Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
That's rather presumptuous. One of my ex-girlfriends was sexually abused as a child by her uncle (not raped however), but now she's a perfectly well-adjusted adult.
Anytime I hear someone say that crimes committed against children are worse than the same crimes committed against adult victims, I roll my eyes and imagine Maude Flanders screaming, "Won't someone please think of the children!!!11" If someone walks into the palliative care unit at Foothills Hospital and smothers all the patients there with a pillow, is that a lesser crime than murdering everyone in the physiotherapy and rehab wing? Is killing all the newborns in the nursery worse?
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Sounds like my own case. However it took me a LONG time to get where I am today and who knows the course my life would have taken had I not been abused. I would say I'm well adjusted, however I also, at 27, have yet to come even close to my full potential as a human. Do I blame my uncle? Well he's not innocent in the matter. Not only was I ill-equipped to deal with what happened, so was my family. As a child trying to deal with it, with a lack of family support it took longer than it should have. Were I to be raped right now, I would not have the same issues.
The point is that a child's mind is still forming. A 6 year old doesn't know what is acceptable in a lot of cases. A 20 year old does. The 6 year old who experiences rape may grow up thinking it's acceptable, the 20 year old already knows it isn't. To believe that the rape of a child wouldn not have a greater impact on the mental development of a child than it would on an adult is quite a fallacy.
That said, it depends on the mind of the adult as well. Many adults who've been raped end up committing suicide. Each case is different.