Changing the Language of Sexual Abuse

"We can not begin to prevent a problem until we begin to talk about it." Those are the words of John Follis, director of Follis Advertising in New York City, giving STOP IT NOW! advice on reaching abusers and people who know them.

Language reflects how we think about an issue and about what is important to us. What does language tell us about the way we think about sexual abuse? Language seems to simultaneously reflect our horror at the idea of someone sexually abusing a child and our inability to deal directly with what is happening to our children. Echoing this horror, the media provides dehumanizing descriptions such as "sexual predator," "monster," and terms made up for an article such as "vampire rapist." But up close, our day to day conversations tend to minimize our fears with euphemisms such as "doctors who diddle," "he was caught fondling a child," and "fooling around in the backyard," or the excuse "boys will be boys." The problem inherent in these subtle shifts in language is that we are subtly telling each other that we are safe because we don’t allow monsters in our community.

The way we think also informs the way we act and what we do. STOP IT NOW! tries to change the way we think and act, by a careful use of language. We have learned the importance of language from other health campaigns. In the battle to fight HIV/AIDS, advocates consciously changed their language as the fight against AIDS began to shift. What began with the language "AIDS victim," shifted to "people with AIDS," and then to the current term "people living with AIDS." The new language reflected the new understanding of the disease and our relationship to those who had it. New terms also offered hope for those who were infected by the HIV virus.

Given the importance of language, STOP IT NOW! works with professionals to better describe and discuss the sexual abuse of children and its prevention. Here is our current thinking on language:

The sexual abuse of a child. Rather than use indirect terms ("fondling" or "fooling around") that minimize the trauma of abuse, we name the action and speak directly about this trauma ("she touched his genitals" or "he sexually abused his daughter"). The sister of a man who abused told us "I am trying to take out the euphemisms in my language, so that neither of us will avoid the truth of what he has done."

Abuser or someone abusing a child. Rather than using dehumanizing terms like "predator", we need to reflect that sexual abuse is a crime conducted by people – people within our families and our communities.

Recovering sex offender. We use this term to describe someone who admits responsibility for abusing, who is successfully engaged in treatment and who is satisfying their legal obligations for the abuse. One abuser told us "Until a friend told me of a treatment program shown on the Phil Donahue Show, I never thought I could learn to control my abusing behaviors."

Youth with sexual behavior problems or sexually abusing youth. Children and adolescents who have sexually abused a younger child should not be labeled in the same way adults are labeled. However, the child or adolescent still must be held accountable for their sexually abusing behaviors. One mother talked to us about how difficult this can be, "Coming forward, being honest, confronting my own horror, and accepting the truth that my son sexually abused my daughter allowed my family to get the help we needed – especially help for my two children."

As you listen to most conversations about sexual abuse or even healthy sexuality, you will likely hear a level of discomfort at best, and often confusion or ignorance. But we can choose to change the way we communicate about these difficult issues. STOP IT NOW! is currently analyzing focus groups we have conducted in the Latino and African American communities of Philadelphia. We will continue to share what we learn in our exploration of these communication issues.