I was abused... my thoughts

I was abused as a child. I haven't seen all of hounddog yet but I saw the scene in question after hearing about it so I could make an "informed" comment.

Movies that depict child rape or abuse are not necessarily bad- sometimes they do educate people on what really happens, how requently things happen, etc... Other times, if the movie is ultimately about survival and the strength of the human spirit, they can give survivors of abuse and cruelty a feeling of hope.

That said, while physical abuse of a child on screen is bad enough to watch, ACTING physical abuse doesn't have the same psychological impact on the actors as sexual. Simply acting out a rape can be traumatic, because the child actor, if they want to act convincingly, has to put themselves, at least mentally, in a situation in which they "are" being raped. This is why I think the rape scene is unnecessary- the story can still have the reality of the rape in it, but to show it in detail (even just showing the face can be upsetting for people who have lived through abuse and can cause SOME psychos to be aroused). I understand why some people think the rape scene is just acting and not a big deal. I know it is acting. And I know children face horrible things in real life too, and to make movies where no child is ever depicted as living through anything horrible would eradicate not just movies like Houndog, but also Schindler's List, I am David, Radio Flyer.... and that would be a shame because these stories do need to be told. But filming a child who is acting being raped puts the child actor in the difficult position of not only having to face the reality of the event itself, but also they identify with the character and therefor identify with, subconsciously, what they are acting out.

To put it bluntly, and to rephrase it in non-sexual terms... if a parent "acts" to be dead to scare a child, and the child believes it and freaks out, it is still abuse, even though the parent is "only" acting. Now, people will say DF wasn't being tricked and knew she was acting, but subconsciously I think that simply "acting" a certain way can have a psychological impact that is negative (however slight). If I "pretend" to be a serial killer, say, for long enough, I'll become a little screwy. If parents want a child that is the opposite sex and the child "acts" like the opposite sex to please the parents, that will eventually become ingrained in the personality. Even if you only act a certain way... if you do it long enough (or are sensitive) it becomes part of you. Every self help book teaches this. If you want to overcome depression, even though you don't feel happy, you act happy- you preten you're happy. You do things you used to like. In short you lie to yourself to help retrain your brain and change your neurochemistry. If you act or pretend to be a victim or a pervert or a killer long enough, you change. Robert Englund is different now; decades of playing Freddy will do that. I am a horror movie fanatic and *I* will admit I am desensitized to violence and no longer scared by the worst gore (something I didn't plan on when I irst started watching them). And for the record, a lot of illegal chil porn doesn't necessarily have children doing overtly sexual things, but they might dress up, act coy, act a certain way... sexual abuse can occur without any touching, it can be mentally abusive in a sexual way. And coaching a child to act like a rape victim in a Hollywood movie is no different, in my mind, than when some child molesters request a child to act a certain way (such as Jeremiah acting "coy" in The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things)... if any of you have seen the movie "Running Scared" a couple of perverts are making money from simply dressing kids up in different costumes... its a very fine line Hollywood is walking and while they have the right to try and walk it, they should be careful. Sorry for how long this is.