When I delivered my victim impact statement after Maxwell's sentencing, I nearly shouted. I talked about my emotional health, my physical health, how this derailed my life. I wanted to project my voice so that no one in that courtroom could ignore what I was saying.
I was in a domestic violence relationship where we were trying to become parents. We were doing IVF, trying adoption, and woven through all of that was a decade of domestic violence.
Words such as 'relationship,' 'affair,' 'involvement,' or 'seeing each other' imply mutuality and consent. In the context of child sexual abuse, these implications are false. A child cannot legally or developmentally consent to sexual activity with an adult. Describing abuse using relational language risks distorting the inherent power imbalance and shifting perceived responsibility away from the adult perpetrator.
