storyRecently, while doing some internet surfing, I read an article on Pamela Anderson that had me be like “Wow, that’s horrible. And makes a lot of sense, actually.” It was a story that revealed the fact that she had been molested for a lot of her childhood and raped as well.

Here’s an excerpt from People.com:

“I did not have an easy childhood. Despite loving parents, I was molested from age six by a female babysitter,” Anderson, 46, said at the Cannes Film Festival event, which she attended with husband Rick Salomon, according to The Daily Mail.

Six years later, the former Baywatch star had her first “heterosexual experience” when a board game with an acquaintance went too far.

“I went to a friend’s boyfriend’s house and his older brother decided to teach me backgammon, which led into a back massage, which led into rape,” she said. “He was 25 years old and I was 12.”

After a boyfriend “decided it would be funny to gang-rape me with six friends,” Anderson admitted she “wanted off this earth,” reports Radar Online – until her love of animals helped her heal.

As someone who was also molested (by a male family member), sexually assaulted in high school (and the Christian school faculty actually tried to get me to cover it up-don’t get me started) and then date raped by an ex-boyfriend, my heart goes out to Pamela. In fact, it reminds me of the famous quote “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” For years, there may have been things that she did or said that seemed, overly-sexualized, yet don’t those pieces to the puzzle help to shed some light? I know that they do for me.

I have said before that if we took the time to interview most of the people in the porn industry—both in front of and behind the cameras—we would probably be floored by some of their past experiences that have led to their present-day choices. Yet the reality is that if we knew a lot of what our own family members have been through, even and on some levels especially sexually, we’d be able to understand them a lot better too.

I’ll use my father as an example. Although I always felt loved by him, he also seemed to be very hurt—kind of like a wounded or neglected animal. Sometimes, he would be very affectionate and sometimes he would call me in a drunken rage. Never towards me, always about others.

As I got older, I realized that while my father was a “functional substance abuser” and he did some form of drug or drank alcohol most of his life. And although he was very committed to his AA group in his later years, there were times when he would still “fall of the wagon”. Including the two weeks leading up to his death. His tragic death last March.

And you know what? It was some of the final conversations that we had that helped make a lot of his pain make more sense. Including him telling me that he was actually raped when he was younger. He was raped. I was raped. Hmph. And you know what? I’ve had four abortions. Do you know who else had the same amount? His mother.

And yet so many of my family members go to church every weekend and even hold leadership positions but I can personally attest to the fact that they don’t deal with the deeply-rooted issues that are considered by many to be “generational curses”. It’s like what I oftentimes say: We’re so busy trying to look right that we’re forgetting to actually get right.” (Tweet This) God is not impressed with appearances. He’s impressed with the heart. (John 7:24)

There’s absolutely no telling what Pamela’s life would have been like had she felt comfortable enough to “confess and yet healed” (James 5:16) before now. I applaud her courage to finally speak up, though. Personally, I hope it will remind us all to have some hard talks within our own families about some of the poor sexual choices, generationally so, that have resulted in some of the realities that we now live.

Ugly truths, when told, can alter futures.

Why? Because as the Word tells us, it’s the truth (THE TRUTH) that sets us free.

 

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