Hi, my name is Arlene. I was sexually abused at age of 5 by my mother’s boyfriend. 

I can remember him sitting me on his legs and he would start to kiss me on my mouth, I remember while that was happening thinking “this is how adults kissed on movies or TV”, this happened several times as far I can remember. 

I’m not sure if he did something else to me or if I just blocked those memories, but what I DO KNOW is how this affected my whole life, with depression, anxiety, no self esteem, people pleasing, trauma response and a lot more trauma. 

No one taught me about body boundaries or private body parts, but I was exposed as a little child to see how adults kissed on the mouth with tongue, etc. on TV and movies (not porn). 

Family members, adults who took care of me and my siblings did not pay attention to the fact that there were scenes with sexual content in movies and TV series that a child should not be exposed to.  This made me believe that any one could kiss me on my mouth in a very sexual way and it was something normal. 

It is worth mentioning that over the years my sister disclosed to me, she had also been sexually abused on several occasions by two different people.

Years later, I disclosed it to some family members, including my mom but they all minimized my abuse which put me in a deep and cyclical depression.

My something to say is this: 

PARENTS / ADULTS PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, do not expose your children to sexual content on TV series or movies, please be very careful with the things that they watch on TV and social media.  

Let’s educate our children on body boundaries and private parts and let’s STOP child sexual abuse to make sure our children will have a mentally healthy life in their adulthood.