Walking home from the pub on Christmas Eve, my blood suddenly ran cold.This always happens when someone uses childhood sexual abuse (CSA) as a cheap gag. But to have a family member make light of such a topic – especially in a conversation about why I will never have children – hurt even more.‘At least if you don’t want kids, you never need to worry about you being a paedophile, eh?’ they’d quipped.To them it was a ‘meaningless joke’. But for me, it triggered a series of nightmares that loomed over me for the rest of the Christmas period.The punchline brought me back to the worst years of my life, torturing me with vivid flashbacks and night terrors.So while I’ve long made peace with my decision not to have kids – it would kill me to see them go through what I endured as a child – I’m tired of pretending to accept these jokes.I’m not being sensitive. These kinds of comments normalise abuse. Perpetuating them contributes to the epidemic of CSA that allows 1 in 4 children to become victi...
