A Fight to Maintain Dignity

One of the geatest factors in every human life is the need to maintain a true sense of dignity. That is, a sense that one is important in their own right and therefore deservant of respect. It’s a sense that most struggle to maintain and brings with it a sense of well being, no matter what the circumstance may be. However, unfotunately, the maintainence  of dignitiy on the part of far to many, is not always that easy. In fact, for some it’s a daily battle, often unseen or detected by the average public. It’s to one of these unseens struggles this article will draw its attention.

Regretably, many in our society  are psychologically and emotionally abused by mates who impringe upon them to perform sexual acts which they find disgusting and repugnant. They often argue to them that it’s part of some sort of new sexual freedom and should be consented to in the name of love. If you love me, they argue  to their victims, you’ll do what I ask gladdly. They pressure them with guilt by asserting that their reluctance to engage in these acts is a sign that they don’t love them or are involved with another. In short, the recipient of this type of harrassment is often presssured to the point where they reluctantly submit to the act and in so doing actively participate in their own abuse.

The perpertrators of these acts often care very little about the harm they’re are doing to their victims they refer to as their loved ones. The immense pain they witness their victims display tends not to move them. They take great pleasure in the fact that they were able to get a human being to indulge in a practice that most others would not contemplate doing.

The vicitim him or herself, suffers immensenly from this type of treatment with severe feelings of demorilization and humiliation. They live in horror afraid of when they will be called upon next to repeat the offensive acts. The struggle to maintain their personal sense of dignity, the sense that they are good and worthwhile human beings, becomes characterized by repeated failure. The acts they are harrassed into performing becomes too much of a barrier for them to continue to look upon themselves as positive and worthwhile human beings. Therefore, they suffer.

This type abuse has been going on some time in and outside our society. Some would argue that its been around since the dawn of time. It’s victims are not only women, but men as well. Everyday they carry around the secret that the ones who claim that they love them, repeatedly take it upon themselves to humiliate them with the claim that such is merely an expression of love that they should submit to. Everyday these victims struggle to make moral sense of themselves. They try to weave together a positive self image of themselves that can withstand the shame they experience by way of the acts they are forced into participating in. In short, their’s is a constant struggle to maintain dignity that is routinely ripped from them by supposed lovers.