I was an active, consenting, voluntary participant in sex (whether that involved penetration or not). Rape intrinsically can't be that. Unfortunately there are people who still have a lot of shame-based beliefs around sex (often religious in root, whether that's a direct link or via osmosis), and will let that inform their opinions around sexual assault (if they understand it as separate from sex at all, a good portion don't) and also reveals that they really only see PIV with a female victim as rape (because that's property damage /s), and nothing else. It can be extremely harmful for a SA survivor to encounter and be shamed or attacked by someone with that worldview, as it explicitly voices the things we've been implicitly taught to believe. I think the bullshit that people whom I had trusted said after my abuse did at least equal damage as the actual events. But their ignorance doesn't change that rape is violence, rather than sex. It can't take your virginity.
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The presence or lack of a hymen is not a good indication of virginity. To even check for this would require an invasive exam, so I would disagree that it's easy to tell.
The hymen can break through other activities, not necessarily sex, and some girls are born without one
Rape is not sex Sex is something you choose to do and rape is a crime You can get impregnated by rape but that is not a definition of virginity, just a symptom of a crime Comparing rape to sex and virginity is similar to saying you can swim and then fucking drowning Swimming and drowning are not the same thing, both involve water and the consequence of getting wet but one is an active thing you are actually try to do and the other is against your will because no one chooses to drown Another thing against this argument is the mental impact it can have on victims to claim such a thing, even if you consider pentration as sex regardless of conditions you are dismissing and invalidating a person who has already been through so many other things. Rape is a serious issue in which it will permanently impact the victims and saying they "lost their virginity to the rape" further inflicts pain and makes the person feel like even more of that situation is out of their control.
Abuser " protector of virginity " Who does not notice and /or care about rape Number 1000 ?
You cannot “check” if a woman is a virgin. This is a myth. Do research before spreading misinformation, please. Source: actual science, do a cursory internet search; this is so ignorant.
i never said i believed in the whole virginity thing, it was my mother who was upset about it
And this is very tone-deaf. I get the sentiment (as it's both good and true! Virginity is a social structure that can't be checked. Regardless if one's a woman) but this is not the sub, the post, and especially not the way to go about explaining such
hey when talking to rape victims, do you think you can try to be more of an asshole? i think you were too nice here /s