Carolyn Gage
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A History of a Pedophile's Wife: A Highly Personal Reaction

11/19/2015

5 Comments

 
Picture
​“How could a mother NOT know that her child was being sexually abused in the home?”
 
I’ve asked that. But it was never a real question. I was always sure I knew the answer: “She couldn’t.” In other words, guilty.  Because any mother who was so indifferent or oblivious to the signs and syndromes of her victimized children and/or the inevitable trail of clues from the perpetrating partner should be found guilty of criminal negligence… right?   And then, of course, if the mom did know… well, lock her up as an accomplice.
 
When I asked that question, what I was really saying was, “How could my mother not have known?” As a child, I was a bundle of behaviors, from food refusal to self-mutilation. My father had a disgusting collection of pornography, which included torture pornography. He was compulsively adulterous, even taking a date to an office party when my mother (his wife) was in the hospital giving birth. He was violent, forcing sex on her immediately after an episiotomy. He was cruel to animals and a bully to children. I was completely terrified of him. How could she not have known?

PictureEleanor Cowan
​Self-righteousness is the pendulum swing to the far side of shame. Both emotions carry sweeping indictments. With shame it’s a personal indictment. With self-righteousness, someone else is guilty. Both engage black-and-white thinking. Both have a tendency to flash-freeze an experience and prevent growth or movement forward. Both are motivated by a desire to protect. In the case of shame, the desire to protect the perpetrator(s) has become internalized. This brainwashing has been part of the perpetration.  In the case of self-righteousness, we are protecting ourselves from blame.
 
For the first three decades of my life, I experienced a great deal of shame and confusion… from the trauma, but also from the complex PTSD that pervaded my young adult years. It was a great relief when I became politically aware of the oppression of women, because it enabled my swing over to self-righteousness. Still stuck, still rigid, but at least not at fault anymore. My new mantra became:  “How could a mother not know that her child was being sexually abused.”
 
So, here comes this book that takes my question more literally than I ever did. A History of a Pedophile’s Wife is a page-turner memoir by Canadian feminist Eleanor Cowan, describing the toxic landscape of her family life in the twentieth century, surrounded by secrets and patriarchal theology and institutions. Reading Cowan’s book, the question in my own mind began to morph into “How could my mother have known?” 

PictureUnlike Pandora, my mother knew what what was locked away.
​My own mother would never admit the truth about her first husband or about my experience. At one time, when I was asking her about the nature of the pornography collection, she became uncharacteristically emotional and said, “You don’t what you’re asking me to do! You don’t know what you’re asking me to open the door on!”
 

Following Cowan’s journey, I had many occasions for remembering those words. The perpetration I experienced was probably the tip of an iceberg. My mother, a lifelong practicing alcoholic, had protected her marriage in so many arenas, hiding her drinking, hiding his philandering, standing by him in political scandals, making up excuses for her bruises, rationalizing the chronic emotional abuse …  I really have no idea what was behind that door she was so afraid to open. And I have no idea what that avalanche of truth might do to her. She knew the answer to both when she begged me to drop the subject.
 
The author of A History of a Pedophile’s Wife  has the courage my mother lacked. She does open the door, and there is an avalanche. And she shares it in compelling detail. 

PictureA play sponsored by MOSAC, an organization in the UK "supporting non-abusive parents and carers of sexually abused children
 New question: “Why are some mothers able to open that door, while others cannot?” One of the answers is “support.” Cowan’s journey led out of the 1950’s into the explosion of feminist consciousness characterized by the  1960’s and the 1970’s. Women were telling the truth, naming the real perpetrators instead of policing each other. Social services were being provided for battered women and rape victims. Birth control happened. Divorce began to lose its stigma. Health care providers began to break their silence. Mandatory reporting became law.
 
Cowan found something else: a group called Parents of Sexually Abused Children. The attrition rate was very high, but those who stayed learned how to shatter the silence about family secrets. In this group, the author lost her shame, found her voice, took ownership of her experience, became accountable to her children… and shared the story.
 
My own mother went to her grave with her secrets, and the best I could do was to manage a diffident wave “good-bye” across the enormous gulf of denial that separated us. No closure, I thought. But actually I did get closure, and I got it from A History of a Pedophile’s Wife. I saw the parallel universe, the alternate reality, and I think that has healed me a little.
 
So, with that, I recommend this memoir to survivors, to mothers who failed to protect, to providers working with trauma patients, and to survivors of religious abuse… especially those whose trauma was perpetrated or enabled by Catholic teachings and institutions. Also a great read for anyone who appreciates a courageous and dramatic memoir!

5 Comments
Nancy L Segal link
3/14/2016 10:07:16 pm

A beautifully wrought creative approach to review. It takes uncomon courage to share one's story of incest/CSA. and I admire the rare woman writer who shares her true story and does not hide behind euphemisms, Jungs coattails, or fictional characters. The passage on the pendulum of Self Righteous-Shame really should be in a book.

Reply
Carolyn Gage link
3/15/2016 12:22:29 am

I have several blogs on incest that include pieces of my own story. Click "Incest" under the list of categories on the right side of the blog webpage. You can scroll through them. Thanks for your kind words. The more we come out about our histories, the more accountability there will be. In the words of survivor Marilyn Van Durber: "“We must say to every member of our society: If you violate your children, they may not speak today, but as we gather our strength and stand beside them, they will, one day, speak your name. They will speak every single name.”

Reply
Lynn Hull
10/19/2016 01:07:55 pm

Thank you, Carolyn, for Having the courage to share yourself in all the manners you do! I have been an avid follower for decades, and you never cease to amaze and make me think... Even though I think I do a pretty good job of critical thinking, you are always delving deeper and deeper into subjects that many of us fear to follow. I am so grateful for your sharing with our community… Blessings!

Reply
Ms Sam Schrepel
11/18/2017 02:25:31 am

I appreciate the brief sharing of some of the changes brought about from the horid memories of incest of years ago ,written above in the book by Eleanor Cowan. In continuing on of the sharings, in Carolyn Gage"s comment, she says it so well, "In the words of survivor Marilyn Van Durber: "We must say to every member of our society: If you violate your children, they may not speak today, but as we gather our strength and stand beside them, they will, one day, speak your name. They will speak every single name"....Maybe when we were 5 and 7 and 9 we were helpless victims terrified to share the truth because we needed to find a way to continue to live to another day. Now as adults many of us are advocates standing up for the rights of others who have no one to protect them. For me,it was the ignorance of even my mother accusing me of being the molester of my 18 year old brother when it was me at 8 playing with my paper dolls on my bed in an unsupervised upstairs hot July afternoon way back in the late 1940's. No, we never forget, even if they never change. But we do. Even if history in all its mess in a different way is repeating itself in today's news. Some people are purposed to be like my brother and stick with their stories for their whole life long. Thank you for letting me share. Now I am a mental health advocate.

Reply
Carolyn Gage link
11/18/2017 07:42:21 am

Thank you, Ms Schrepel... for your courage, your voice, and your lifework.

Reply



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    Carolyn Gage

    “… Carolyn Gage is one of the best lesbian playwrights in America…”--Lambda Book Report, Los Angeles.

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