First of all, I want to congratulate myself for reading through this whole blog the very first time. It does, of course, stir up certain feelings, but I am sitting better with them at this moment. Joanna, I have felt sexualized by the male gender since I was a young child. I have a memory of sitting on my gfathers lap and realizing that he was making strange noises as he shifted my weight around on his lap (area). I remember thinking the noises were weird to me, but not until years later when this memory surfaced did I realized what those noises probably were. Due to the years that I was sexually abused, I learned that sex is all I was good for. I could be quite the tease growing up. I enjoyed making men excited. I especially used this to my advantage when I was a bartender in my 20's. I took as much emotional advantage of the men as they did with me. It was fun, yet scary, because, unless I was drunk or high, I was too fearful to actually go through with all of the promises of my teasing. I remember feeling that if they gave me a tip (despite the fact that I was working for it by serving them food and drink), that I owed them something. Really!? But through all of this, I felt it was so natural to me to be doing this, to be acting like a whore, (someone I certainly was not!) Once I got clean and slowed my drinking way down, I realized what was all around me..men are awful, dirty, insincere, terrible, inhuman creatures. I don't trust that any man has a single pure thought in their brains or hearts. Growing up, I felt like all adult males had one single agenda for me. I didn't want to upset them. So I even flirted with my adult male relatives. I wanted to see them happy. It was who I was, the little girl who had sex with her grandfather. The little girl who never told her parents, who went back for more each week. The little girl who easily could have climbed into bed with her grandmother instead of getting into her grandfather's bed (they slept in separate rooms). I must have wanted it, right? Of course, now I say NO! But yes, I have voiced guilt. As an adult, and as a mother of two young girls, I can almost see where the abuse was not my fault and that the adults responsible for these horrid acts were to blame. The only residual guilt I have left is wondering why I didn't tell anyone or why I kept putting myself in that situation. I don't think I asked for it in words, but I think to the sick mind of my abusers, I must have not minded it at all. I hate men. I really do. tracy