I have personally known three people that were sexually used by their parents as children.
Two were boys, the sex started around the age of 9 and there was no issue of "recovered" memory; everything was consciously experienced and rememberd. One of these boys grew up to be just fine; the other was, I would say, pretty much undone psychologically and sexually.
One was a girl who was raped at the age of 5 by her father. This did come up as a recovered memory, but we know it was true, because her father admitted to it.
All three men were respected, professionals -- an architect, a doctor, an artist -- none suffered one moment of punishment or censure for what they did and in one instance, it may be the case that no punishment was deserved.
Back to "faith" -- most children (I'm trying hard not to say all children) idealize their parents and are far more likely to protect them and to excuse any kind of behavior than to seek revenge through false accusations. The hardest part of abuse is the part where the child internalizes the interests of the abuser to the point where they start to see themselves as deserving abuse...of whatever sort. This is much more the psyhcological tendency than one of blaming/accusing.
My sister works with abused kids. I hear a lot about this.
Joanna
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> On 10/20/06, Jesse Lemisch <utopia1 at attglobal.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages at gmail.com>
>> > Suppose that one day a woman (or a man) accuses you of raping her (or
>> > him) or sexually harassing her (or him) or whatever. Am I supposed to
>> > believe the accuser automatically?
>>
>> This is an astoundingly retrograde way of dealing with this issue,
>> utterly
>> uninformed by feminist views. It's a cartoon version of every charge of
>> rape/molestation.
>
>
> Anyone can be potentially accused of anything, if no evidence aside
> from an accusation is necessary. Sometimes, accusers are telling the
> truth; sometimes, accusers are consciously lying; sometimes, accusers
> have talked themselves into believing what is not true. The
> difficulty of discerning the truth exists whether accusers are male or
> female, whether the accused are male or female. Courts exist to sort
> out competing claims to truth. If accusations alone sufficed to
> determine guilt or innocence, we would not need any court.
> Encouraging automatic faith in the words of accusers is not good for
> civil liberties, which ought to be a concern for those who are
> critical of Stalin's political repression.
>
>> But the following
>> constiutes a dismissal of the whole issue, and with no evidence of any
>> acquaintance with Bettina Aptheker's book. I
>
>
> If you haven't noticed, I'm questioning faith in "recovered memory" in
> general, not just any particular "recovered memory."
>
> About Bettina Aptheker's claim that her father raped her or any other
> claim like that made by anyone else _based on "recovered memory"_, I
> can be at most agnostic, for I do not have faith in "recovered
> memory."