Press Release

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Press is proud to announce publication of an important new book as part of its ongoing commitment to examining issues of violence, culture and survival. Because I Love You - The Silent Shadow of Child Sexual Abuse was introduced at Charlottesville's Virginia Festival of the Book in March 2002.

Authored by Joyce Allan, a psychotherapist and psychiatric nurse with 37 years of professional experience, Because I Love You recounts a five-generation history of sexual abuse within an otherwise normal extended American family. Presented in the form of a compelling memoir, rich in visual warmth and informed by the expertise of a child activist, it shows how it is silence that creates the "ecology of child sexual abuse."

"This is the first book which reports on the beliefs and values which underlie secret-keeping not only by survivors, but also by their friends, family and community." explains Allan. "When I began to uncover the extent of my father's pedophilia, to realize that my own children and countless others had been his victims, I saw that this was a story which no one had explored."

Over five hundred thousand children are sexually abused annually. By age eighteen it has affected the bodies, emotions and spirits of one in three girls, one in seven boys. Most studies agree that between 22% and 30% of Americans have been victims of such assaults.

"Both the scope and the larger context of sexual abuse remain hidden," says Allan, "because of people's shame and fear. In 1995 the American Medical Association named child sexual abuse a silent national epidemic, and in 2001 the Surgeon General noted how our national difficulty discussing sexual issues directly contributes to the problem.

"Breaking our social silence around this topic has the potential to make remarkable changes in individuals' mental health, in family relationships, and also in the tremendous medical, legal and social service costs of child sexual abuse," the author asserts. "Ultimately the audience for my book is everyone who knows and cares about a victim or a perpetrator, and everyone who is concerned about the emotional, physical and spiritual safety of all our children."

Because I Love You dramatically illustrates how silence-keeping becomes the primary medium for the spread of sexual abuse. It offers clear guidance, including both a website and a list of suggestions, for how readers might begin actively to speak."

About Child Sexual Abuse [CSA]*

• CSA spreads primarily because of community and family silence.
• Abusers actively rely on our silence to give them access to sexually abuse children.
  
• Our own shyness or embarrassment with each other about sexual behaviors keeps us from talking, both with one another, as well as with adults who may be abusing.
  
• Awareness of the vast scope of CSA has emerged only in the last 20 years. Five hundred thousand children are sexually abused each year. In 1995 the American Medical Association designated CSA a national silent epidemic.
  
• Despite Megan's Law the majority of cases are never reported because most abuse is by a person the child knows and trusts.
  
• Between 30% and 50% of all abusers are under the age of 18.
  
• If they want to change, child sexual abusers who get specialized treatment may be able to stop abusing. Abusers who receive the motivation, watchfulness and support of family and friends are the ones most likely to complete treatment and live abuse-free lives.

About Because I Love You - The Silent Shadow of Child Sexual Abuse:

• Examines each of the above CSA factors within the context of a single "normal" American family, tracing five generations of abuse facilitated by community silence.
  
• Researches the life of the author's pedophile father, including his 40 years of violating children within and outside his family.
  
• Documents the emotional, spiritual, social, and economic costs of sexual abuses, directly caused by silence-keeping, across the lives of dozens of victim/survivors.
  
• Explores explicit reasons for our society's unacknowledged habit of keeping silent about abusers we know and child victims of abuse whom we know.
  
• Recounts the history of our country's slow-dawning awareness of CSA within the context of a child psychiatric nurse/therapist's 35-year career.
  
• Offers important new information to academics, clinicians, curriculum designers, victim/survivors of child sexual abuse, and - most important - to our mainstream cultural conversation.
  
• Reads as a compelling compassionate nonfiction memoir and detective narrative.
  
• Utilizes fine art, photographs and unique layout to create pause-points, inviting the reader to absorb, dwell and reflect upon the challenges CSA poses for all of us.
  
• Moves beyond the current punitive legal/medical models to suggest a systems-based public health solution to CSA that both supports abusers to change yet prioritizes the protection of children - a solution based on the crucial act of silence-breaking.
  
• Includes a webpage resource promoting these goals.
  
• Retail price: $19 - order from Sacred Source Distributing, tel: 800-290-6203 or Independent Publisher's Group, tel: 800-888-4741
  

*Source: STOP IT NOW! Handbook, The Safer Society Press, Brandon, VT, tel: 802-247-3132