The Snarky Humanist

When I was ten years old, I visited my best friend who had moved to another state some years ago. One night, we were sleeping in the living room and I woke up to see her father sitting next to me, staring at me. I instinctively knew I was in danger, so I shifted my body a bit so he would know I wasn’t asleep. It worked, and he left. I didn’t tell anyone. I was old enough to understand what had (almost) happened, but not old enough to know how to handle it. Many years later, he was arrested for molesting a young girl. I felt partly responsible – would that have happened if I had spoken up all those years ago? 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;   Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident; During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized; Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17