by Rebecca Mott
[Rebecca Mott sent this article to my e-mail while I was creating this website. -- M.H.]
Images hurt, words wound. This repeats in my head, as I see my past. Now, I have changed my life, now, I can grieve my stolen youth. I write to show how porn poison too many lives.
There was a time that I was innocent. Then I believed in hope. But then, porn was brought into my life. Now, I find it hard to remember those happy times. I know I had some happeness -- for why else would I bother to stay alive.
Then my stepdad enter my life. This was the first time that I felt fear of an adult. In his look, I felt invisible. Or maybe, I felt too visible. I was six. I felt his eyes going up and down my body. I was his object. I knew he wanted me, I just didn't know what that meant.
He brought with him images and words which would murder my innocence. He taught me to forget that I was a child. I saw and heard stuff that made me want to die. All I saw was pain. But I was told that it was nothing.
But it enter my nightmares. I saw women with dead eyes waiting - waiting, for a pain that they would not imagine. I imagined that it was me. I knew that one day, my stepdad would do me all that I saw in the pictures. This became clearer as I saw children with dead eyes.
So, I choose not to see. I stopped dreaming. I closed down my imagination. Porn destroyed my ability to dream. Even now, I have a fear of relaxing in case of I fall into images of hard-core porn.
My stepdad brought home "Hustler". It was full of hate, But always it was a joke. Many of the jokes were about raping your daughter. I pretended that I did not care. Only I froze inside. Many of the photos connected violent death with sex. I was shown police photos of sexual murders. This was meant to be fun.
I told it was fine to have sex with children, what was wrong was that society would not accept it. I was told that I did not say no, then it was ok. I did speak, for I could not remember what to say.
When my stepdad did abuse me, it was nothing like the pictures or words that I had seen. He was too clever. He wished to abuse me for a long time, so he started slowly. He was gentle. He knew I was going nowhere.
He begun by rubbing me, often it felt like an accident. Only he focus round my knickers. When I was in bed, he would arrive. There, he touched me all over. It did not hurt much. It was nothing like I had imagined. After all, I was not murdered.
Only, later when alone, it did hurt. My bum screamed, cried with outrage. I did not move. I wanted to be sick. I could not cry, even I had such a bad headache.
I found my bed was wet.
No, I had been brainwashed by porn , so I believed my pain did not matter.
As my stepdad's abuse grow worse and worse, I learnt not to feel. In the last years, I was in his bed, as he used me as he wished. I laid as a silent stature. I had forgotten that I was still alive. I had become nothing. All I was was holes for him to play with.
In my self-hatred and wish to feel, I went towards other violent men. All I knew, was to have sex it must be violent. I thought I was in control, only I had so little idea what would happen. I was used as a rubbish tip for all their hatred of women. I was abused in all the ways that imagined, and in many ways that I could not believe. My body was now a war-zone.
I have no idea how I remain alive. Several times, the men tried to kill me. Often, I would attempt suicide. Mostly, I was careless of my own safety. I tried to stop eating, tried to never sleep and became a drunk. Somehow, I remain alive.
I was learning to hate. A slow seed was growing. I was getting some self-respect. Slowly, I was remembering my pride.
Gradually, with detachment, I saw all their actions were a carbon-copy of the images I seen as a child. All I was their real life porn game.
Like a porn magazine, they could throw me away when used.
This piece was written to shown that hard-core is not harm free. I tell my story as an example of an event that is common with too many girls and women.
As I write I remember the dead eyes of my nightmares.
Rebecca Mott is British. She is a survivor of child sexual and mental abuse. When she was14, she was a prostitute working in a club. The men that used her were into extreme sexual violence. These experiences made her a radical feminist. For she feels that feminism is working toward a future without sexual violence. She is a writer, in both performances of poetry and prose, and does some visual art. She supports the Anti-Hustler website "Manufactured Contempt: Deconstructing Larry Flynt’s Corporate Sexxxism" The address is http://manufacturedcontempt.wordpress.com/