Trigger Warning: Talking Honestly Through Child Sex Crime
We we identify as the Wayfarers and we introduce you now as another one of the Wayfarers and it and it comes from an idea of.
Well, the reason why we picked it is is is the idea of being a lifelong learner and that you're never landing on really on anything but constantly in search for.
Growth, progress and those types of things. And it stems from also this theologian from the the group that we're affiliated with he identified as a wayfarer's theology.
Which is to never be fixed, to constantly be open to to new things and new, you know, new changes and and and openness. And he identified that in conjunction with being a Church of dissidents.
And I really liked that because that's definitely been our journey of being dissidents and being heretics in virtually every group that we've been a part of, including my, my, my last.
Faith community, as it were, as a prosecutor, and I really did find prosecution being a little cult as I as I got out of it. So that's.
So, So what we what we said as our tagline is, is that we are interested in fruits, not faith and ideas over beliefs, and that we talk through the issues rather than talking around the issues.
And I thought that's a really particularly good framing for when it comes to sex, death, drugs and violence.
Carli Moncher 3:14
Thanks.
Oh.
Kristin Long 3:23
And so our topic today will jump in with sex, sex, consent and child sexual abuse. And So what better, what better person to come and talk about these topics than what we call, Hillary, a.
What is an SM? Subject matter expert. SM. SM. Yeah, SM. SM. SM. Oh, that would be with an I. That was with the I started going down. I did start saying SMI cause I was.
Carli Moncher 3:50
I thought you meant seriously, mentally ill. I was like, wow, that's different.
Kristin Long 3:59
He's called me, Carly. He's called me a lot of things before, but not that.
Carli Moncher 4:04
Yeah, I've been called worse, so.
Kristin Long 4:06
But Carly is our is our subject matter expert on topics that are so avoided and misunderstood, and that is child sexual abuse.
And so let's dig in. I thought I'd start with a couple things. First, what and anyone can jump in as as well, but but Makara, the first one's for you is if you started point to a couple of just the.
So one of the prevailing myths and misunderstandings about child sexual abuse. What would be just one?
Carli Moncher 4:50
I think the first one that comes to mind is that any victim of CSA or child sexual abuse is going to run Intel right away.
And that we know over and over and over again is just not the case.
Kristin Long 5:09
Yeah, the one that I thought about is that.
People don't appreciate just how common and how prevalent and how many people they know have that experience and will never tell, have never tell, told and may never told. So we're here now.
Talking about telling, talking. So approximately how many kids have you talked to about these types of subjects?
Carli Moncher 5:49
Um.
Somewhere in the in the thousands. I don't know the exact number anymore.
Kristin Long 5:56
You haven't kept kept track of that, I take it.
Carli Moncher 5:59
Not anymore. There was a time in place.
Kristin Long 6:01
Yeah. And then the other so, so.
The concept or the the idea of telling, talking, you know, in our family we have, we have a mantra, a rule that is everyone in the home gets to think their thoughts, feel their feelings.
And talk about the thoughts that they think and the feelings that they feel. And that was something that I I learned in part from you and other people about how important it is to make that a a principle and to to make sure that kids at a very early age.
Carli Moncher 6:29
Mm.
Kristin Long 6:43
Are free to do that. And you know, people know my some people here know my daughter. She's never been real shy. And yet there's been times when I've shut them down, shut her down and and she'll remind me, hey.
I thought we get to think our thoughts and talk about our thoughts and that's right, we we get to do that. So now before we get into some of the other things, the other thing I wanted to talk about for a second is.
This idea for the.
Maybe if it's what you all think about the idea that I've heard. So I want to run a want to run it by you about the idea that.
Acute and severe childhood trauma, and especially things like childhood sexual abuse, is a numinous or a spiritual experience.
I just use a word I know that can be loaded for some people, so I'd love to get just anyone's impression about the use of that word and the concept of child sexual abuse as a spiritual experience.
Carli Moncher 8:03
I would say that specific term ruffles my feathers a little bit. Um.
I would use the terminology maybe spiritual trauma or spiritual damage, spiritual inflection.
Kristin Long 8:19
Mhm.
And I've heard and I've heard spiritual injury and even spiritual emergency.
Carli Moncher 8:22
Virtual experience.
Mhm.
Mhm.
Kristin Long 8:32
Well, when I hear, when I hear spiritual, I do think of identity it because these can be kind of this identity crisis. So it's a spiritual in like finding themselves, it does present an injury a.
An obstacle. And the what I how I heard it from it was actually a oh shoot, end of life doc. Oh, hospice. Was it palliative care? Oh, I think, I think, yeah, palliative care.
Carli Moncher 8:58
Hmm.
Hospice.
Mhm.
Kristin Long 9:07
Who who who worked worked in that area and she talked about the idea of spirituality simply being about person, about identity and personal work and coming to an understanding of reality and one's existence.
And the relationship between their self, their being and another person or their environment or reality. And from that perspective that helped me at least say, OK, I I I also bristled when I heard that.
And and but with that context, I thought, OK, that makes sense to me because when a kid especially experiences something very, very traumatic, very impactful, especially something like a sex crime.
That just fundamentally changes their sense of self, their sense of who I can trust, who I can't trust, what a parent is, what a love, what a loved one is.
It's really connection with all and it's and so often it affects one's relationship with their taught or perceived deity, God or religious.
Community. So what? What are your thoughts on on that?
Carli Moncher 10:32
Yeah.
I think given the context, it's I can understand where it's coming from. I think my concern is that people will interpret that word or misinterpret that word experience as it's not so bad.
It's just an experience like every other childhood experience that helps to shape you and.
Kristin Long 10:52
Mm.
And I'm feeling a little different about it when you said spiritual experience.
Related to child sexual abuse, I'm thinking, oh, where's Matt going with this? Is he SSI? Yeah. So I thought, OK, well, spiritual experience to me is always positive.
So child sexual abuse is negative. And I'm thinking, OK, maybe maybe Matt's thinking spiritual experience means when you feel something, you're not really sure where it's coming from. So in other words.
If you're experiencing something spiritual, you're you're maybe thinking you're receiving inspiration. This kind of overcoming you is you're not. You've never experienced this before, so you're trying to process it. And what it is, it's a negative. It's the opposite of what you think spiritually.
Is, but it's ...
