So many have not a clue what victims of sexual abuse go through, how it feels to be "a pound of flesh"

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils

I remember funerals from the time I was a child, years ago at the little church in West Mounds. It was on Lufkin Road, right off the blacktop road that went from Highway 51 west toward the Mississippi River, and ultimately Cape Girardeau, MO.

I don’t remember the road having a name, just RR 1 when I was growing up. It just headed off the blacktop, and after a couple hills and a couple sharp turns, you’d end up at the little Missionary Baptist Church where you were bound to hear some spirited preaching about the eagle stirring its nest or dry bones. I don’t know of anything more entertaining, especially to the women, than a good ole funeral!

What I remember most from those funerals was the preacher, black Bible held sanctimoniously in front of him, and his voice droning, admonishingly and sanctimoniously, the words from Job 14, KJV: “A man that is born of a woman is of a few days, and then full of trouble.”

I don’t remember if women got the same passage, but, as far back as I can remember, this line always stuck in my craw! It seemed to place the fault of “ol’ man whoever’s” death squarely on women, and as far back as I can remember, it left a bad taste in my mouth, one that got nastier and nastier as I grew up and witnessed the difference in treatment between the genders.

As much as I honor my father for his wisdom, I still cannot accept his belief in the superiority of men. A favorite saying of his was, “It’s a po’ man that can’t outthink a woman.” That, I understand, was his reality. The world was like that. The Bible, as shared by the clergy, underscored it… you might say, proclaimed it. Women were inferior. Men were superior.

Sadly, the misconception spouted by James Brown, “This Is a Man’s World,” has lasted as long as the earth: Women are for men’s pleasure. They’re to men as Barbie was to little girls, play toys, not to be taken seriously.

I still remember the trial that had people glued to their black and white TVs in 1963. I don’t remember the names, but I think a government official was the perpetrator. Stuck still in my memory is the pair of panties “pinned in everybody’s living room,” and the old self-righteous men who took so much time to painstakingly examine every discoloration – a woman’s most intimate possession the object of question after question… conjecture after conjecture… figuratively pawed over by balding men who seemed never to get their fill of examination. O, to grasp them by their thinning locks and toss them from the room!

So many have not a clue what victims of sexual abuse go through, how it feels to be “a pound of flesh,” sorted like meat in a display case, raked over, groped, taken or tossed, according to another’s liking.

Victims they will always be, whether of trusted friends or people in high places… Know, then, why they close their eyes so tight, staring into the darkness lest someone recognize their history… why they close their lips even tighter… and carry the shame to their graves.

Story Posted:10/21/2016