Elizabeth Smart: Abstinence Education Teaches Rape Victims They’re Worthless, Dirty, And Filthy

[LanternWaste]

Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”

Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”


http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/06/1967591/elizabeth-smart-abstinence-ed/

[patrice]

1. Yes! & It devalues the more positive experiences too, by trying to make them into something that

they are NOT necessarily: The. Ultimate. Whatever. - instead of a certain kind of live relationship between REAL people, not! fairy tale plaster saints.

[Dawson Leery]

2. Impressive.

[haikugal]

3. Damaged goods....

she is so right! Thanks for this post. We have so far to go in regard to women in our culture...not to mention sex and educating about sex. Thank our weird Xtian heritage.

[ismnotwasm]

4. Thank you for posting this

I'm glad she's speaking out

[LanternWaste]

5. although I don't have too many heroes alive in the here and now, Elizabeth Smart is one of them.

I was going to ad an editorial after the body of the story, but the office got in the way, and now I can't even remember what my point was or why I posted this.

Regardless, although I don't have too many heroes alive in the here and now, Elizabeth Smart is one of them. How she was able to come out of that ordeal with her emotions and her personality apparently none the worse for wear is simply beyond me.

It's wonderful that she's taking a proactive direction with her life-- building a positive world on the foundations of what may be the truest nightmare of so many people.

[ismnotwasm]

6. Yes

To go through what she did and come out--I want to use the word strong, because I don't know what other word to use, deserves tribute.

[seabeyond]

11. I am sure she has had a lot of help but to go from that girl to this

Woman, it is inspiring

[Milliesmom]

7. Pass this on to family and friends, it's a teaching event and well woth the few minutes it takes

http://www.upworthy.com/a-ted-talk-that-might-turn-every-man-who-watches-it-into-a-feminist-its-pretty-fantastic-7?c=upw1

[liberalmuse]

8. I have a lot of respect for her.

It's hard to convey how important what she's saying is to young Mormon women. Having been raised Mormon, we were taught to believe that a woman's sole worth was her virtue, and ability to bear and raise children. My mom used to tell my sister and I that she'd rather we ended up dead than lose our virginity. Once in a young women's church meeting, a rose was passed around and we were told to feel it, after we were done we were told the rose wasn't so pretty anymore and it was compared to our virtue. Ironically, it made my mom mad because she wondered how that made some of the girls there feel. You really are taught that your worth is based upon how "pure" you are when you marry.

[RVN VET]

9. She's the very epitome of beauty and courage.

You can see it in her smile and hear it in her words.

[JI7]

10. all evidence shows this is a failure but what Elizabeth Smart is showing

now is that it actually causes more harm outside of just people who want to have sex having sex with each other and what results from that.

[seabeyond]

12. When we get to the simple point that women are not giving and men getting

We will have made major strides forward.

[GeoWilliam750]

13. The agenda of the right right wing is

something like:

"I CAN TELL YOU WHAT TO DO, WHEN TO DO IT, AND HOW TO DO IT"

It cares little of people or decency, just more or less.

The left wing will have to find something greater than simply "no you won't"

To treat women as equal human beings may make themselves realtively less in their own minds.