One thing that I’ve noticed when I post any of my drawings that include children is how much FEWER impressions and engagements I get on those drawings. People don’t hit ‘like’ on them as much, the views drop dramatically, and nobody seems to want to engage with the write-ups I do that accompany those drawings. Many of which actually address WHY I’m posting them to begin with.
Now, I can’t say for certain why this is. Could it just be embarrassment? Could it be not wanting to associate oneself with the strange stigma that childhood nakedness elicits in today’s society? Or could it be something a little bit deeper? Could it be an association with past trauma that such imagery can possibly bring about? The largest possibility is that the answer to all these questions is, “yes”. That it’s a combination of all of the above. Because as much as I try and show that things can be so, so much different, the reality is that we’ve dug ourselves a horrible hole in our culture in regards to childhood nakedness and the traumas that can surround it.
Which brings me to something I’ve talked about before. Thankfully, to date, I have had very little negative feedback to my artwork in regards to youth and nakedness. I think generally, due to what I usually have to say and the fact that my subject matter is tasteful and innocent, MOST people can see what I’m trying to achieve, and even if they don’t tend to engage positively, they don’t engage negatively either… with one major exception. Near the beginning of my venture into these lineart drawings, I received a message from a person I was close to. They proceeded to attack me pretty hard on what they considered to be “creepy” and “distasteful” imagery, which was specifically naked adults interacting with naked children (even if it was innocent and natural). After trying to explain my purpose and intent, and receiving nothing but insults and accusations, I suggested that maybe this person might want to delve into WHY they were so angry and combative about the subject. That’s when all hell broke loose, and the conversation ended.
That reaction suggests, to me, that I kind of hit the nail on the head… and it’s not uncommon. It’s kind of built into us in our culture. Instead of confronting our emotions, our trauma, and working towards discovery and healing, we tend to double down on it. We get defensive. We get combative. We chalk it up to “building character’. We try to tell ourselves that “anything that doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’… but it’s all bullshit. It’s all a way of masking our fear and pain so we don’t seem weak and vulnerable. Yet the ‘stronger’ we get, the weaker we actually are.
The traumas we suffer as children, especially, are ridiculously hard to come to terms with. Most of the time we aren’t given the tools or methods we need to even begin, especially when we are STILL children. Even counselling and therapy often fails to truly tackle the problem. There is too much focus on ‘getting over it’ and not enough on confronting and accepting and changing. This generally leads to becoming an adult that never focuses on being better, but merely blaming and deflecting and hiding. It leads to adults that, 50 years after having trauma, still suffer from it and have been raised to believe that it will NEVER stop affecting them negatively.
I was seeing a child therapist briefly when I was in my 20s, and still trying to figure out where I sat on the relationship/dating spectrum. A relative of mine, when we were visiting them, once asked him out of the blue if it was “True or not that when you are sexually assaulted as a child, you never grow up after that.” After the initial shock of that question, the therapist calmly stated that while some people might not be able to let go, that it was hardly a given and that anyone telling you otherwise shouldn’t be practicing mental health…. yet it resonated with me, because out of all the therapists I’ve ever seen, NONE of them ever really tried to help me confront my trauma. They all just wanted me to focus on other things (and one just wanted to hear countless detailed descriptions of my abuse). They all just wanted me to forget it and move on… but that’s not how our brain works, and I happen to know that that attitude is still FAR too prevalent in the mental health profession.
So, is it any wonder that so many people in our culture react so negatively to images of childhood nakedness? So many of us suffered childhood abuse and trauma and so many of us have NEVER fully confronted it. So it’s no shock to me really, once I put my thought to it, that this inability to grow from our trauma comes out in negative reactions to otherwise innocent imagery. We tend to project our fears and discomfort on everything we see, even if there’s no actual ill intent there. It’s kind of why it’s so easy to manipulate people with accusations and dishonesty, because we are PRIMED to react due to our experiences that we’ve never healed.
So I believe it was with this person that attacked me for my artwork. There is some obvious fear and discomfort and trauma hidden there that came out when they saw my work, and my hope is that one day this person can find a way to confront and heal from that…. but it’s not my place to send them in that direction. However, I do hope that anyone reading this that also has trauma and hasn’t found a way to begin dealing with it might start to think about it. It’s not an easy path. Our mental health system is woefully inept, but it’s an important step to just even consider that thrusting it aside is never going to heal you. Especially if that trauma occurred in your childhood. You don’t have to live in fear and pain for the rest of your life. You CAN confront and face it. You CAN heal and grow. You CAN use it as a force to be a better and stronger person…
But you have to want to, and you have to start to realize that your trauma isn’t everyone’s trauma. That your experiences don’t make the entire world a hostile place for everyone.. You don’t get to attack people because your past led you down some dark roads. You didn’t build character. You didn’t become stronger. You aren’t a hero.
It’s time to face it, and grow.