On Wednesdays, the support group meets over Zoom. The members talk about their lives, their religious families and their old parochial schools. But mostly, they are there to talk about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Catholic nuns.

The topic deserves more attention, they say. The sexual abuse of children by Catholic sisters and nuns has been overshadowed by far more common reports of male clergy abuse. Women in religious orders have also been abuse victims — but they have been perpetrators too.

“We’ve heard so much about priests who abuse and so little about nuns who abuse that it’s time to restore the balance,” said the group’s founder, Mary Dispenza, herself a former nun, in a speech to abuse survivors last year.

Dispenza, who endured abuse from both a childhood priest and a nun in her former order, started the online support group five years ago with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. More victims had been contacting her in the wake of #MeToo, as they reassessed past sexual abuse. She has since seen a growing awareness of abusive nuns at former Catholic orphanages and Native American boarding schools.

  • harderian729@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    A lot of it is because males are way less likely to regret having sex at an early age than females.

    People who like to ignore reality will try to focus on exceptions as though they are rules, but that’s just what they are: exceptions.

    • JoBo@feddit.uk
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      4 months ago

      This is absolute bullshit and you haven’t even read the fucking article. The nuns did not exclusively abuse boys any more than the priests exclusively abused girls. And no, boys are not more likely to welcome their abuse. Fuck the fuck off with this toxic nonsense.

      You cannot derive reality from inside your own head. Read more, spout less bullshit.

    • hazeebabee@slrpnk.net
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      4 months ago

      There are definetly social pressures that make male victims of sexual assult less likely to come forward and speak out about their abuse – but is still abuse and many adult survivers have to deal with life long effects of that kind of trauma.

      And its not an exception for CSA survivors to be upset about the abuse they suffered, regardless of gender. Idk where you got that opinion, but it seems super off to me.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah I don’t care if a child is fine that they were molested. If it’s wrong to do it to a girl it’s wrong to do it to a boy