#ted

The discovery that detonated Cleveland is one of Britain’s great contributions to awareness of child abuse. In 1986 and 1987 the Leeds paediatricians Dr Jane Wynne and Dr Christopher Hobbs reported in the Lancetthat they were seeing more children who were being buggered than battered. About 300 cases were corroborated. The children were young – two-thirds were pre-school children – and anal abuse was more common than vaginal penetration. They also noted that ‘boys and girls seem to be at similar risk’. Almost half of the children who suffered anal abuse also showed a sign written up in the forensic textbooks as ‘anal dilation’, an anus opening when it was supposed to stay shut; opening and expecting entry. What the paediatricians were observing was not an acute sign, the effect of a single intrusion – a spasm or seizure – but a sign that was telling a story about everyday life; the anatomy of adaption. Anal dilation seemed to describe the architecture of abuse: it allowed the body to receive an incoming object, regularly. ↗

— Beatrix Campbell

#abusers #britain #child-abuse #cleveland #coercion

The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. The Professor watched me critically. "That will do," he said. "Already?" I remonstrated. "You took a great deal more from Art." To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied, "He is her lover, her fiance. You have work, much work to do for her and for others, and the present will suffice. ↗

— Bram Stoker

#art

There is no beauty without some strangeness ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#misattributed-to-poe #misquote #beauty

Life without a phone is riskier, lonelier, more vivid. ↗

— Eloisa James

#phones #technology #technology-addiction #love

Only God may be adored, because only God is unlimited goodness, truth, and beauty, and thus only God deserves unlimited love. ↗

— Peter Kreeft

#beauty #catholicism #christianity #god #goodness

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914) ↗

— John Muir

#being #connectedness #environment #existence #exuberance

Do you still look at each other like you once did, back at the beginning of the story when everything was a question you were too afraid to find the answer to? ↗

— Alethea Kontis

#enchanted #love #marriage #sunday-woodcutter #love

I think women are sexy when they got some clothes on. And if later they take them off then you've triumphed. Somebody once said it's what you dont see you're interested in, and this is true. ↗

— Groucho Marx

#interested #men #nudity #sex #women

Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They were far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#cage #hawk #miles-vorkosigan #unrequited-love #warrior-s-apprentice

People who sell bolts and nuts and locomotives and frozen orange juice make billions, while the people who struggle to bring a little beauty into the world, give life a little meaning, they starve. --"$10,000 A Year, Easy ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#money #twisted-logic #beauty