abuse

I just read a pamphlet, a sort of testimonial, about sexual abuse and how victims can recover from it. The author had been abused by her father from the age of four to puberty. When she had tried to tell her mother about it as a girl, her mother had refused to believe her--so she repressed it all until over ten years into her marriage. Then the memories started to come back and it was downhill from there. She discussed how she went through her healing process, of the counseling and the support of friends and family--her husband was amazing, I tell ya--and how she was finally able to forgive both of her parents. Made me cry.

But this makes me angry at the same time. Why does no one ever address the situation of abuse coming from a peer? Especially in this booklet, the author says that victims are powerless and are unable to stop the violence from the abuser. And yet, what if the victim had the power to stop the abuser, but didn't...? Does that make the victim not a victim? What then? Is then the receiver of the abuse not abused? And what if the abuse is not violent? Is it then not classified as abuse? Does this make the victim an enabler--just as guilty as the initiator of the abuse? And what if the victim, after awhile, initiates the act(s)? Does this void the abuse factor?