Watching the Outrage Over <em>Cuties</em> as a Survivor of Pedophilia

In 1989, when I was 5, I spent several weeks in a children’s psychiatric ward. My father, who began abusing me sexually three years earlier, was outraged by the hospitalization because he feared I’d become perverted by listening to “all the sex talk” from the counselors. A social worker told him I’d been admitted because of some of my new behavior: acting out toward other kindergartners, making comments about my private parts and theirs, telling my mom I was going to kill myself, before laughing uncontrollably.

I have few memories of the treatment. I remember my roommate liked to pull the fire alarm and that, at some point, my mother came to visit. I remember wrapping my hands around the fence between us, crying for her not to go, until a nurse guided me back inside. I remember the feelings of helplessness and rage were more than I knew what to do with. Afterward, I did my best to wade through adolescence and young adulthood, working diligently to assure everyone that I was fine.

When I found out my father died in the spring of 2019, in casual conversation, as if to mark the source of my emotional breakdown. I’d always thought the word was so ugly. Suddenly, it was all I could think about. Which was why in mid-September, when I first heard about a new Netflix film accused of promoting pedophilia, I decided to watch it.