 So much is written about child pornography, Conferences are held to promote prevention, Talk shows, other shows. eg. The District, on TV addresses the subject, articles are written in magazines or newpapers, and websites give wonderful data and information, yet mostly they are advocating STOPPING Pornogrhapy. (Mention of the many pornography sites on the web easily found in search engines does not need more comment except to say the filth offered with impunity simply validates and confirms how accepted it has become in the mind of the public). STOPPING Child Pornography (CP)is of HUGE importance, but it has long been niggling at me how LITTE is actually spoken of the EFFECTS on the victims. Telling their subjective experience. Statistics are quoted of the billion dollar industry in CP, of exposing and dismantling pornography rings and the efforts of communities and agencies in doing this. Now and then we read newspaper articles of the arrrest of a Pedophile or if one is to be released back into a community - but nothing about his victims. All so very commendable and needed and hopefully will become even MORE effective, but what of the Children who now are ADULTS , who may, or may not, have memories of their secret past ? CHILD victims of porn can be subjected to their private hells by parents and/or relatives in their own homes and those of neighbors and friends, they can be lent out to pornographers in exchange for money, suffer their humilation and indignities from pedophiles and be subjected to pornographic activites as part of a cult existence where it is a given for those in the groups. The title of this article comes from a conversation with a friend who, now married with her own family, is repeatedly flooded with feelings she is only NOW coming to grips with their origin. I asked her a good while ago if she could put the feelings into one adjective what would she use. The reply was, "Tainted". So for readers of this article, for promoters of Porn Prevention, for law enforcement Task Force Anti- Porn members, for concerned Parents and School Teachers, for news hungry reporters, for Child advocates in Non Profit Organizations, Media or Mental Health professionals - I hope that in all your endeavors, your writings, reports, presentations and clinical work you will have an image of this word INDELLIBLY engraved in your mind to give you perspective as you proffer your respective Aid - the word is TAINTED . If there is no understanding that without effective help, relationships, friendships, marriage, leisure time, work, ALL views of Self and perception of others will be evaluated through this feeling-lens of TAINT . The adult survivor of child pornography must remain behind a facade of normality. "Everything's fine, thanks". How deeply , beyond disbelief or reluctant belief, that adults can coldheartedly and without conscience subject little children and teenagers to the horrors of pornography, have we given indepth consideration to the life-long sentence of TAINT ? Do we actually get BEYOND our determination to STOP and/or PREVENT the porn. abuse that is global ? How much are we actually truly thinking about the CHILD, the TEENAGER who is being tainted with every implimentation of the "toys" and tools of filming porn flicks, snuff films (in which young lives are literally snuffed out),and private photography ? Are we so focussed more on the legal and business ramifications of bringing down perps and Rings, of finding home basements, other domestic sites, garages, barns etc. to expose abuse, and so intent on enlightening the public of the monetary fortunes made by exploiting child innocence, that we shove the subjects of our endeavors into the background when, in fact they should be FOREMOST in the picture? I have talked personally with children used by pedophiles, adults sold, lent and subjected to porn as children and the topic of money value has never been in their thoughts. Exposure of their perps has not been their main objective, publicity was the LAST thing on their agenda, so what WAS ? What has been a secret shame when dissociation from their trauma has not been a factor has had nothing to do with the above items submitted to the public. According to Webster's Dictionary, to "TAINT" is to affect with something physically injurious, unpleasant; to spoil; to make morally corrupt or depraved, to sully or stain - is this enough? Those, who, when in touch with their CP memories and experiences, now, as adults are washed over with feelings of being tainted , relive scenes of being physically injured - drugged, drunken, tortured in atrocious ways. Filmed in bondage depicting sadistic, sexualized activites with grownups, children and animals. Depravity, moral corruption, sullied staining, all deeply embedded in the fibers of their self image, defining their thoughts of self-unworthiness, restraining any desire to reach out to others for understanding because Shame is a tightly inserted gag and Humiliation a binding chain around revelation. Children currently being used, are being molded into future vessels decorated with TAINT and they do not realize, nor could they understand, how what is being done to them will change their pysche forever. Buried deeply out of consciousness in many many instances, men and women grow through Lifes' phases wondering why they have this shadowed feeling of being unclean, of feeling uncomfortable and being massively triggered ( though this word is alien to them - they only know something has disturbed them greatly and they don't know what) by what to them are ordinary events - a smell,( could be sweat), a tool, making love, a certain creature, cameras etc., and one day - out of the blue - a flashback explodes of a scene involving sex with someone, something, or an animal, and along with the memory, total disbelief. "Where did THAT come from?" Fear, doubt, anxiety, stress, shame, guilt, secrets - on and on the thoughts chase eachother through interminable nights and forced normality of days. Once the blockedness cracks, the seam grows wider and more "stuff" leaks through. More flashbacks, more memories, more denial and more desperate efforts to push it all away. But the TAINT remains. One important, and needing to be remembered, fact is the effect on the child and on into adulthood, of fear of exposure for the CHILD as well as the perpetrators. Pornopgraphy is all about filming, about pictures, about distribution of these. Perhaps one of the greatest TAINT feelings that can seep into the very pores of a child's metaphorical skin, is the dye of exposure. While stings to bust Porn Rings focus on arresting pedophils and perpetrators of sexual abuse and gathering evidence - how much thought is given to the subjects of pornographic movies and still pictures? How many consider how it would affect grown women and men to be suddenly faced with a request to identify pornographic pictures of children in compomising positions and behaviors and discover they are the subjects of the photos shown them? Children experiencing the making of films know money is exchanged between the film makers and other adults for their performances but they have no idea where those picture may end up, or who will see them. Later in life, and especially with the advent of the internet where pornography is advertised with impunity, for those who remember a history of pornogrpahy there is a greater fear of exposure to the publiic, and worse, to friends and relatives who are ignorant of their story, than for those whose memories are blocked. The TAINT of an already implanted guilt, shame and self-loathing because of what was forced upon them as children is magnified a thousand fold at the thought of public exposure of their humiliation to strangers and/or people known to them. TAINT in spades. So let's look at TAINT - perhaps it might help to change the first letter to P ? PAINT . Paint can be used to cover the outside of something such as a house, a boat a car, but painting also applies to painting pictures. What happens to the innocent child who is used as an object for sexual gratification of despicable people, is that in their small minds with every time they are photographed whether it is in a sexually explicit pose, or during film making using the props and "toys" of the trade, a picture is being painted . A picture of a little boy or girl who is only GOOD when he or she obeys to the letter what they are told to do. To do it right means having edible goodies, nice drinks, verbal praise, more "loving" from grownups and other so called "rewards". These pictures are PAINTED with water-based colors - fear, intimidation, lies and distortion. In other words, it is possible to BLOCK THEM OUT - not easily or quickly, but POSSIBLE . NO trauma is TOTALLY erased from ones memory but applying paint thinner or whatever medium is required to remove the picture, deals only with the abiltity to wash away the outside image. So in the case of pornographic applicatons, therapeutic paint thinner cannot erase the ORIGINAL underlying picture but it can water down and in many cases render ineffective, the influence of fear, shame and guilt associated with the experiences. As with an illness, the condition that is longstanding and chronic takes much longer to recover from than an acute attack of, say, influenza. One needs to remember that this Paint is NOT applied to the outside but an inside image , and TAINT as with PAINT, cannot be scrubbed off overnight where it has seeped into the very woodwork of a house or a mind. It is invisible to outside eyes. The application of good therapy, gentle understanding and genuine acceptance of the taint feelings washes off the T/Paint little by little from all the covered areas. It takes takes time and patience. The work of restoration,the sensitive removal of paint chip by chip as all tainted spots are removed, is as delicate as eye surgery and as painstaking as restoring an original fresco by Michael Angelo Friendships, marriage, social/business interactions and more importantly, self-confidence and a new self portrait restored in the healing process, can allow the survivor of child pornography to emerge feeling some level of being cleansed and unashamed. Trauma from CP is not about money and billion dollar industry, or about world wide pornography rings and domestic sexual abuse, or about dysfunctional families and cult activities, it is FIRST and FOREMOST about the CHILD. If CP is addressed and approached with this Priority of Values and then the other variables will be implemented in the right order. I am NOT stating here that interventions are not needed to reach the child but that the interventions be the ground and the CHILD the figure in a figure-ground Painting we would all wish to see RESTORED . Am sure the immediate rebuttal will be, " But of COURSE the Child is the figure - it is the reason WHY we are so doing all we can to expose the perps, smash the rings, and seize the illegal fortunes made from exploitation" But you tell me - take any one of the above topics and honestly examine what is FOREMOST in the mind of those implementing of them. Focus is on Exposure of the perps, on the Sting to disband porn rings, on Dollar amounts to show the public why child porn is so attractive to those who live for lust and greed. How many advertisements, writeups, TV shows, movies and workshops have we read and heard that have included TAINT,or addressed my thoughts above of those who feel tainted? Would not the message be more potent, the reaction of public response to support preventive measures and apprehension of criminals be strengthened and emphasized if TAINTED was the FIRST word used, followed by how it is the anguished cry of CP survivors? These are merely my personal musings, but for many years since working with children and teenagers in the early 1980's I have failed to read or hear in the media where the FIRST focus of the article or presentation has been TAINT - what the child will live with all its life unless there is the proper treatment avialable. TAINT can become PAINT and Paint is REMOVABLE - HOPE is the solution in which we wash the tools of gentle understanding, acceptance and patience after each debriding of the Taint. RESPECT from those who do the restoring will inevitably enable the survivor to know Self-RESPECT - and this, will show us that TAINT has been REMOVED once and for all. 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