(The following is the 15th in a series of posts related to my re-reading of Miss America by Day: Lessons Learned from Ultimate Betrayal and Unconditional Love, by Marilyn Van Derbur.)

He was determined to bring my body to orgasm.

                                            Miss America by Day, Chapter 2

The idea expressed here by Ms. Van Derbur is consistent with comments regarding Chapter 2 in my previous post and can be thought of as the abuser’s “orgasm power trip”— that stimulating the abused child to feel sexual pleasure, including to the point of experiencing the ultimate pleasure of orgasm, is,  for the child sexual abuser, basically an egocentric power trip, and, based on my experience with my father, I would agree completely, for, when abusing me, my father seemed utterly uncaring of whether or not I wished to experience whatever pleasure—and agony—that he, by virtue of his abuse, was causing me feel.

Tied in with this is what could be thought of as the frenzy factor. Ms. Van Derbur’s description of the state her father would be in when abusing her—”His hands were hot and his fingers pulsated. He breathed quickly and heavily . . . “—reminded me of my own father’s similarly frenzied state when abusing me.

As for orgasm, one thing I would add is that for me reaching orgasm actually offered a blessing: it took me to a place where I was no longer aware of my father’s presence; where I could feel myself entirely free of his abuse. As I describe how the abused son experienced it in Preludes:

. . . the feeling of being carried away from his bed, his body further and further distant, free from his father and everything else until everything was forgotten and all he was . . . was the feeling of floating on and on through deepest space . . .

Orgasm, ironically, provide this blessing of respite.