What does it mean to be sexually reactive?
It simply means, to react sexually to the examples of sex that have been displayed for you.
Pre-sexualization is when a person is prematurely exposed to sexual things. This includes children witnessing adults performing sexual acts, watching mature television or movies that revolve around sexual themes, or even having an adult or another person perform sexual acts on or towards them.
When kids are pre-sexualized, their sexual development exceeds their moral and physical development, and this leaves them in a merry-go-round of turmoil and confusion.
A sexually reactive child is one who acts out in a sexual manor, because of the pre-sexualization that has taken place in their life. Examples would include; a child trying to perform a sexual act on another child, copying something that they watched. Or perhaps exposing themselves in a sexually inappropriate manner... again, copying perhaps something that had been done towards them.
When a child exposes themselves or performs a sexual act on another child, this is still a sexual offense ... but if they are deemed "sexually re-active" then they are not usually labeled as an offender.
This is where it gets sticky. I believe that the victim comes first. Each. And. Every. Time. But when the offender is also a victim, then both the victim and the offender need to come first... What do I mean? I mean we need to treat both victims as victims ... but to the one that offends, they also need to be treated for offending.
For the 12 year old boy who was victimized, but never shared the abuse until he created another victim... he needs treated as both an offender an a victim. But his victim needs to be put first. His victim needs to know that they are safe. Then, the 12 year old needs to be treated as a victim, he needs to know that he is safe too. A victim/offender CAN NOT simply be treated as an offender if they have not dealt with being a victim.
I am not saying that we need to be softer on sexual offenders, because I do not believe that to be true. I think that the law needs to come down hard. I think that sin needs to be exposed and that offenders need to be brought into the light. But, I also believe that we need to offer victim counseling to the victim/offenders if we really want them to recover.
Pre-sexualization is abhorrent. We live in an over-sexualized world, and we think that dressing our little girls up in bikinis is funny. But it is not. It is sick. Our world is prematurely exposing our kids to Halloween behavior. And when they act upon what they see and hear, we slap their hands. And when they become a victim, we tell them to be quiet. And when they become an offender, we gasp and say "what happened to them!?"
Oh, wow. We need those who, like you, can know about this sexual offenses... I would have never in a million years known the offender is victim, I always tend to think offenders sexualize themselves (for example, teens sneaking to read the wrong magazines, or watch movies at the back of their parents), but what if they have been done what now they are doing in return.
ReplyDeleteObviously I am so ignorant on this. I think it so worth to becoming knowledgeable, even if we are not affected by it now, or have been in the past. If we all were learned in all this, we will have an advantage to help others, or if it happens to us or close to us.