Childhood entertainment about trauma, for other people

this was originally going to be a diary entry, but I thought there could be a discussion over it, potentially. I want to see what others have to say about it



saw a book the other day called "Groomed" in pink fancy font. with the tagline(?) "An uncle who went too far. A mother who didn't care. A little girl who waited years for justice", it made me feel sick. don't know exactly why. something felt really fetishistic(?) about it, I don't know the word. for people to gawk at. for people who like to rubberneck at this kind of thing. it felt gross, insincere, the cover made me feel sick. something about "too far" didn't feel right either and it stuck in my head.

I've noticed stuff like this before, all kinds of child abuse being sensationalised in fiction (and real life, but this post is about fiction). it makes me think about how especially CSA is often seen like something that never happens to you; as in, in your family / circle, terrible, but doesn't happen to "people like us", nobody you know... I dont know how to tie those ideas together though. but I wonder why some people enjoy it and why these kind of things in that tone are made, for people who never went through it before.

----------------
I could read a book about someone who had my trauma because it's lonely, I dont think it's bad to write fiction about someone who went through CSA, but I would not read a book like the one I said in the beginning, maybe it's not a bad book but I would not touch it because it feels slimy in how it showed itself, I feel bad for the stock photo girl on the front cover because there is something perverse about the idea of reading about her story, in the light that the cover depicts it.
if it werent insincere or sounding like an exhibit of some kind then I wouldn't feel weird about it, probably wouldnt read it, but it wouldnt freak me out.
but I have a very strong feeling of when I see similar things, of being looked at and probed in a way, being stared at and observed in a unsafe feeling way. I saw a term once it was "suffering porn" or something like that, I think it feels a bit like that. someone wants to consume you by getting those things out of you and watching. not necessarily in a sexual way though. I dont think it's very sexual even though I feel perverted in the hypothetical idea of me reading that book. but perversion isnt always sexual anyway.


thoughts?

This is why I don't watch a lot of TV or turn things off if it is just sensationalising trauma. There is so much of it in every entertainment media.

I used to work in an area that dealt with homicides, a long time ago. And that's the reason I don't watch films about murders. It's simply not entertainment.

So yes, it's sensational crap that isn't about education. It's all about entertainment.

If it's done in a sensitive way, centring the person who has gone through the trauma, then that is different.

That book you mention "groomed" sounds absolutely hideous.

Movingforward10 said:

This is why I don't watch a lot of TV or turn things off if it is just sensationalising trauma. There is so much of it in every entertainment media.

Click to expand...

yes, I don't have a tv and try to curate what I watch online a lot, or I get depressed.

Movingforward10 said:

It's simply not entertainment.

Click to expand...

Movingforward10 said:

So yes, it's sensational crap that isn't about education. It's all about entertainment.

Click to expand...

Ive always lived in fairly safe areas but there was/is a craze around real life crime/disasters and 101 people on youtube and stuff making entertainment about it, it puts a really bad taste in my mouth, you can tell when people are being educational vs appealing to morbid curiosity for entertainment. found it difficult to find coverage of a disaster that had happened near me a few years ago for example because there was a sea of people sensationalising it whose channel names all had something along the lines of "horror" or "morbid" in them.
I also went to a local craft store type place and there was an an embroidered thing for sale about "true crime" with blood and police tape etc. on it, made me angry, very distasteful gift and I think calling yourself a "true crime" fan is urm disturbing. it isnt entertainment especially when it's real life kids and people who had terrible thins happen to them. I dont know if there's much value evn in people repeatedly on mass covering the details of someone's murder, like they try to say there is. surely there is better use in sharing things like warning signs for abuse and other resources than doing that.

Movingforward10 said:

If it's done in a sensitive way, centring the person who has gone through the trauma, then that is different.

Click to expand...

yeah, there was a time where I could have got a lot of comfort or something out of a sensitive/tasteful/well done thing about something similar to what I went through, because being traumatised is lonely. but it's so hard to find and I cant be bothered anymore, burnt too many times, and in a better place now so don't feel trapped and alone.

Movingforward10 said:

That book you mention "groomed" sounds absolutely hideous.

Click to expand...

yeah that is a good word for it, made me feel hideous for sure and I just saw the cover

Ive seen the type of book you mean but usually as non fiction, was it fiction or was it like "a child called it" type thing? Cos obv that is read for "entertainment" but it is also a real persons account of their own life. But the cover of those books is also a bit ugh. But the cover has been chosen by the person who went through it so hey, who am i to judge?

I watch law and order svu as my comfort show and watch true crime stuff cos im interested in human pathopsychology. I dont think my interest or curiosity is based on minimising the real life impact of these things. I think you can be curious about how folks end up in those positions without it being weird and dismissive. But i am fussy about what things i watch tbf.

Obviously folks are more than free to have a different stance, just as someone who watches true crime and fictional law and order svu stuff, thats my thoughts.

excellent call, dark feathers. it is a dandy topic for group discussion.

if i were to publish the story of my life, i would fictionalize it for the sake of privacy for all the characters. i didn't care to publish it, but there was profound medicine in the writing. equally, i have found healing medicine in reading other people's stories, though they tend to trigger me hard enough that i keep the doses harshly limited.

Dark.Green.Feathers said:

it makes me think about how especially CSA is often seen like something that never happens

Click to expand...

i am not a fan of the entertainment genre, but i do think the problem needs to be brought out of the closet. i don't often buy or click or even talk about my experiences as a child prostitute, but i do believe a broader awareness is a good thing.

Dark.Green.Feathers said:

but perversion isnt always sexual anyway.

Click to expand...

i don't care to do the research, but i bet the vast majority of perversions are not sexual, not even when there is sex involved.

@Chris-duck @arfie

appreciate both your perspectives, too exhausted to reply at the moment but thanks

Another perspective on the value of books with PTSD related subjects:
i didnt think i had anything wrong with me except all of the things my religious narcissist parents laid on me until i had problems after ten years doing emt work, in other words i didnt know about ptsd much less think i suffered from cptsd until y2k or so, 30 years after i probably did.
my favorite books were catch 22, slaughterhouse 5, a farewell to arms and various other works with a theme of ptsd running through all of them. it was a subject i could relate to 25 years before diagnosis. these books draw from the personal experiences of the writers without revealing that they do. Hemingway worked as a combat medic in ww1 (a farewell to arms) and vonnegut survived the bombing of dresden in ww2 (slaughterhouse 5)joe heller flew 60 bombing missions in that (catch 22)
Sophisticated nuance gets the story across without making PTSD the story. The closest words used to describe ptsd were “shell shock” when these books were written. i wasnt aware i was a sufferer and i was not a victim of warfare ( i was 14 when i read catch 22) but the value of the writing was that it reached a cptsd suffering kid loud and clear and gave me words to describe my feelings:”What if everyone felt that way Yossarian?” “then I’d be a damned fool to feel any differently wouldnt I?” Nailed it for me at 14 as a family scapegoat only because i was in a family that was being sucked into a cult straight out of the 1840’s after my mother died suddenly and i wasnt ready to lose every other aspect of my previously normal life to a false prophet from 125 years prior.
Maybe the books you described are just fluffy and cheap appeals to a sensationalist book seeking reader to buy them, maybe they can make a suffering kid understand that it is them, not us. I dont know where the book you describe falls on that continuum but it MIGHT be of value to someone. probably not the pulitzer or nobel prize committees but possibly someone like me that desperately needed to know that a negatively received reaction to a trauma doesn't mean it is wrong or sick or a sign of weakness. who are we to judge?
Amendment 1 to the constitution says they can write it but it doesnt stop us from burning it, just the government.
“Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time” Kurt Vonnegut nailed it too.

I haven’t thought it through completely, but I think possibly it’s better that there are folks writing about it (even if they’re doing a shit job of it) than if no one was writing about it at all.

That doesn’t mean I need to read it myself. And gawd knows that if I stumble onto one more “DID-sufferer is a serial killer” plot twist then I may blow some blood vessels in critical areas of my brain.

But, I’d rather there’s people writing about it badly than not at all. And…not bothering to read it myself.