Faith Born of Seduction. Jennifer L Manlowe
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Faith Born of Seduction
FAITH BORN OF SEDUCTION
Sexual Trauma, Body Image, and Religion
Jennifer L. Manlowe
To protect the privacy of the participants, some of the details that could identify them have been separated from the actual interviews and listed in Appendix I. Their names have been changed for the same reason. I am aware that disembodying these voices for “anonymity’s sake” poses a danger in that it leaves issues of class, race, and sexual preference unexamined, which is not my intention. My concern has been to protect the participants as well as to make their stories as accessible to as many women as possible.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
© 1995 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Manlowe, Jennifer, 1963–
Faith born of seduction : sexual trauma, body image, and religion
/ Jennifer Manlowe.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8147-5517-8 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0-8147-5529-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Adult child sexual abuse victims—United States—Religious
life. 2. Incest—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Women—Mental
health—United States. 4. Eating disorders—United States—
Etiology. 5. Body image. 6. Sexism—Religious aspects—
Christianity. 7. Christianity—Controversial literature.
8. Twelve-step programs—Religious aspects—Controversial
literature. I. Title.
BV4596.A25M36 1995
261.8'32—dc20 95-16206
CIP
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
2. A Horror beyond Tears: Reflections on a History of Abuse
3. A Pyrrhic Victory: Contemplating the Physical Cost of Surviving
4. Disenchanting Faith and the Female Body: Deconstructing Misogynous Themes in Christian Discourse
6. Self-Help or Self-Harm? Analyzing the “Politics” of Twelve-Step Groups for Recovery
Acknowledgments
I am most grateful to the nine women who participated in this study. Without their courage, insight, and openness this book would not have been so full. I am indebted to psychoanalyst and historian Charles Strozier, who taught me how to work with Robert J. Lifton’s psychohistorical method. The people who gave me helpful feedback on my research were feminist scholar Flora Davis; author of Surviving the Wreck Susan Osborn; writer and poet Bonnie Kaplan; and psychologist and race activist Janet Davis. I am grateful to Carolyn Fox and Julie Marvin, two copyeditors who helped me make sense to my readers. My psychoanalytic religion and psychology colleagues and friends—Michael Perlman, Elisa Diller, and Pat Davis—helped me deepen my insights into the symptoms of eating disorders. Theologians Catherine Keller and Dorothy Austin helped me to broaden my vision in seeing the gendered and theological nuances regarding food refusal. Each advisor pushed me past my own “anxieties” that go with being seen on a written page.
I am grateful to my Ph.D. Foucauldian/writing colloquium and am especially appreciative of Darla Fjeld, Karen Heffernan, Sharon Betcher, Catherine Keller, and Nam Soon Park. For the rewriting of this work, I owe much thanks for their patience and theoretical toil to Jennifer Hammer, editorial assistant at NYU Press, and to The Works Group—Paula Bolduc, William James Hersh, Christian Couto, and Paula Zeuge. Finally, I thank Louise Pavelko at Princeton’s Theological Book Agency for her frequent references.
Introduction
Since 1983 I have been exploring the theologies of female survivors of sexual and domestic violence. At the same time I have wondered about the social contexts that sustain and encourage eating disorders in women. In what follows, I explore how three issues—sexual abuse in the family, food and weight preoccupations, and patriarchal religious discourse—interrelate. The relations among Christian religious discourse, incest, and eating disorders have not been traced either in the literature on incest or in the literature on eating disorders. Yet these connections reveal an important, and so far unexamined, psychosocial phenomenon.
Looking at how and where these issues intersect can illuminate some possible sources of female body, weight, and appetite preoccupations. My intention is to offer some social and psychological insights into the multilayered nature of painfully common forms of female suffering—incest and body hatred. I hope such information can awaken and empower helping professionals, advocates, friends of survivors,